HOW TO SPICE UP THAT OLD SYSTEM
The video card is extremely important for gamers that seek high frame rates and good image quality. Unfortunately, there are many different video cards to pick from and it is very difficult to decide on which to buy. Let me urge you, if you have an older system and don't have much money to spend- Please go to BUYCOMP.COM right now and pick up a Diamond Stealth II s220. This is an older card that is based on the Rendition 2x00. It is nowhere near to being the fastes card available but it will at least enable you to use hardware acceleration. If your into racing games then this card will be great. On my brother's k6-2 300 with an s220 Need for Speed III looks beautiful and plays great. Half-life is pretty choppy but if you put it at a low-resolution it is playable. The people at Diamond are literally paying you to take this card because it is only 20-odd dollars and has a $30 rebate!
If you are interested in getting pure power, beautiful graphics, and some serious bragging rights, then the TNT2 Ultra and the G400 Max are the cards for you. There are several kinds of TNT2 cards so make sure to read some reviews and find the one for you. For those of you who have to be able to play Glide-only games than a Voodoo chipset will be required. I don't really recommend them for anyone else though, because the Voodoo3 can only do 16-bit rendering, 256x256 textures, and a limited selection of cards to choose from. If you have to have Glide, then I would recommend getting a cheap Voodoo2 or V3 2000.
Of course, buying an awesome video card is worthless if you don't have the processor power to back it up. Having a Ultra TNT2 on a Pentium 200 is not gonna help much in Quake III. Also be aware that some cards have problems with the Socket 7 chipset.
Another way to boost performance in games is to overclock the videocard itself. Many people believe that only the CPU can be super-charged but that is not true. Both the memory and the processor on the video card can be overclocked. For instance, a standard TNT has a clock speed of 90/110. I have my ASUS v3400 o/c to 99/120. This gives a good boost in performance, but beware- overclocking causes serious heat and could damage the card. Also, graphical errors can be caused by overclocking. For information on your card, search the net or ask about it on a BBS.