Hi, so for playing several of the GOGs here, I use an older computer, p4 3ghz, 80gb HD, 1.5gb ram, etc. which is still pretty good, but it's video card is pretty crappy, an AGP 6200 geforce XFX low-profile with 256 ddr ram. So, I would like to try games like Far Cry on it, but i know it will run slowly. older games like Quake4, for example, are autodetected by the game as being a "high end" card, and select that setting, but when playing i get 10 fps when there are more than 2 enemies on screen. I'm in the process of getting a new card, but in the meantime, can someone suggest me an older release or beta forceware release that runs best for this card? I dont think my card is running at its best with the very latest forceware drivers, since they were made for the newest cards.
thanks!

Forceware drivers are completely backwards compatible and not made for any specific generation of Nvidia cards. If anything, the performance you get from the latest should be better than the older drivers. Your performance issues are far more likely due to the fact that the 6200 is one of Nvidia's "budget" models. IIRC, the performance produced by the 6200 is actually less than the higher-end previous generation FX models. If you want to get better performance, I don't think a different driver will really help, only an upgraded video card will help.

I think the 6200 is one of the ones with half the features chopped out of the chip, I know the 5200 was, it tested substantially worse than the old geforce 4 I used to run.
You'd probably be best off tweaking ingame settings to improve performance, dynamic lights & reflections are the things that used to destroy my frame rates when my video card was past its end of life.

Damn, ok, ill try reducing the visual eyecandy then. Im really thinking about getting a new card for this old computer. Are those AGP HD 2000 and 3000 cards good? I didnt want to get an older x1000 card, but i read some comments of people saying that they only had problems with these "new" agp cards, since they used modified unoficial catalyst drivers to work. But i have read comments from people who dont have any problems with them, so i dont know who to believe.
BTW, powercolor announced at GDC that they are releasing an HD 4670 in AGP !! :D

If you are going to get an AGP card for that system, don't bother with one that has been "hacked" into being an AGP card. Instead, go for one that was actually designed to be AGP, like the GeForce 7600 (the last Nvidia AGP card). Its not the newest card available, but its performance will be the best you can get with that system. I speak from experience on a system that has almost identical specs to yours with a 7600GS. I would have preferred a 7600GT, but at the time I couldn't find one in my price range.

Whats wrong with those cards? Dont they work? i thnk that card you mention was hacked for AGP too, since the last real nvidia AGP cards were the 6 geforce ones. Maybe an ATI one could work too, something like the radeon x1000 ones?

The first truly non-AGP Nvidia cards were the 8XXX series of cards. The 7600 was designed by Nvidia to be both AGP and PCIe using Nvidia's own AGP-PCIe bridge chip. It was not hacked by a third party to be an AGP card, like that HD4670. Like Arkose mentioned, using a card like that, you will be paying for performance that you will never actually get.
I suppose there is nothing wrong with those 2000 and 3000 series cards, other than the fact that they are ATI products. I am personally prejudiced against ATI cards due to being burned by them one too many times with faulty hardware or drivers, something I've never experienced with Nvidia.

Funny you say that, I've been burned by nvidia cards OTOH, so that's why my last cards have been ATI only. One time i bought a really poweful XTX 6800XT AGP with 256mb GDDR3 ram, cost me 150$ total with S&H, and it didnt work on this computer. I dont know if the type of RAM (gddr3) wasnt compatible with this older board (D865PERL) or what, but i was out of 150$ from buying an expensive paperweight. Some time later i got this crappy 6200, only because there werent any other cards AGP to choose from locally, and it did work. So, im somewhat BITTER at the green team.

Wow, when I said my system was similar to yours, I didn't realize how similar. My mobo is a D865PERC, which is the OEM version of the D865PERL.
I can't really speak for your experience, all I can say is that for five consecutive card upgrades I've used Nvidia, starting way back with a GeForce 2, and have not had a single issue with any of them. Simultaneously on a separate system, I went through three consecutive ATI upgrades; the original card was just woefully underpowered, the second received several faulty driver updates and the third was a barely functional piece of junk. After that, I didn't bother buying a new ATI card for it, I just gave that machine one of my old Nvidia cards, which worked perfectly.

Yep, very similar indeed. :D
Maybe that board doesnt like GDDR3 ram in video cards, since the older , much crappier 6200 i bought for the "oh-well" criteria only has DDR ram, and it works until now. Could that have been the case?

Doubtful. The mobo shouldn't care what kind of RAM the vid card has, it just cares about the appropriate interface (i.e. AGP). My 7600 is GDDR2, so if the VRAM was the issue, you can be sure that a model with DDR2 will work.

Then i guess i wont find out why that POS card didnt work. I dont know to this day why.
hmmm, so, i think the topic's question has been answered, but i dont know whose answer to mark as the solution. Any suggestions? :D