It should be noted that the 9200 is a DirectX 8.1 card, and the GeForce 3 is only 8.0. It is a significant feature-level difference, and noticeable in some games. It also means it'll usually have some extra stuff to do that the other card doesn't so things might not always be apples-to-apples in that sense. (EDIT: You did mention this during Half-Life 2 gameplay)

Interesting matchup!

@SPNG

6 ай бұрын

It's definitely a bit unconventional but I thought the results were pretty interesting! Reminiscent of the Radeon 8500 and GF3 Ti500 in my opinion.

One of my favorite periods in computer hardware - when I still knew what most products offered! Thanks for the trip down vram lane

@Shmbler

6 ай бұрын

That time when I "upgraded" to a GF4 MX and actually got a GF2 ;-)

@SPNG

6 ай бұрын

Glad you enjoyed the video, I'm liking this era of hardware a lot so far! And I see what you did there 😆

@SPNG

6 ай бұрын

@@Shmbler To be fair, GF4 MX did come with some much needed enhancements (like LMA 2) that made it better than GF2 even though it's less powerful on paper! A good example of that is how a (128-bit) MX 440 can rival a GeForce2 Ultra. What were you upgrading from?

@Shmbler

6 ай бұрын

@@SPNG A GF256DDR. But I specifically wanted the DX8 pixel shaders for Morrowind that the GF3 already had. Didn't quite work out for me ;-)

The only budget cards I ever remember getting positive reception were the 6200 agp which could be unlocked to a 6600 (not not the non moddable one) and the 7300GT GDDR3 version. I’d love to see those cards tested more

Yup..that Doom 3 performance is exactly how i remember, as soon as i got into battles on my FX5200, it just said nope! As a note it does get significantly worse once you progress past the main decision arc to send the distress signal or not, that area with lots of open windows etc and multiple enemies...we won't talk about the weird spider lady :p i was never able to complete doom3 past that point until just 15 years later..just a small gap :')

Great comparison! But often the Radeon 9200 had the 64bit bus width, like the GeForce 5200, while the GeForce 3 Ti200 was only a regular GF3 downclocked ( you can oc'ed it to the level of the Ti500) and always had 128bit bus widht. From 64 to 128 bit bus was a huge difference for entry level vga like the Radeon 9200, but most of the time people had the "SE" version with 64 bit memory. A GeForce 4 Ti 4200 was way more faster than this two vga back in 2002.

@SPNG

4 ай бұрын

True, but I'd say they weren't hard to find in 128-bit versions. And ATI did a much better job at distinguishing the variants than NVIDIA did as well, at least the "SE" nomenclature let you know you were getting a 64-bit card!

I remember walking into Best Buy years ago seeing these in the Next Generation after. They actually had them playing on computers to try to make you buy computers. They had Nvidia demos running and shit is what I am saying. It was a fun time. Of course I also remember the Tandy 1,000. I'm just old

Had neather, interesting comparison.

@SPNG

6 ай бұрын

Its not the most historically accurate comparison but I found the results to be pretty intriguing!

My very first computer I built myself had a Radeon 9600Pro. Although despite the same 9000 series name it was a DirectX 9 GPU and should be much faster than either of these. I have a GeForce 3 (non TI) I use for retro gaming. I never had it back then but it’s nice to have now. Especially since the GF3 lineup is kind of unique in how small it is. Just 3 cards and they are all based on the same die just differently clocked.

@SPNG

6 ай бұрын

Funny enough the starting number of ATI's GPU lineup was SUPPOSED to represent the DirectX support level, for example the 7500 is a DX7 card, 8500 their DX8 flagship, and the 9700 being the DX9 high end... but for some reason they decided to give this Radeon 8500 in cheap clothes a 9000 name. They really should have called it the 8200 or something. Nice that you have a vanilla GF3, wonder if it'll overclock into a Ti 500 🤔And yeah, its a very small series for sure!

Seems like my old FX5200 is worse every time I search for info or someone talks about it, and I have awful memories about it, and with my Celeron D was even worse. I remember everything ran like a power point presentation

@SPNG

4 ай бұрын

Wow, FX 5200 and Celeron D is a combo for the ages! 🤣 It's like the perfect early 2000s nightmare build!

If I sent it , would you be interested in reviewing an early Radeon 6790 ?

IMO todays manifold driver options and latest game patches don't accurately reflect the experience we actually made back in the day when these cards and games were new. For example I see compatibility with games that I know didn't run when I had the card and the game (Unreal and the 4MB Riva128 is a good example).

@SPNG

6 ай бұрын

While it may not reflect exactly what it was like back then, I find that using new games and mature drivers can often tell you a lot more about how good a card was. For example, the GeForce3 Ti500 vs Radeon 8500 battle I mentioned in the video, and my favorite is the battle between the GeForce 7900 GTX and Radeon X1900 XTX. Back in 2006 the two were very close to each other in performance, but as game demands changed and they started using newer and more complex shader code, the 7900 GTX started falling way behind because it lacked the pixel shading power and dedicated scheduling hardware of the X1900. Really shows that while X1900 wasn't groundbreaking at launch, it ended up being ready for future demands while the 7900 GTX would run out of steam pretty early on.