Can this be done? Help please

[xi_cyrus_ix]

Hello,

I am new to the forum and was wondering if someone can possibly help me with something.

I have built a retro PC for retro gaming. It is a pentium 2 400 with 448 MB RAM, and a Sound Blaster AWE-64.

As we all know, there are plenty of retro games that only work with a voodoo 1/2 and not the voodoo 3, and I am trying to get the best of both worlds, and use the Voodoo 2 for those games, while using the Voodoo 3 for the games it will work with because it offers better performance.

I have a Voodoo 3 2000 16MB main graphics board hooked to a pass-thru cable running through a Voodoo 2 1000 12MB add-on board. The problem I am having is getting games to choose which board to use.

For example - Shadow Warrior 3dfx runs perfect on a 3dfx Voodoo 2, but does not work at all on a Voodoo 3. I was just wondering if there is a way to have these types of game bypass the Voodoo 3, and use the Voodoo 2 so they run properly?

Thanks!

[Nightbird]

Hi,
You would need 3D Control Center (utility allowing use of multiple Direct3D adapters) and a glide switcher which would support the combination Voodoo2 / Voodoo3.
Problem : i know 2 glide switchers but imho they only support the combination Voodoo2 / Banshee

[xi_cyrus_ix]

I see - so there is no known working one for a voodoo 3/2 combination?

Thanks!

[H-street]

which games are you having a problem with that will run on the voodoo3 but not on the voodoo2?

IMO ditch the Voodoo3, a pair of V2 in SLI pretty much matched the voodoo3 in performance

the v2 sli is 360Mtexels while the v3 300 is 333Mtexels

the 3k had a little bit more memory at 16Mb but if you look at the performance numbers the v2sli only lagged behind the 3k by no more than 9%

so unless there is some game that runs on the v3 and not on the v2 sli i would just save the headache and go with the v2's

[Nightbird]

@ xi_cyrus_ix
A batch file would do probably the job.
With it, you would chose which glide driver you would like to use.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Originally posted by H-street

which games are you having a problem with that will run on the voodoo3 but not on the voodoo2?

IMO ditch the Voodoo3, a pair of V2 in SLI pretty much matched the voodoo3 in performance

the v2 sli is 360Mtexels while the v3 300 is 333Mtexels

the 3k had a little bit more memory at 16Mb but if you look at the performance numbers the v2sli only lagged behind the 3k by no more than 9%

so unless there is some game that runs on the v3 and not on the v2 sli i would just save the headache and go with the v2's

In most games a Vooodo3 is faster, Mtexels per sec don't say much they are just numbers and nothing else, they never proved anything either.

gdonovan did some good tests here:
http://www.thedodgegarage.com/3dfx/bench.htm

the Vodooo3 2000 is on par with the V2 SLI, but if the V3 you have a is a V3 3000 it beats the V2 2x 12MB SLI in each and every test, if it's a 3500 well the V2 SLI setup is crushed by it, the V3 also gives you 1600 x 1200 x16 reso support for many glide games and the image quality is far better also.

The Vodooo3 has the best image quality output of all 3dfx VGA cards, this is due to it's high quality 2D/3D filters.

[pierrickuk]

Hi there,

Originally posted by Obi-Wan Kenobi
... the V3 also gives you 1600 x 1200 x16 reso support for many glide games...

Obi-Wan Kenobi: Could you elaborate on which glide games you can get at such a high resolution?

As for xi_cyrus_ix, I'm currently with a similar setup: One Voodoo5 AGP followed by a mismatched SLI of Voodoo2 12 meg.

I do not know of any glide switcher that works for this, but what I do, depending on which GPU I want to use , is copy the glide files needed in the directory containing the .exe of the game I want to try.

I have 2 folders aptly named "V5 dlls" and "V2 dlls" containing the dlls from the drivers installation files and I use them whenever I need.

I guess this would also work replacing the Voodoo5 by a Voodoo 3 and the V2-SLI by a Voodoo2 or a Voodoo one.

As to have both Voodoo3 and Voodoo5 in the same machine, I don't know how one would get to choose which card to use (I might try, I have a spare Voodoo3 lying around)... I also don't see the point of having both a Voodo3 and a Voodoo5 in the same machine, but that's a different matter.

My solution works for many games: Dethkarz (max res 1024*768), Supreme Snowboarding are the first ones that pop to mind.

All this is sweet under windows 98/xp of course, playing old DOS games in REAL DOS mode on this machine is not easy.


TIP OF THE DAY: After a recent re-install of the cards mentioned above, I had some terrible tearing/ghosting (I don't know how to call it, when the screen flickers/waves, with a band slightly out of sync moving slowly (in my case) towards the left) on my tft screen, an old LG 19" 1280*1024 native. Then I unticked the show compatible resolution box in the V5 advanced properties tab and choose 75Hz instead of 60. And voila, my desktop is now unrippled.
So if you're Voodoo2 (Voodoo1 too I guess) is annoying you like mine did, try different refresh rates.