Best ATI graphics card for old CPU and modern video streams

[jeffshead]

I built a MAME arcade machine back in 2003. Geez I'm getting old .

What is the best all-around ATI AGP graphics card for MAME that can also play modern YouTube videos?

I'm looking for something in the sub $50 range that does not run too hot and can run on a low wattage power supply.

My specs:
MB: Asus P4S800
CPU: Intel P4 3.2 Northwood
RAM: PC3200 1.5 GB DDR
OS: Windows XP 32-bit
Original graphics card: ATI 8500 128MB AGP
Power supply: No specs on label. Probably sub 350 watts
Monitor: 21" CRT monitor (VGA) made for PC's

I know my box is severely outdated. I'm just looking for a quick fix for now. The ATI 8500 (presuming it's the culprit) chocks on all YouTube videos; even 240p. It used to play videos just fine but it's probably been 2-4 years since I've tried to stream video on it. Has streaming changed over the years so the problem could be that my old P4 CPU isn't able to handle the new technology?

I've I came across the following models while Googling but I wasn't able to ascertain which is best for my setup and if they can play modern YouTube videos or if they will even work with my limited resources:

HD3850
HD4670
HD4650
HD3450
HD4350
HD2600
X800
X850
X1950
X1900

I may take the leap and replace the PC and redo everything at a later date but for now, I just want to throw a graphics card at it because it is so much work and I would also have to replace the PS/2 I-PAC with the newer USB I-PAC.

UPDATE:
Yesterday, I bought an old HIS ATI HD3850 AGP graphics card at a local PC shop but I get one long and three short beeps immediately at power on. That indicates no VGA detected. I installed a secondary ATI PCI card (so I could boot) and created a MSDOS boot disc with ATIFlash 4.17 and ran the ATIFlash.exe -i command but it does not see the card. Actually, ATIFlash doesn't see any card even when I swap in a working ATI 8500. The HD3850 is in excellent cosmetic condition and the cooling fan runs. I don't know if the card is truly bad or if it can be "unbricked" if a previous owner screwed it up while attempting a ROM flash on the card.

I don't have another PC with an AGP slot to test the card. Does anyone know if the HD3850 should work on the Asus P4S800? If so, is there any way to tell, for sure, if the card is actually bad or if it can be unbricked? I don't know what else to try since ATIFlash does not see any card. I also tried GPU-Z and ATIWinFlash while Windows was booted but neither recognize the card. I do know that the motherboard BIOS does recognize the card because the AGP setting defaults to 8x when the HD3850 and the secondary PCI cards are installed. That 8x setting is not available when I have the ATI 8500 card installed; the max is 4x AGP.

 

[eidairaman1]

HD3850 or HD4670, if you can find a HD3870 agp that would be sweet too

Just bear in mind i had a P4S8X which had the sis648 chipset. That board with a Radeon 9700 Pro I had to run a beta bios, set the agp cache to UC, run cat 2.4s and disable vpu recovery. When I swapped to a NF2 motherboard i had to do none of that for stability.

So if anything id run an i845 or i865 motherboard.

 

[Deleted member 163934]

With the P4 you gonna need h264ify extesion.
even the hd 6xxx series can't hardware decode 1080p60fps. you gonna have to set h264ify to not allow 60fps.

 

[xkm1948]

X1950XTX

 

[dorsetknob]

> Ati 3000 series min 512mb ram or higher (Ideal card would be HD4650/70 and 1 gig mem

 

[jeffshead]

The PC shop let me exchange that dead HD3850 for a VisionTek HD3650 1GB AGP.

Can someone tell me which driver I should use for the HD3650 and where to get it? The only thing I could find on the VisionTek site is a link to the AMD site for drivers. I tried the recommended driver (AMD_Catalyst_13.4_Legacy_Beta_WinXP) but it is not compatible with that card. I'm still googling but haven't had any luck yet.

 

[Deleted member 185158]

Here's Omega Driver with AGP support.

Radeon Omega Drivers 4.8.442

Omegadrive has released a new version of his popular modified driver. These drivers are based on ATI's latest catalyst drivers and they include a customized version of ATI Tray Tools. These drivers of...

www.guru3d.com

 

[jeffshead]

Here's Omega Driver with AGP support.

Radeon Omega Drivers 4.8.442

Omegadrive has released a new version of his popular modified driver. These drivers are based on ATI's latest catalyst drivers and they include a customized version of ATI Tray Tools. These drivers of...

www.guru3d.com

I installed it, I did not get any errors but I still have a yellow triangle in the device manager:

Here are the Hardware ID's of the unknown VGA device:

PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9596&SUBSYS_00281545&REV_00
PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9596&SUBSYS_00281545
PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9596&CC_030000
PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9596&CC_0300

 

[mbeeston]

try these https://www.hwdrivers.com/drivers/vcard/powercolor/ati radeon hd 3650 agp

 

[chaosmassive]

I'll be blunt here
it is much better to toss that old box, buy 2nd hand of c2d/c2q complete system (MB+RAM+PSU), save you alot of hassle
and it will run youtube with better integrated graphics
and you can plug in pretty much any PCI-E based graphic cards.

 

[jeffshead]

I'll be blunt here
it is much better to toss that old box, buy 2nd hand of c2d/c2q complete system (MB+RAM+PSU), save you alot of hassle
and it will run youtube with better integrated graphics
and you can plug in pretty much any PCI-E based graphic cards.

Thanks for the advice but maybe you missed this:

I may take the leap and replace the PC and redo everything at a later date but for now, I just want to throw a graphics card at it because it is so much work and I would also have to replace the PS/2 I-PAC with the newer USB I-PAC.

 

[TheMadDutchDude]

You won’t be able to stream anything with a single core Pentium 4. You’re asking too much...

 

[jeffshead]

try these https://www.hwdrivers.com/drivers/vcard/powercolor/ati radeon hd 3650 agp

I've always stayed away from and have never used a third-party driver site like that one but I went ahead and tried one of the drivers that has AGP in it's name and it worked but... I don't see any difference whatsoever in performance when compared to my old ATI 8500 :-(

I guess the CPU is maxed and no way around that fact. It was worth a shot. Thanks!

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Look at this link, especially the GPU part. It tells you the video decoding capabilities in each generation of ATI/AMD GPUs:

Unified Video Decoder - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

HD 2000 = MPEG2 decoding
HD 4000 = MPEG4 + VC-1 decoding
HD 6000 = MPEG2 entropy + DivX + Xvid + BluRay 3D
R# 300 = MPEG4 4Kp60 decoding
RX 500 = HEVC

YouTube...requires MPEG4 support so HD 4000 is the absolute minimum to take the load of the CPU. Pretty sure HD 4000 was the last generation to get AGP cards too but...good luck finding one.

 

[jeffshead]

You won’t be able to stream anything with a single core Pentium 4. You’re asking too much...

That's why I posted here. I didn't know. I was hoping to get this type of answer before I went to the trouble and expense of replacing the GPU with another out-dated (and over-priced) AGP card. So where were you when I needed you? Just kidding. I got impatient.

It used to stream just fine a couple of years ago. That's why I thought there was a good chance that a beefier card and setting YouTube to 480p would compensate for the newer tech but it does not.

Thanks to everyone for responding! Much appreciated.

Look at this link, especially the GPU part. It tells you the video decoding capabilities in each generation of ATI/AMD GPUs:

Unified Video Decoder - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

HD 2000 = MPEG2 decoding
HD 4000 = MPEG4 + VC-1 decoding
HD 6000 = MPEG2 entropy + DivX + Xvid + BluRay 3D
R# 300 = MPEG4 4Kp60 decoding
RX 500 = HEVC

So which category does YouTube video fall into?

 

[FordGT90Concept]

MPEG4 h.264

Supported YouTube file formats - YouTube Help

YouTube recommended upload encoding settings - YouTube Help

These features are only available to partners who use YouTube Studio Content Manager. Below are recommended upload encoding settings for your videos on YouTube. Container: MP4

support.google.com

In other words, the HD 3650 won't ever be able to play YouTube videos without the CPU decoding it.

 

[juiseman]

Man, I think you should put that money into a new build. Some stuff is just simply too old to interact with anything internet related.
Now, the flipside is if you leave everything as is just to run programs that were made in that era of computing. Run it forever till it dies...
My computer for test equipment at work is a P4 with windows XP; but its off the network and uses software that only requires P4 speed and 1GB of RAM.

I think you should look at Ebay, I bought a Z400 (V2 boot block) for $63 put a $26 6 core CPU in and a $25 SSD with a $3 Windows 10 Key,
It runs great, if your looking for cheap, that is the way to go. a Complete Rig with 6GB of RAM 1GB Quadro and 250GB HD were included. And, if you want to still run
XP HP Z400's still have drivers for these (I think).... I just popped in a 4gb RX 560 last week my bro game me; you can find them used or new around $70-$90
That will be light years faster than what you have. And, you don't have to build most of the rig, most of them are already complete, just need a updated components.

I made a thread for HP workstations here:

HP Workstations Owners Club

https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Z420-Workstation-XEON-E5-1607-V2-3-0GHz-8GB-1TB-HDD-DVDRW-NVS-310-NO-OS/163619271257?hash=item261877f259%3Ag%3AE5QAAOSwGLZciWuF&LH_BIN=1 HP Z420 Workstation XEON E5-1607 V2 3.0GHz 8GB 1TB HDD DVDRW NVS 310 NO OS Free Shipping $162.00 + "accepts offers"...

www.techpowerup.com

Once in ahile I'll post links for stuff on ebay & some guys post example builds also...

There is Dell Workstations owners thread also:

Dell Workstation Owners Club

There have been a ton of posts lately about Dell workstation PC's in other threads that have begun to derail things a bit. Thought it might be a good idea to create this thread for people to share/post info/pics and ask questions.

www.techpowerup.com

If you need cheap complete rig; these older workstations still have good value.

 

[Fouquin]

MPEG4 h.264

Supported YouTube file formats - YouTube Help

YouTube recommended upload encoding settings - YouTube Help

These features are only available to partners who use YouTube Studio Content Manager. Below are recommended upload encoding settings for your videos on YouTube. Container: MP4

support.google.com

In other words, the HD 3650 won't ever be able to play YouTube videos without the CPU decoding it.

UVD inherently supports both VC-1 and h.264. RV635 has UVD+ which does support MPEG4 H.264 stream decode/encode up to 40MBit/s (Level 3.2/4 - 720p60 or 1080p30)

 

[mbeeston]

well if you need a cheap 4000 series for mpeg4, could try this....

HIS Radeon HD 4350 HDMI 512MB (64 bit) DDR3 AGP 8x Video Graphics Card | eBay

HDMI AGP Cards are getting to be very rare, we have several so the pricing is reflective of how many units we have available. This is a Direct X 10.1 Card, it has native HDMI and Dobly 7.1 support.

www.ebay.com

 

[dont whant to set it"']

> Ati 3000 series min 512mb ram or higher (Ideal card would be HD4650/70 and 1 gig mem

I'd stay away from Hd38xx series to be powered by an old unknown psu.
A hd4670 doesn't require additional power, it's slot powered exclusively as I remember those on pcie but after a quick g search it would appear that some extra power is required be it via a molex or 6p pcie for the agp ones.

 

[jeffshead]

Thanks to everyone for your suggestions but I'm not dumping anymore money into it. I'll keep it like it is until the MB or CPU dies.

I created a backup image and tried to restore it to new hardware but I got the dreaded Stop 0x0000007B BSOD. I even used Macrium Reflect's Redeploy and added the correct SATA drivers but it made no difference. Maybe it works for newer OS's but it didn't work on my XP install. I used to do it manually but it's been so long since I've migrated XP from IDE to SATA AHCI, I don't remember how I used to do it. I haven't found one single thing that I like about getting older.

 

[jeffshead]

I can now watch streams in 720P!!!

The P4 with the HD3650 does allow shutter-free viewing of 720p with hyperthreading enabled.

The system is dual-booted. The one partition that I use to connect to the network is XPSP3. After enabling hyperthreading in the BIOS, Windows found the new hardware and updated the HAL. After a reboot, it shows ACPI Multiprocessor PC in the Device Manger and two CPU's in the Task Manager. This partition is working great. However, the partition that is auto-booted at power on (XPSP1), will not boot after it found and installed the new hardware. That is, it will not boot normally. I can boot into safe mode and it DOES show ACPI Multiprocessor PC in Device Manager and two CPU's in Performance tab of Task Manager.

I tried installing SP3 thinking SP1 does not support hyperthreading but after doing that, at normal boot, I get the "Missing or corrupt Ntfs.sys" error. However, I can still boot into safemode so that file is not actually missing or corrupt. I even tried replacing that file with one from the XPSP3 partition and got the same results. The OS that will not normal boot has many services disabled to make it run lean and mean since many of those services are not needed for the intended purpose (MAME arcade machine). I also tried a repair install from the installation CD but it only sees the partitions, not the OS's so Repair is not an option; only full install.

I have a backup image of the system before I enabled hyperthreading so I can start from scratch. At this point, I still cannot normal boot if I disable hyperthreading in the BIOS.

1. So does anyone know why I cannot boot normally?
2. Does SP1 support hyperthreading?
3. Is there one or more services that I need to enable before I reboot after the system replaces the HAL for the hyperthreading CPU?

 

[potato580+]

i use hal rather multi threading if theres an option, oldschool window games have troubleshoot if you dont use hal in modern machine, encounter lot problem with that in many games that run on dx7, also you can get any agp-hd 5xxx model just for $5-20 in country, some of garbage trade even cost below $1 for each random agp card

 

[Deleted member 163934]

@potato580+ do you mind to share a link to an AGP HD 5xxx ?

As far as I know the lastest AGP gpu in AMD case are HD 4xxx and in NVIDIA case GT 7xxx (no hardware acceleration in NVIDIA case so useless for op).

@jeffshead you sure the HDD, PSU and MB are in a good shape? It's old hardware so I can easily expect any of them to just start to break.
If the HDD is 16 years old I wouldn't trust it... I just wouldn't trust a 16 years old HDD (and this comes from someone that has a 19 years old IDE Maxtor HDD and a 17 years old WD HDD, both work but the Maxtor is heating up really badly (no bads but the temps I see makes me think it will die ) and the WD is just rellocating sectors from time to time (can still rellocate but clearly a sign it's not gonna live for long) ); I have them both in a box, in worst case will be used for my father pc as a temp solution (with some linux distro on it) until a new hdd arrives).

 

[potato580+]

oh i was talking about old agp model, didnt know it were amd menitoned, i tho you were seeking something like agp card, the cheapest card is agp p118, not sure if you need this tho