Do Not Buy a GeForce 6200 for Windows 98

GeForce, Posts

nvidia GeForce 6200 PCI

I recently bought this GeForce 6200 PCI as a passively cooled GPU for Windows 98.

It was a bad idea!

In Windows 98, all games exhibit constant stuttering.

Direct3D performance is also much lower than expected - barely better than a (much older) Voodoo 3 2000.

For comparison:

  • The Voodoo 3 is a 16MB, 143MHz GPU from 1999.
  • The GeForce 6200 is a 256MB, 300MHz GPU from 2004.

The performance should be way better.

Initially I suspected a PCI bottleneck. The 6200 is normally an AGP card and may be held back by the (comparatively slow) PCI bus.

However!

When I try the same card in Windows XP, the performance is way better - almost double in some scenarios.

Conclusion

The Windows 98 drivers are not good for this card.

Don’t buy the GeForce 6200 (or probably any GeForce 6 series card) for Windows 98 gaming!

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