What a coincidence! I was just playing around with a Radeon 8500 on my old K6-2 system, 400 Mhz, FIC 503+ - MVP3+, Win 98SE, VIA 4-in-1 4.40, ATI Catalyst 2.3 drivers (I forget the build number). These latest drivers are the only ones with which I have been able to get the 8500 to work with the K6-2 system.
Yes, the K6-2 limits performance. A lot!
I just scored <A HREF="http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=4629076" target="_new">1540 in 3DMark2001</A>. The same card scores 7000 stock on a Tbird 1.5 Ghz system w/ SDRAM and over 8000 when the video card is overclocked.
I can't really say how much improvement you might get over a PCI RagePro as I only have a PCI AIW (Rage II) to compare against. 3D on the AIW is totally unusable in any games at any resolution. You must be doing better than this.
The 8500 gets about 27 fps in the Quake3 demotest which is about the same I got when my K6-2 system had a Geforce256 and a Geforce2. It seems the system is too slow to get any better performance no matter what video card is used.
<b>I have so many cookies I now have a FAT problem!</b>