hello all,

could anyone tell me where i can get any of these online

1.Voodoo3 2000 cards
2. Nvidia TNT2 M64 PRO based VAGP card
3. Nvidia TNT2 PRO based VAG-P card


Yes they are all those old outdated PCI graphics cards but i just need one of those.So cld nyone tell me wer to look.I cldnt find any on e-bay.How much shld one cost approx. ???And any better options.(no AGP only PCI old system)

You can still buy new pci cards. I recently bought a Radeon 9250 pci 256 mb card for mine. I was in the same boat with no AGP available. I bought mine at newegg.com for $65 usd with a $20 mail-in rebate. So cost me $45. I'd think buying a really old card like you have listed would net you absolutely nothing. FWIW, I have a 6 year old Celeron 667 computer I use to run LFS S1 on. I had an ATI Rage 128 16 mb card installed figuring it was better than using the onboard video. I was wrong. I pulled it when I got my next computer, then later hooked up my old wheel to the old PC for the 5 yr old to beat on in S1 and with only 11 mb shared onboard video, it ran much better than it did when I had the 16 mb card. Reason was the SDRam on the motherboard was much faster than the EDO (guessing) ram of the separate video card. What's the system specs of the computer you are trying to find the card for? If you have something similar to my old machine, I can tell you even a new 256 mb pci card doesn't help you at all. Perhaps if you are up above 1 GHz processor, my current card (the 256 mb Radeon) might help, but I doubt it. All it did even with my P4 2.5 GHz was allow me to make it look better with AA/AF and higher graphics options. I didn't even get a performance increase in that I am running the same FPS as I was before, just that I can run higher graphics.

hmmmm......sounds to me like u r just the person i need "mrodgers".Well i was jus seeing u'r old thread.ok so this is how it is.I have a really old system.

its a pIII 600 mhz , with about 196 MB of ram , and onboard graphics and to be frank, i don't have any problem with the 20 or so fps i get in hotlapping.....the problem is though on multiplayer i get around 10fps....which at times drops down to 8,6,4 fps.....so was jus looking for a temp. solution to my problem.Getting a brand new system is not my priority now,so i thought i'll upgrade my ram to 512 and get a PCI card.

thats the case.so what do you suggest ?

If i am not mistaken, you want a card that specifically had HVS-Hardware Vertex Shading. The helps performance in LFS alot.

Now, im not sure about the other cards you mentioned, but I think the Voodoo3 is generally one of the first cards to feature HVS, so should be a good card for your system. You might want to check its specification if you can find it.

However, you should be aware that the biggest limiting factor in LFS is the CPU. So you may be bottle-necking already, in other words you might not see that big a difference. Having said that, you have on-board GFX! So you should get a reasonable increase in FPS

That old of a machine, I think you have no hope in increasing performance to race online in all honesty. Like I said, my PC that is broken at the moment was a P4 2.5 with only 8 mb shared onboard graphics. I ran it with the bare minimum graphics options ingame and was able to get around 35-45 FPS. I upgraded from the 8 mb onboard to a pci 256 mb card (quite a difference) and gained absolutely NO frame rate increase. The only thing it allowed me to do was "pretty" it up, ie, switched from 16 bit to 32 bit, maximize ingame settings, and run AA/AF on the card. I still get the same frame rate at 35-45 FPS fluctuation. If I turn all the settings down, I still get the same frame rate. The card helped me in looks, but not in performance. In my system, I am now bottlenecked with the P4 2.5 (which runs at 533 MHz bus). With a separate graphics card in your machine, you may be able to run at a higher resolution or with some graphics settings turned up higher, but I'd say you will be probably getting the same frame rate as you are now.

20 FPS offline on a P3 600, I'm stuck now with the old Celeron 667 with 512 MB ram and I installed the 9250 card in it to see. I'm getting a lovely rock solid slide show of 5 frames per second. Though it looks to me more like 5 frames every now and then, rather than per second, LOL. Can't wait for the tax return check when I can pick up my Athalon 64 3500 with a gig of memory that I'm looking at. I've never had an up-to-date computer. The last computer (and first ever) I bought was an original Pentium 75 with a whopping 8 MB of EDO ram back in 1995. Big oversized 2.1 Gb harddrive. All other's have been hand-me-downs. I've had 8 computers in the last 10 years between my purchased PC, 5 scrap PC's from work (to scavenge ram, drives, network cards, vid cards) and 2 hand-me-downs. I just threw away 6 PC's about 6 months ago. I gutted them, so I have a TNT 4mb, S3 4 mb, nVidia 2D, and an ATI RAGE 128 16 mb cards laying around, but believe me, they won't do you any good (I tried). Got a drawer full of processors as well, P75, K2 266, K2 233, couple of Pentium Overdrive 125's, and now a P4 2.5 that may be junk (not sure if it's the board or the processor). I don't know why I kept them all, since they're all old junk nowadays. I tend to keep all my junk for some reason.

Quote from mrodgers :

With a separate graphics card in your machine, you may be able to run at a higher resolution or with some graphics settings turned up higher, but I'd say you will be probably getting the same frame rate as you are now.

I agree and this will be especially true for online play best thing you could do is increase your processing power... i.e. look into what options you have for upgrading memory to higher speed and the processor to a higher performing one (find out the max your motherboard can support then try find it) doing this want lift your max fps much but will likely improve your minimum fps when online. Also in your case if the motherbaord will allow it you might want to learn abit about overclocking and give it ago normally I wouldn't suggest it but in your case it might be the only way to imrpove your lot without a major upgrade but I wouldn't expect too much (15-25% for max fps and maybe 25-35% for minimum fps, depending on how much its possible to OV) Just be very conscious of extra heat generated and the fact that it can shorten the life of your PC.

Really I think your best option, if you don't want to buy a new PC, is look for a second hand system/box, try your local auction houses if you live in a city, they often will be selling off reasonable systems for bugger all.

Here's a recent thread about cpu vs graphic card performance, it's talking about newer PCs than your's but the general principle is the same...

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=4604