GeForce FX 5700 LE is desirable with Retro Gamers

When the GeForce FX 5700 LE launched it was nothing special. It had a rather low clock speed and a narrow 64-Bit memory bus. To make matters worse, the GeForce FX series became famous for poor DirectX 9 performance, however it has many benefits that make it a desirable GPU for Retro PC Gaming!
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0:00 Introduction
0:18 GeForce FX issues
0:39 GeForce FX for Retro Gaming
1:02 Look at the card
2:26 Cleanup
3:01 Test system
5:35 Monitor tips
6:57 Benchmarks
9:49 Retro features of the FX
10:18 nGlide
12:11 Playing Expendable
16:02 Playing GLQuake
17:52 Summary and thoughts

[@vintagegamingrepublic5156]

I had several 5000 series cards. They were terrible. But actually pretty good on win98 machines. Greets from Portugal

[@SolSeal]

Also greetings from Portugal😊

[@BaguetesGarage]

Portugal 🇵🇹

[@JoaoSamouco]

Got one FX 5900 XT for 10 euros or 5 not sure XD.

[@mariobrito427]

Portugal 🇵🇹

[@BaguetesGarage]

​@@JoaoSamoucoI got an old PC with a S478 HT P4 3.0GHz, 2GB DDR 400, FX5900XT, SATA150 PCI card and the DVD/floppy drives for 20€, the good deals are out there, just need some searching and some luck 😁

[@3dfxvoodoocards6]

Nice video. What is interesting about the 5700LE is that is uses the same core as the 5700 but downclocked at (usually) 250 mhz instead of the 425 mhz of the 5700. That’s why the GPU of the 5700LE can be easily clocked at 400-470 mhz, increasing it’s performance significantly.

[@tidzej5400]

True, but you need 128 bits version ;)

[@3dfxvoodoocards6]

@@tidzej5400 yes, the 128-bit version is much faster than the 64-bit one.

[@tidzej5400]

@@3dfxvoodoocards6 nice channel you have, subscribed :D

[@3dfxvoodoocards6]

@@tidzej5400 thank you :)

[@18alex]

​@@3dfxvoodoocards6wow your channel is just what i was looking for, SUBSCRIBED

[@mealot7613]

Got a quadro fx 3000G that came in today for $50. Based on a fx 5900 ultra but with a load of extra connections. Its great you're giving old hardware more attention!

[@philscomputerlab]

Nice!

[@gbbarn]

LOL My first ever GPU was a gf fx5900, it was my 2007 xmas gift. Great card.

[@atheosmachina]

I had the FX 5900 ultra from 2003-2006 before I got an 8800 GTX ultra. Great memories from the FX, but it wasn't exactly a great card. The ATI 9800 annihilated it at the time. But the FX was fine for early World of Warcraft and Eve Online, which is what I mostly used it for. The 8800, on the other hand, lasted me 7 years of solid gaming, and I only upgraded because it finally died.

[@ffwast]

Where did you get one for $50?

[@mealot7613]

@@ffwast Local marketplace.

[@T3hBeowulf]

I have several FX 5200s that I've kept because they were low-profile PCI cards that supported dual monitor with a high density breakout cable. I've always run older 3D games (such as Unreal Tournament) and 2D stuff with them without too many limitations. To me, they never seemed to be obnoxiously slow until I started really discovering (and being able to afford) faster parts. It's refreshing to see that there is still a perfectly adequate use for these cards and that their undesirablities make them cheaper options for retro computers. Thank you Phil!

[@0525ohhwell]

The FX5200 and FX5500 have always been a great go-to for budget 98 era retro gaming.

[@lemagreengreen]

It's nice that the GeforceFX series finally found something it is good at :) "You can't be too picky" rings so true... the amount of high end 90s/early 00's gaming hardware I (and everyone else) threw away that people would actually want these days...

[@ruxandy]

Great video, Phil. Keep them coming! 😁 This is one of the 'bad' GeForce 5700LE cards. There are actually many that had the full 128 bit memory bus, and those are miles better (and they overclock like crazy, since the core is heavily 'factory underclocked').

[@philscomputerlab]

Really LE with 128 Bit bus? So just an under locked 5700? That would be awesome.

[@penguin5384]

@@philscomputerlab Yep I have one of these in a Shuttle WinXP build. 128 Bit 256MB , and yes they do o/c very well . Oh and it cost all of about £5 or £6 .

[@aspire1gig]

@@philscomputerlab Oh yeah! I have 5700LE 128 bits. The chip is overclocked to 450 MHz, but the memory is slow, 250 (500) MHz in total (

[@philscomputerlab]

@@aspire1gig Aha they installed slower RAM. I'll have to my eyes peeled for another 5700 LE.

[@ruxandy]

​@@philscomputerlab well, yeah, the RAM is slower compared to that on a GeForce FX 5700Ultra (or better), however it's still pretty fast. Keep an eye out for those with 4ns memory, which will work at 250 (500) MHz out of the box for a total of 8 GB/s of memory bandwidth, and can usually be overclocked up to at least 225 (550) MHz, resulting in 8.8 GB/s of memory bandwidth. These cards will actually be faster than a GeForce 4 Ti 4200/4400, and they sometimes can be found for pretty cheap (at least in my neck of the woods).

[@saxxonpike]

GeForce FX is my "one size fits all" retro GPU these days. My main build has a Quadro FX 1100, roughly equivalent to a GeForce FX 5700. Even these have almost disappeared from the affordable market (except the GeForce FX 5200, lol). But sometimes, a cheap non-5200 shows up on auction. The faster FX cards however run just about anything that you would need Windows 98 for, plus Glide wrapper support.

[@Tc4ify]

Yeah, just a couple years ago I got an FX 5500 basically for free, the 5900 series though...no such luck, even 5 years ago.

[@494ihi]

they need more watt than a no name 300 watt psu thats usually used in retro computers

[@lucasrem]

Saxxon, you need supported drivers, why you still use Quadra fx in 2023, maya, autodesk ? Old projects ? Cad ?

[@saxxonpike]

@@lucasrem I didn't mean to say it is in my everyday computer, ahaha. Simply, it was the least expensive option for an FX card for my primary older PC setup. Many Quadro cards show up from bulk packaging on auction. And Nvidia drivers for this era are the same for Quadro and non-Quadro, thankfully.

[@mysterion3912]

Greetings to Phil from germany. I've left this entire generation out, jumped from a Gainward 4200 Ti GS to a WinFast 6800 GT. Unfortunately the card broke after a few weeks and I took an ATI Radeon X800XT.

[@philscomputerlab]

You didn't miss much, many games ran fine with GeForce4 because games had DirectX 8 support.

[@2Mourty]

What is your favorite driver for win98 Phil? I have any old BFG 6800, but its seems a bit unstable win98. Usually end up going back to my quadro fx2000 because of that. The 6800 works fine in XP.

[@kunka592]

GeForce 6000 to 9000 series all have a serious design defect where the GPU core's internal solder will eventually crack, which kills the card and it cannot be fixed. My poor 8800 GTS 640MB also died after a short life :(

[@djdano2k]

​@@kunka592Do you have some more info / sources about this?

[@MadMac5]

56 FPS average being "not quite playable" in Quake? Back in MY day, we were lucky to see 30 FPS at 640x480!! 😆

[@philscomputerlab]

You are right 👍

[@mattpierce5009]

I like FX cards for Slot 1 builds - good feature set and the performance is more in line with the CPU's capabilities

[@pankoza2]

for Pentium II it's way overkill, but for Coppermine PIII on slot 1, it's ok

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

Some of the worst GPUs ever released are turning into retro gems!

[@MrModaman]

Only because the prize cards from back then are too expensive now.

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

@@MrModaman but still. If you need DX9. A GTX 460 can be had for peanuts in XP. You're not going to play this the same way as you would've in 2004

[@bitelaserkhalif]

​@@MarcoGPUtuberis using GT 710/750ti a good idea for win xp era gaming?

[@bitelaserkhalif]

I still have GeForce 6200 turbocache, dunno how good is that lol

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

@@bitelaserkhalif A 750 Ti is a great card IMO. But the most important thing is the price. A 710 if you can get it for free, sure, but if you have to pay, there are better cards.

[@mtunayucer]

6:23 this tip legit made my vga lcd monitor perfect. thanks so much

[@philscomputerlab]

Great to hear!

[@ca16de30]

I learned a lot from this video.I'm currently collecting parts to make a W98SE dedicated PC.The scene where you remove the heat sink push pin with the tip of a ballpoint pen was also a great experience for me.The information provided in the comments section was also helpful.

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

3:51 when you come back to Taipei, i'll get you the wraith prism for that board.

[@KaziQTR]

I have an Fx 5700 I bought couple years ago. Good thing about Fx 5700 is that it’s made on a newer node than the Fx 5800. Runs cooler and thus smaller cooler for good performance. I wish I could find more of it. I’d buy them instantly. I hope I am not hurting my chances by writing here 🤣🤦‍♂️

[@xBruceLee88x]

I remember back in the day we always kept a pci fx 5200 around as a spare. It was capable of playing painkiller and medal of honor airborne reasonably well with modest settings.

[@somehow_not_helpfulATcrap]

I had a FX 5800. It was not bad for what it was but man was it completely outclassed by the 6800 GT I replaced it with. I went though well over fifty (mostly AGP) fx 5200's because they were inexpensive drop in upgrades I could offer customers who wanted get into a bit of then modern gaming without buying a whole new PC.

[@supabass4003]

I would rather go outside than use a FX5200!

[@xBruceLee88x]

@@supabass4003 this was during the recession back in 2008. When your gpu died you used whatever you had. And technically we were outside... Living in an RV for a while

[@qbertguy]

Hey Phil I just wanted to say thanks for your website! It has been a huge help for my retro builds!

[@philscomputerlab]

Great to hear!

[@pacolima431]

As everyone mentions, the 5000 series sucked back in the day for their intended purpose. But they are definitely one of the best alternatives for high end Windows 98 gaming. Budget and performancewise if you are not looking for period correct stuff. I do actually prefer the 5200/5500 PCI versions that Phil used to recommend because they are really versatile and fit in many different projects (and they have a 128bit memory interface). What I do not understand is people saying that 6000 series are a better choice... they should try it with some more games. For very late Windows 98 games it might be fine but for older stuff the compatibility is way worse and they give a lot of trouble with drivers. I would rather save it for a dual boot 98/XP project instead

[@philscomputerlab]

6000 series is for sure NOT a better choice.

[@LegacyIvyTerascale]

10:56 that's the one i suggested you in your previous " VIA Chipset: Lessons were learned" video

[@KeyToTime]

Never used a Geforce FX before. My first Geforce card was a 6200 which replaced my broken Radeon 7500LE. That was a huge upgrade and the little 6200 lasted until about 2008 I think, when I replaced it with a second hand 7950gx2.

[@fartcruncher98]

I just bought this card! Was curious about the performance. Great video 😄

[@mesterak]

Happy Friday Phil! Thank you for sharing on the 5700 LE. Might be cool to see you look at the ATI side with the SE cards for comparison.

[@theuglycamel8122]

Great video as always! I really like the tips and tricks you sprinkled in. It's great how particular games become benchmark programs over time. I use Elvira and Dungeon Hack for Dos sound test, and Freespace 2 for win98 video testing. I had to pick up Screamer 4x4 last week as well!

[@philscomputerlab]

Thanks! Freespace and Freespace 2 are on my list to check out in the future :D Tachyon: The Fringe comes sooner though.

[@provugab]

Amazing memories! I still got that Sound Blaster and it still works.

[@mdrumt]

That was my first GPU! If only I knew what I was buying back in the day, oh well 😊

[@spladam3845]

I forgot about auto screen adjustment, thanks again Phil.

[@Erikcleric]

I saw Total Annihilation in the background there, paused. What a classic. Gonna replay that soon enough. 😊

[@michaelluong6484]

Always a good Friday when Phil uploads

[@erikmerchant567]

Multi-color Bic pen??? Been a long time since I've seen one of those. Retro pens... who knew? Terrific video sir!

[@philscomputerlab]

They sell them new here in Australia 😅

[@evergreengamer5767]

FX5200 was my first card and actually didnt know the FX was just bad at dx9 but explains why trying to play halo back then was serious struggle yet gta3 ran halfway decent.

[@auteurfiddler8706]

I used them and they seemed OK to me. But I didn't play Halo. I played GTA SA on Celeron 1200, and Pentium 4 machines.

[@GameplayandTalk]

It's great to see you talking about the games themselves a bit more! I really enjoy Expendable, but it really doesn't feel that great on PC because of the controls. It handles a lot better on the Dreamcast which is where I mostly played it and, like Incoming, it still looks pretty close to the PC version. I'll have to see if I have it on GOG and do the install/copy-folder method to my '98 box and see how it looks on the CRT monitor.

[@philscomputerlab]

Yes the controls and getting a bit stale after a while. But amazing graphics for the time and sound also well done

[@harleyn3089]

I was about to type this same comment, but searched and found yours. ;-) The Dreamcast version does have way better controls, and with modern emulation it can be upscaled to look good as well.

[@GL1zdA]

The problem with the 5700 is that for the demanding games you will have to play at low resolution and still have low FPS, and for the slightly older games you can go with a cheaper card. If you stick to DX7 games you don’t really need anything faster than a GeForce MX 460 worth around $10. And for DX8 the target was really 2000/XP, and in that case I can as well use a modern machine.

[@philscomputerlab]

I think if you can get a MX 460 for $10 then that's a total bargain!

[@edsiefker1301]

Holy crap, I was wondering why my 9x machines looked like static interference when shutting down. Signal looks so much crisper now! Auto-adjust is a great tip.

[@philscomputerlab]

Great to hear!

[@matcarfer]

I have a Leadtek Winfast Geforce FX 5600 Ultra 256MB VIVO (it captures video!), paired with Audigy 2 ZS and Nglid and an Athlon XP 2600+ with Nforce 2 Ultra, cant ask for more, its really great for 98SE. Good video

[@somehow_not_helpfulATcrap]

Hey your onboard audio is the last Nvidia sound chip.

[@MidnightGeek99]

Awesome! Also, you are to "blame" for my love of historical bad components that are very nice to use right now :)

[@philscomputerlab]

Indeed!

[@AladimBR]

I missed the “Can it run Crysis” question 😂. I have a Quadro FX1300 that is very close to the FX5700 you’re showcasing. The main difference it is a PCIe card. And liked the Expendable demonstration. Didn’t know thia tittle, will try it in the near future. Socket 754/939 with via chipset and ES1938 is the perfect DOS/Win98 Machine for me: perfect DOS sound support, and we can slow down the Athlon64 with CPUSPD. Have a nice weekend!

[@filipetmarcal]

I really love reviews

[@romevang]

I still have my DFI 5700LE. Making me want to dig it out and play some games.

[@IronArmPanda]

Wowza haven't seen Drakan in a long time, used to be one of my favorite games as a kid. Played it on my brothers PIII w/ MX440 Gateway along with Total Annihilation and a host of other games he had. That computer also emulated SNES, Genesis and GBA pretty well surprisingly 😁.

[@evilpablo84]

Thanks for another one Phil!

[@0525ohhwell]

Thanks for the game deeper dive. It's funny because every time I see you use Expendable I think to myself that I would really like that game but I forget to grab it. Now that you went in depth I popped on Steam and it is on sale for less than a dollar. Perfect!

[@philscomputerlab]

Thank you! I'm going to continue with this game format. The most recent video I produced (won't be out for weeks), I was actually looking forward to continuing with two games I started in another video. Finally, I'm actually playing games not just benchmarking the first scene 😂

[@dabombinablemi6188]

I was so lucky to get my 250Mhz core/128bit Aopen version when I did. Even with just over 5GB/sec memory bandwidth it is really good. The cooler is better on yours though...mine had an inadequate replacement which caused lockups, and when tested later on couldn't cool a GF4 MX 440-8x (and that card is as slow as the GF2 MX400). Edit: If you ever get the chance, compare the die of the FX 5700 to the LE - the package should be smaller and labelled as such.

[@jacobsgesin2012]

I had this exact same card back in the day.. Played, ut, ut 2004, medal of honor, nfs underground1, dota1 and warcraft3, doom3, quake 3 and 4 and fear alot on it. This fx5700 le 256mb gave me good 3 to 4 years of great gaming pleasure.. Before it died. Thankyou geforce 5700Le.. The Le is weaker then the normal 5700.. Despite i was able to play F.E.A.R on it at low settings at 800x600..

[@gamewizard1760]

It's probably going to be more sought after in PCI form, than AGP. The FX 5600 was the fastest card from the FX series that was sold as a PCI card, but those are incredibly hard to find. I only ever saw one for sale, in years of searching, and regret not grabbing it when I had the chance. The FX 5700 LE is probably the second fastest in PCI. I know it's faster than a 5500, which is really not much more than a 5200 with mild clock bumps. I'm fairly certain that it doesn't beat the 5600, though.

[@kunka592]

Just a general recommendation to people if they are using CRTs or playing old games that need a lower desktop color mode: use a utility called QRes to change the resolution/frequency/color bit-depth using the command line. You can add it to a .bat file and also have it change the settings back once you are finished with the game. Higher frequencies on CRTs might look blurrier which might be undesirable, so you can set it to some specific vertical Hz, and some games need 16-bit color or 256 colors, so this makes launching games more seamless. This utility seems to work well with my FX 5900 Ultra on Win98SE, but I had some issues using an ATI FireGL X3 (~X800) - it didn't want to change to 70Hz no matter what I did, but I think that's just a weird limitation of the card.

[@benjaminwirth5192]

I got one of that too in my stock. As i remember Gothic 1 still ran okay with it.

[@UpLateGeek]

I had a 5700 Ultra back in the day, which was really good performance. I remember I had that card when Half-Life 2 came out. It really blew me away in terms of how detailed the world was, and the 5700 Ultra handled it really well. I've still got my card, although I picked up an ATI 9700 Pro a couple of years ago when they could be found for a good price, so I usually go for that instead if I'm looking for an AGP card. Those MSATA SSDs are usually my go-to for retro computer storage, and I use those MSATA to IDE converter boards that have the 2.5" plastic cover. I even heat set some M3 nuts into the plastic enclosure so they mount nicely into a 3.5" adapter bracket. For the SSD itself, most of the cheap ones don't have any cache, so their performance is pretty terrible. You can get OK performance with the modules that use more than one NAND flash chip, but still not amazing. You can sometimes tell that the module has cache if there's two chips besides the NAND flash chips. One will be the controller and the other is the cache memory chip. Although it can be a bit difficult to tell if it's got a sticker over the chips.

[@lilkuz2005]

Hey @PhilsComputerLab, I did some testing with a Pentium 4 machine running on an intel 865 chipset motherboard, I ran some benchmarks with a single stick of pc3200 400mhz 256mb ddr memory and with 2 sticks with a total of 512mb and there was a performance difference when running in dual channel mode, I know not all amd motherboards supported dual channel memory, but intel pentium4 era boards do. I also want to mention that tools like Hwinfo and cpu-z running on windows 98se will report the memory being in single channel mode even if the bios reports it as dual channel. You will still see a performance boost with dual channel memory mode.

[@philscomputerlab]

You are right! Dual channel indeed gives you higher performance 👍

[@vladdx]

Played on this GPU at 1680x1050 in 2003, it was pretty big upgrade coming from a Riva TNT 2

[@XolaresTiberius]

I have one FX5900XT in my 98se dual p3 rig. Used driver 77 since I have never had an issue

[@ambigousBarrel]

I like cleaning old computer hardware I get before using them or putting them in storage. It strikes me as a good thing to do as dust can be so hazardous to your chest and can irritate your eyes too :) And I find it a great way to see how the hardware is health wise :) Who knows what's hiding under that dust? I'm yet to find a £50 yet but heres hoping lol :D

[@melvinmartinali]

I recently managed to get my hand on a fx5950 ultra and im realy suprised at what it can do. Had alemost no problems whit the card.

[@PhAyzoN]

I was on a quest for an FX5900 for a "high end" type retro build. All the standard or Ultras were ludicrously priced, but I snagged a 5900XT pretty cheap. A little bit less memory bandwidth and 10MHz less on the core for like a quarter of the price? Sold!

[@philscomputerlab]

Well done, great card!

[@kunka592]

If it makes you feel any better, an FX 5900 Ultra with an overpowered CPU like a Core2Duo still isn't fast enough for some late Win98 games (2000-2001) at high-ish resolutions. You need to either lose compatibility (like table fog) going with a Geforce 6000 series or use an ATI like an X800 which has its own problems in my experience with an ATI FireGL X3.

[@philscomputerlab]

@@kunka592 What sort of games do you refer to here?

[@PhAyzoN]

@@kunka592 At that point I just use a different computer

[@LegacyIvyTerascale]

7:40 i had tons of problems with my 1080p published gaming videos because of the bluriness of the distant stuff not that the av1 codec is innocent

[@peterilling1627]

Awesome Phil,I used 17 nvidia 5700 ultras in my İnternet Cafe in Ankara,in Turkey.Thursday nights was reserved for the Police Girls playing counter strike 1.3 Awesome times mate.Still have two of them left mate if your interested I can send you one down under mate. .

[@philscomputerlab]

Oh that is wonderful, thank you for sharing. Greetings to Turkey 🙂

[@ricardobarros1090]

One to me please

[@GGigabiteM]

16:10 - "Quake released in 1998" No. Quake released on July 22nd 1996. GLQuake was released 5 months later on January 22nd 1997.

[@gtocool99]

ALBATRON FX5700LEQ GeForce FX 5700LE 256MB 128-bit DDR AGP 4X/8X Video Card, I remember this card fondly, I bought it because it could overclock to the regular 5700 for alot cheaper, used it during Vanilla Wow, Half Life 2.

[@kyllasaakuvata]

i have 5700 ultra in 1 of my machines. paired with x2 6400+. win 8.1

[@0525ohhwell]

I actually just ordered one of these but with the 128 bit VRAM bus to play around with overclocking.

[@philscomputerlab]

Great find!

[@thepcenthusiastchannel2300]

I have a Chaintech GeForceFX 5700 Ultra 128MB and never thought of using it for DOS games. I recently just refurbished it so it looks brand new and has new Capacitors so it runs like new. I bought it retail from then and never used it. It sat in its box for decades. The Capacitors were probably still good but I didn't want to chance it. Louis Rossman's old videos were of great help in learning how to replace the capacitors. My go to GPUs for that era are definitely the Radeon 9000 series with the Omega Drivers. I have a preference for the Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB which I paired with a Pentium IV 3.2C Northwood CPU (i875 chipset.. never VIA lol) and a Quantum Obsidian X-24 24MB (Dual Voodoo2 on a card using FastVoodoo 4.0 drivers with fix). Windows XP is the OS used. I can play OpenGL on the Voodoo2 SLI as intended (like Half Life) and then switch to DX9 for HL2. 1999-2004 was my most cherished era of PC Hardware and Gaming (College years and LAN parties). The ATi + 3Dfx combo for this specific era grants you the widest game library possible. Awesome video as always.

[@TobyRieper48]

I used to have this, it was a great overclocker! OC'd it too much so fixed it via putting in the freezer. Mine was a BFG one..

[@fiction78]

Thank you very much for this good review. Thanks to you i'm having alot of fun with an fx 5700 for only 30 Euros. And i can say that it is alot better than the voodoo 3 3000. Beter screen quality and better performance in dos and windows 98. Before i had an fx 5200 but that's not comparable. In most of the games the fx 5700le performs smoother than the Radeon 9600 Pro because of the settings to finetune it. For example Gta3 runs smoother now.

[@philscomputerlab]

Have fun!

[@peterhenkel3020]

I have a FX 5700 VE. Very downclocked Version. But with PowerStrip it rund with 500/500 MHz. Huge and therefore quiet silly 256 MB VRAM. I put a cheap chinese Aftermarket cooler on it. Runs very silent. Back in the day these cards sucked. But now with a Tualatin it is a great pair. DX7 and 8 are perfect. I would say everything up to UT2004. Another plus: There is no extra molex Power connection required. For DX9 a 6600gt or 7600gs is my way to go with my Tualatins. Even Flatout 2 runs quiet good.

[@roocrew86]

Hi Phil I am enjoying your content thank you any chance you could do something on the fastest AGP card ever vs the same card in PCIE? I am not sure what that card would be but I think it would be a super interesting video

[@philscomputerlab]

The issue here is that you'll be changing other variables like chipset, RAM type also...

[@roocrew86]

@@philscomputerlab ah ok that makes sense

[@JohnSmith-iu8cj]

I watched a video that does that on an asrock Frankenstein board, the 7900gs had the same performance, very small difference.

[@Wormetti]

I had the Geforce FX 5600 XT AGP card. I don’t remember how it performed or what I replaced it with but I know I sold it on eBay Australia in 2021 for $20.

[@Trouba315]

NVidia's FX series were quite tragic cards but still I have special passion for them. Especialy for Ultra models. I had even FX 5900ultra from ASUS. Real Rolls-Royce among other manufacturers. I am so sad I sold it. I bought ASUS FX5900(non-ultra) few weeks ago. Unfortunately it has Arctic Freezer cooler which is really good but I want this old goodies in original shape. Huh, much better than nothing. FX cards are very very rare today speaking about top models. The same deals whit 6XXX series ultra models.

[@minutemanqvs]

I use this card since years, dirt cheap and perfectly good performance!

[@wolfgangkrebl3056]

Hello, really a great video. Thx. Also that you often review those underdog cards. One question: what would you invest for such a card. I found one for 25 euros at a local online reseller and would use it on a p2 450. Another question: what is the difference between the fx 5700 LE and the fx 5700 VE? Thx a lot Wolfgang

[@philscomputerlab]

You would need GPU-Z screenshots to compare these cards, it's impossible to know for sure. Every market is different and I'm not up to speed with current prices as I got most parts many many years ago when people gave them away, similar to Core 2 PCs now...

[@wolfgangkrebl3056]

@@philscomputerlab hello, thx for your fast reply. I will search for gpu-z screens,but till now i haven't found much info regarding those cards. Price: did not think about the price differences in different countries. 😱 When i compare the price with other agp cards from that time, the fx 5700 lies in the middle. I think i will buy the card because i have no fx card in my collection. And i think it will serve the pentium ii well.! Best wishes wolfgang

[@horsthorstmann2480]

I got a FX 5900 xt in my win98 system alongside with an athlon XP 2400+ for me, the FX series is the way to go for 98, cause back in the days, my last 98 card was an FX before I switched to windows XP and a 6600GT 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@harryshuman9637]

Hi Phil. Big fan of your work. During the plague when all these retro PC craze took off, I was experimenting with old hardware and stumbled upon old ATI All-In-Wonder cards from 2001 and 2005. The problem is I could really get the TV tuner to work with neither Windows 2000 or XP. I also had no luck getting supposedly compatible Linux versions to work with it, because over the time different required packages started to conflict with one another. Using old packages instead also didn't work because it was problematic finding Linux packages from early 2000s. Even if I did get the TV tuner to work, I'm not 100% sure on how one could utilize it in the modern day, especially since analog TV has been phased out where I live for the past 15 years. Can you please do a study on how one can get the All-In-Wonder cards to work and how they can be used with digital TV, or Twitch capture?

[@philscomputerlab]

Wow that's a good question, not sure I have equipment to test this. I think I've done 98 GPU reviews with composite input. Maybe a C64 or console with TV tuner could be used for testing?

[@hvskyline1368]

Also I heard from a friend these cards are severely underclocked meant to be more modest so you can do a small overclock and get tons more power

[@philscomputerlab]

You are right! I tend to not overclock these old cards, slow is good in most cases, but you are right, I have read that the OC close to 400 MHz if you're lucky.

[@hvskyline1368]

@@philscomputerlab yea I’m buying almost this exact system off of him so he was testing it for me making sure it all worked and I remember he did a very minor OC and it helped drastically in the 1600x1200 resolution and also helped it keep up with the 3400+ he said he only had one of those CPUs tho so he’s selling me a 3000+ and if I feel like I want a upgrade later I can swap it out

[@Zed.TheReaper.McCormick]

Ah, the irony of watching footage recorded from a 16:10 monitor on my 16:10 monitor with black bars at the top and bottom

[@dallesamllhals9161]

16:10 FTW! U2412M* here 🙂 *YUP! Not a FAST gamer anymore(19 inches - 20+kg CRT-days)

[@yukondave8389]

Do you prefer that soundcard over the Ali Express Audigy 2 (the one you had a video about some while a go)? I am looking to build my Pentium 4 system, and I would love to have EAX sound.

[@philscomputerlab]

The Live! is a great Windows 98 card, but the Audigy 2 ZS is even better. That card is really aimed for Windows XP but we are lucky that it also has support for 98. The Live! is easier to work with DOS and has a gameport, but for Windows gaming the Audigy 2 ZS is a step up.

[@RJARRRPCGP]

@@philscomputerlab I still play Gearbox Halo Custom Edition 1.0.10. (2014 patch, which was the last patch that Bungie did, IIRC) This is the Windows version of Halo 1, but there's support for total customization. Gearbox ported it to Windows, I heard, IIRC. It's DirectX9 -based and uses EAX.

[@JamesSmith-sw3nk]

Good video. Question: How are Nvidia 7000 series cards for Windows 98? I have a box full of various old 7900 series cards.

[@philscomputerlab]

I don't think they work, if at all! Maybe some hack, but nothing worth going for IMO.

[@KevinSills]

Running this video card under driver version 56.64, DirectX 9.0a, and nGlide version 1.05 you can play all of your Windows 98 games under DirectX, OpenGL, and Glide.

[@joaoc_PT]

Some time ago, i started the pcie collection, 3870s, 2 4870 X2 and single, 5850 (all to crossfire) and some nvidia ones. AGP are becoming rarer and pricy. I think i saw a GF 5xxx locally recently. Have you had luck using those adapters to connect a SATA dvdrom? Mine seem not to want to work with optical drive (my w2k machine)

[@philscomputerlab]

Yes they do work! However most SATA drives do not have analogue audio output, this is an issue for many 98 era games. But for installing OS and games (without CD audio tracks), the work great.

[@Breaky717]

Interesting all of the three Quake run similarly, and Quake 3 runs quite good despite the narrow ram bandwidth.

[@SeeJayPlayGames]

3:52 Wow, DDR-400 CL3! I'm old enough to remember that, and then some... I'm running a system with DDR3-1600 CL9 and the latest RAM I've recently heard about is DDR5-6400 CL32! Memory latency has NOT improved over the years, it seems it has pretty much stayed the same (10ns give or take).

[@clintthompson4100]

Funny I actually have one of those 5700 LE(256 Meg version) cards and pretty much the performance yeah it was not the greatest but for some weird reason I actually like the card. I always thought the LE meant light edition since it was not as powerful as the original 5700 but I like how you phrased it in the terms of limited edition not limited edition as the number they made but as in it's performance.

[@overclockwise323]

For modern LCD screens with only HDMI, a DVI to HDMI cable will work best. No need to mess with VGA and auto adjust. Any card with DVI will work because HDMI is an extension of the DVI standard.

[@philscomputerlab]

On this monitor 1600x1200 only shows up through VGA. There are also benefits with DOS, but I agree, if you can use digital, go for it 😁

[@GeomancerHT]

I had one of this but the 5500 version, the cooler motor is so bad that melted and the fan got stuck, with the luck of the card being so bad/unused that it didn't crash at all on 2d, and just adding a massive aluminium block/cooler fanless did the trick when gaming. Remember Silent Hill 2 and other shader games not working at all and using a program to overcome that, you only lost a couple of water or silly effects. Next card I got was an ATI 1950XT and kept on the red side of things forever just because that bad experience with the geforces.

[@MarinasDiam0nd]

The 64 bit LE and SE cards never seemed to justify the saving over regular editions (for gaming at least). I'm still haunted by the 9800se I owned which refused to flash into an 8 pipeline pro without artifacts all over the place. I do miss the free performance tweaks from that era like the pencil trick to unlock cpu multiplier. No fancy cooling setups necessary just a pencil and some flashing tools was all you needed. You could get a high end pc for mid range money if luck was on your side - by unlocking the athlon 2500xp into a 3200xp and by flashing a 9800se into a 9800pro.

[@tenminutetokyo2643]

Dood that is freaking awesome.

[@lilkuz2005]

I have a fx5700 VE, it has 128-bit memory interface, i think it was a bit of a sleeper card. not many people looked for it.

[@wertywerrtyson5529]

I’ve seen on tech powered up GPU database that there exists a PCIE version of the FX series called PCX but I’ve never seen one for sale ever at least not here in Sweden. It would be very interesting since the FX cards are the last to support many features but PCIe motherboards are easier to find than AGP. Do you know of any iGPUs that supports the older standards? It’s interesting to learn more about the iGPUs from the time when they were on the motherboard rather in the CPU.

[@mirific87]

the PCX cards were rather rare and performance wasn't good. Someone tested a Quadro version of these PCX cards, it's definitely not as compatible as the AGP variants, something to do with drivers though. Nforce motherboards had the best integrated graphics at the time but performance was way below a dedicated geforce 4mx for example.

[@foch3]

I think I have more FX cards than any other generation. FX 5700 Ultra, Quadro FX 3000, Quadro FX 1300 and a PCX 5750.

[@philscomputerlab]

Amazing collection!

[@JohnSmith-xq1pz]

What Team Green making a bad card that's impossible! 😉

[@philscomputerlab]

😅

[@sonyericssoner]

I would be mutch happyer to have this instead of MSI 420mx at that time. Payed 100€ without inflation for that cra..

[@elektronischermeister]

You need to be careful using a dry brush on dusty card: static discharge can damage the card. It is better to wash the card using isopropyl alcohol: spry and toothbrush. Better than new!

[@mrblonde609]

Wow. I always thought you were like 20 or 25 judging by your voice in the earlier videos. Your voice sounds pretty young. xD

[@philscomputerlab]

Young at heart :D

[@railsrust]

And that's why I'll never get rid of my FX 5600 Ultra. Great compatibility and performance, albeit not in the era that Nvidia intended. Not being able to use older drivers kinda stinks, but it still seems to run just fine, so who cares? If this is the difference between somebody being able to run these games or paying a ridiculous amount of money for a better card, I say just go for it! I use my FX card in a Slot 1 build with an 866Mhz PIII. It just happened to have the exact multiplier my board tops out at without getting an expensive Slocket. I could go with a faster setup, but I got the board for free and it runs great.

[@Alex-df4lt]

Max supported multiplier is irrelevant. You could put in 1Ghz 133fsb PIII without any issues. Slotkets can be expensive but who cares if you're buying one that is tested and known to be working.

[@ssm840]

what kind of solvent and cleaning cloth did you use to wipe down your monitor?Did it leave any scratches/smudges on the screen behind after it was done?

[@philscomputerlab]

LCD cleaning solution, no issues, been using it for ages.

[@candle86]

I bought an FX5600XT 128bit card, quite like it, yea its ram is only 400mhz, but its 128bit and unlike the FX5200 it does support Z color compression so its memory goes further, also the FX 5600XT cards tend to be cheap right now and use the early drivers just fine.

[@NightSprinter]

Oh! One detail you forgot with GLQuake, is to rename or delete the GL patch's "opengl32.dll" file. Otherwise the game complains about not finding a 3Dfx card.

[@bryndaldwyre3099]

I had the FX5700 and it was quite the upgrade from the MX440 I had before it. I actually bought it so I could play Far Cry.

[@Trancelistic]

I remember having this card in my pentium 4 HT (from a fx5200) I had no performance gain at all. Gladly I didn't bough the FX5700LE but I found it in a case that was on the street. I always called LE cards: "Low edition, haha"

[@mrgtmodernretrogamingtech6891]

Man... You do really love FX Series right? Do you have 5200 to 5800 Ultra Performance Comparison Video using XP? Just curious Phil! Have a great day!

[@philscomputerlab]

I wouldn't use them for XP. Look for XP you can use so much faster cards, up to GTX 960 even!

[@Adam-rt7lp]

Hey Phil - I thought Incoming and Expandable didn't work on cards newer on TNT cards? I never was able to get those two games running on my FX cards

[@philscomputerlab]

Expendable works 100% but Incoming has render errors on anything newer than TNT2.

[@Adam-rt7lp]

Thanks for the reply, I will give it another try

[@sacriptex5870]

back in 2004 i traded my beloved geforce mx 440 64mb, to a fx 5200 plus money!! i regret till today!! hahaha

[@captainwasel8377]

Watching as I'm cleaning an ATI 128 pro card I got from a flea market for less than $2 :P hopefully it works.