Add graphics card or not?

I'm thinking of adding a graphics card to an old Windows 98SE machine that currently has an 8MB ATI 2x AGP Graphics Chip. The motherboard has 1AGP 3.3V slot and 4 PCI slots and an ISA slot and allows for 1x and 2x AGP. The power supply is 110W. Machine is a Celeron 400Mhz with 256MB of SDRAM memory. I can disable the onboard graphics by changing a jumper. The BIOS allows for graphics either via AGP or PCI. Disk space is 60GB.

I'm considering a 300W power supply and either one of: http://www.3dfuzion.com/cards_5500_agp_256.asp or http://www.3dfuzion.com/cards_4000_agp_128.asp

The questions are:

a) Will this set up work?
b) Is it worth updating the graphics? i.e., will there be an improvement in the graphics processing?

 

Well when i upgrading my machine:
Windows 98SE
Celeron @565 mhtz
512mb ram

from the onboard gfx to a radeon 9250, the only improvement i really saw was smoother graphics during gameplay. But all depends on what u will be using it for or not, if ur going to playing games, id say its not really worth it because of the bottleneck that ur processor (and mine) will cause.

my 2 bucks worth

 

Well, yes the aim is to obtain smoother graphics during gameplay for a few on-line games. I certainly understand that some of the processing has to taken up by the CPU and that communication speed between any AGP card and the rest of the computer hardware will limit this.

How much of an improvement did you observe?

 

well i didnt see any dramatic change with fps or anything.. but you know its the few that count.. id say i gained around 10-15 fps in some things, but with the direct 3d test (under display in dxdiag) went from barely renderable like you would see one bit then it would lag and show another bit, to completely smooth operation.

 

Here's a good deal: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1071556&Tab=2&NoMapp=0. Call TigerDirect if you want to verify that this card will work in your computer.

 

Upgrading your video card would make little difference it would be a wast of money as your system wouldnt be able to take adavantage of it,thats if an agp 4 card worked in your board you never know until you try

I'd let the computer die a death,its past it,way past it,for the price of an upgrade you could buy a second hand computer,I have a 966mhz p3 system,with a voodoo 3 card next to me you could have for £70,if I were to sell it

Check your local LOOT you could have a new system for around £100 and sell your current for £50

http://www.loot.com/advert/pentium-4-computer/14303901

 

My research suggests that the cards that I looked at will be backward compatible: http://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/agpcompatibility.html

I think it would be close as to whether a graphics card would improve the performance of the graphics. It is that the on-line game is a little jumpy on that computer and was considering this as an option to improve it.

My other Win XP computer doesn't have that problem and can play Oblivion, it is just that I don't get to use it that often due to kids hogging it.

 

Hey how about trading the kids and the "Old PC" for a new top of the line PC Maxwell, then you can be in Computer Nirvana for an hour or so till the "Other Half" finds out

 

yeah but I think someone will notice

 

The graphic cards you listed should work, but obviously with an old system there is no guarantee.

Some motherboards can fry a video card if they are designed for a different voltage.

The cards listed require a motherboard with an AGP 2.0 slot.



Personally, I don't think it's worth the bother, and the system is too under-powered to take advantage of a newer video card.

I'd either save for a new system, or buy a second-hand, slightly newer and more powerful PC.

Or see if you can find a TNT or GeForce 2 for sale that might be better suited.

 

At the moment my feelings are more "don't do anything as there won't necessarily be any observable change in the graphics that will be displayed". I'm more inclined to invest the money in a more uptodate machine (maybe second hand) that has better graphics performance than the old Win 98 SE machine upgrade. Note I would have to purchase a power supply as well as the card. Maybe a cheaper secondhand graphics card is a possibility...

Even though the box states AGP2.0 slot it seems that it is in fact backward compatible with AGP1.0 due to a) the nature of the AGP 2.0 standard and b) the physical nature of the slots on the cards. See http://www.totalsem.com/techforum/techfiles/index.php?book=031029agp
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerated_Graphics_Port#Compatibility

What I expect would happen if an updated card was used that the performance will be no better than AGP 2x that the current graphics chip produces anyway despite the additional memory on the card and improved processing on the card.

I'm pretty sure the set-up I've outlined would work. However, I just don't know for certain without trying it out and hoping that there are some anecdotal evidence to help me what would the expected performance improvement is likely to be.