Bought my first 3Dfx card (Maxi Gamer Voodoo 1 4mb) for £115 back in 1996 when I was 15, after getting dissilusioned with my Matrox Mystique's inability to do bilinear filtering (though the matrox served as a great 2d card and let me carry on playing the best version of Mechwarrior 2 ever made). Since then I've owned the V2, V2 SLI, banshee's, all the V3's. The reason I wanted to go with a V2 SLI is purely because of the build I was aiming for. And for the fun of it. I'm not looking for superior performance, all the games I will install on this box will fly with the V2's, and if the game is too demanding it goes on my next box up with a Tbird 1ghz and GF2-Ultra.

There are no glide games that I know about (which are worth choosing glide over OpenGL or D3D anyways) that a pair of V2's can't handle. Just a shame one of my V2's was DOA, so will have to shell out another £20 in the near future. 😜

£20 for a V2?? Man, those things aren't very cheap these days. And paying £20 for a dead card? Shame. But did you at the very least get "something" out of it (except for an antistatic bag 😜)? Maybe a passthrough cable??

Well, I know it's already basically been said, but Gunman Chronicles = Goldsource Engine = Half-Life, and if you look at old benchmarks of Half-Life running on those TNT2 cards back in the day, they were embarrassingly bad in comparison to Voodoos. I saw a video card comparison in the Google Books archive of Maximum PC and was shocked to see that such low framerates were being produced by a then top-of-the-line card running a six month old game. So, maybe that's not the best game to judge it on.

Tetrium wrote:

£20 for a V2?? Man, those things aren't very cheap these days. And paying £20 for a dead card? Shame. But did you at the very least get "something" out of it (except for an antistatic bag 😜)? Maybe a passthrough cable??

As a matter of fact I couldn't complain at all about the deal I got, despite one of them being DOA. They came brand new and shrink wrapped straight out of 1997. Included both V2 cards, 2 pass through cables, an SLI cable, Manual and Driver + a disc full of 3Dfx game demos.

Even if I have to pay ANOTHER £20 for a box, and presuming I get 2 working cards, I will have a load of spare cables (and possibly a spare V2).

So yeah at least it wasn't so bad. A V2 Vulcan 12mb is around £20 from ebay these days and thats just for the card.

srry wrote:

Well, I know it's already basically been said, but Gunman Chronicles = Goldsource Engine = Half-Life, and if you look at old benchmarks of Half-Life running on those TNT2 cards back in the day, they were embarrassingly bad in comparison to Voodoos. I saw a video card comparison in the Google Books archive of Maximum PC and was shocked to see that such low framerates were being produced by a then top-of-the-line card running a six month old game. So, maybe that's not the best game to judge it on.

I hated Halflife 1 back in the day. I'm using the word HATE there a bit harshly, but mostly at it's release I still played Quake for about 4 hours a day. I was also annoyed that the greatest PC Games magazine in history seemed to want to crawl so far into valves ass they might as well have redecorated and got a mortgage. Yeah it was a good game, yeah it did new things and it looked good (well it would, it used the Quake engine) but I think (sorry PC ZONE) there were better things about (like Quake, and Jesus) and thats just my opinion.

By the time I got round to playing HL I had a dual P3-550 setup with a Geforce 2 GTS so I didn't know that the TNT2's struggled with it. I played GLQuake with my VooDoo 1 in 512x384 so the only gaming i did with a TNT2 was AVPGold and some early direct3d games.

It's just, benchmark wise, the TNT2 ultra is placed around the ATI Rage Fury Pro and just under the Geforce SDR (sometimes it BEATs the Geforce SDR). So i was expecting much much more from it. Further testing is needed I guess.

Thanks for the info though.

Iris030380 wrote:

As a matter of fact I couldn't complain at all about the deal I got, despite one of them being DOA. They came brand new and shri […]
Show full quote

Tetrium wrote:

£20 for a V2?? Man, those things aren't very cheap these days. And paying £20 for a dead card? Shame. But did you at the very least get "something" out of it (except for an antistatic bag 😜)? Maybe a passthrough cable??

As a matter of fact I couldn't complain at all about the deal I got, despite one of them being DOA. They came brand new and shrink wrapped straight out of 1997. Included both V2 cards, 2 pass through cables, an SLI cable, Manual and Driver + a disc full of 3Dfx game demos.

Even if I have to pay ANOTHER £20 for a box, and presuming I get 2 working cards, I will have a load of spare cables (and possibly a spare V2).

So yeah at least it wasn't so bad. A V2 Vulcan 12mb is around £20 from ebay these days and thats just for the card.

You have a source for a pair of voodoo2's with sli cable and passthrough cable for 20 pounds, and this source has more than one of these bargains?

Wow.

SavantStrike wrote:

Iris030380 wrote:

As a matter of fact I couldn't complain at all about the deal I got, despite one of them being DOA. They came brand new and shri […]
Show full quote

Tetrium wrote:

£20 for a V2?? Man, those things aren't very cheap these days. And paying £20 for a dead card? Shame. But did you at the very least get "something" out of it (except for an antistatic bag 😜)? Maybe a passthrough cable??

As a matter of fact I couldn't complain at all about the deal I got, despite one of them being DOA. They came brand new and shrink wrapped straight out of 1997. Included both V2 cards, 2 pass through cables, an SLI cable, Manual and Driver + a disc full of 3Dfx game demos.

Even if I have to pay ANOTHER £20 for a box, and presuming I get 2 working cards, I will have a load of spare cables (and possibly a spare V2).

So yeah at least it wasn't so bad. A V2 Vulcan 12mb is around £20 from ebay these days and thats just for the card.

You have a source for a pair of voodoo2's with sli cable and passthrough cable for 20 pounds, and this source has more than one of these bargains?

Wow.

Maybe ... :DDDDDD

Ah, I misread? I thought the £20 (now wheres that £ key, 🤣) was for just 1 Voodoo 2 board. For a pair AND SLI cable I think it's a nice deal 😀

Are you sure you want to mess around with voodoo 2? I have a comparable system (K6-2/500) using a voodoo3/2000 card, that system works well.

What motherboard are you using?

Voodoo 2 is nice for Super 7 as the card isn't too slow for Super 7. I agree that Voodoo 3 is faster then a single Voodoo 2, but Voodoo 2 also has teh cool factor ;D

I used a single Voodoo 2 on a GA-5AX rev4.1 with a K6-III/400 AFR (non-mobile part) and played through the entire Unreal campaign without any problems 😉

Tetrium wrote:

Voodoo 2 is nice for Super 7 as the card isn't too slow for Super 7. I agree that Voodoo 3 is faster then a single Voodoo 2, but Voodoo 2 also has teh cool factor ;D

The Voodoo2 sports the blurry DAC which Voodoo Banshee, 3 and others lack later on. It's not the same. Some of us just *LOVE* that image "cleanup" 😀

leileilol wrote:

Tetrium wrote:

Voodoo 2 is nice for Super 7 as the card isn't too slow for Super 7. I agree that Voodoo 3 is faster then a single Voodoo 2, but Voodoo 2 also has teh cool factor ;D

The Voodoo2 sports the blurry DAC which Voodoo Banshee, 3 and others lack later on. It's not the same. Some of us just *LOVE* that image "cleanup" 😀

Yup! 😁

The blurryness certainly cleans up things like pixelated textures and such 😜

Tetrium wrote:

Voodoo 2 is nice for Super 7 as the card isn't too slow for Super 7. I agree that Voodoo 3 is faster then a single Voodoo 2, but Voodoo 2 also has teh cool factor ;D

I used a single Voodoo 2 on a GA-5AX rev4.1 with a K6-III/400 AFR (non-mobile part) and played through the entire Unreal campaign without any problems 😉

Didn't experience any slowdowns? I tested Unreal on a single V2 with a Klamath @336mhz and while fluid you could sorta tell the game was pretty "heavy" for that cpu. Then I swapped it out for a Katmai @504mhz, much better even with 1 V2. Then I plonked in an 800mhz coppermine and a V3 and oh boy, Unreal was really flying then at 1024x768!

sgt76 wrote:

Tetrium wrote:

Voodoo 2 is nice for Super 7 as the card isn't too slow for Super 7. I agree that Voodoo 3 is faster then a single Voodoo 2, but Voodoo 2 also has teh cool factor ;D

I used a single Voodoo 2 on a GA-5AX rev4.1 with a K6-III/400 AFR (non-mobile part) and played through the entire Unreal campaign without any problems 😉

Didn't experience any slowdowns? I tested Unreal on a single V2 with a Klamath @336mhz and while fluid you could sorta tell the game was pretty "heavy" for that cpu. Then I swapped it out for a Katmai @504mhz, much better even with 1 V2. Then I plonked in an 800mhz coppermine and a V3 and oh boy, Unreal was really flying then at 1024x768!

True, I noticed Unreal playing "faster" on a Celeron 800 then on a K6-III/400, but it was very playable 😉
At least in campaign mode 😉

Just purchased two of the K6-III CPU's mentioned earlier from the german seller on Ebay. Should be arriving shortly. Now it is complete! Looking forward to getting the machine together and spraying the case in 3dfx colours.

I also couldn't resist an authentic K6-III inside case sticker from another german seller.

Also added a new sealed Microsoft Basic Mouse circa 2000, and a matching keyboard. They are easier to take apart than logitechs and I plan to spray them too.

What super 7 board do you have? I have used Tyan 1590s, 1598, and Epox MVPG3

ncmark wrote:

What super 7 board do you have? I have used Tyan 1590s, 1598, and Epox MVPG3

I will tell you when the K6-III cpu's come. I will check when I install the new CPU, as to even read anything on the board needs me to take the PC apart. Watch this space.

Iris030380 wrote:

ncmark wrote:

What super 7 board do you have? I have used Tyan 1590s, 1598, and Epox MVPG3

I will tell you when the K6-III cpu's come. I will check when I install the new CPU, as to even read anything on the board needs me to take the PC apart. Watch this space.

Just remember those are K6-III+ chips and may not be recognized properly.
Also I understood some versions of ALI chipset didn't work properly with the + chips.

Just remember those are K6-III+ chips and may not be recognized properly.
Also I understood some versions of ALI chipset didn't work properly with the + chips.

In the event that this is the case, what can be done about this? Do I need to flash the bios? I will tell you what make and model the board is tomorrow.

Tetrium wrote:

sgt76 wrote:

Tetrium wrote:

Voodoo 2 is nice for Super 7 as the card isn't too slow for Super 7. I agree that Voodoo 3 is faster then a single Voodoo 2, but Voodoo 2 also has teh cool factor ;D

I used a single Voodoo 2 on a GA-5AX rev4.1 with a K6-III/400 AFR (non-mobile part) and played through the entire Unreal campaign without any problems 😉

Didn't experience any slowdowns? I tested Unreal on a single V2 with a Klamath @336mhz and while fluid you could sorta tell the game was pretty "heavy" for that cpu. Then I swapped it out for a Katmai @504mhz, much better even with 1 V2. Then I plonked in an 800mhz coppermine and a V3 and oh boy, Unreal was really flying then at 1024x768!

True, I noticed Unreal playing "faster" on a Celeron 800 then on a K6-III/400, but it was very playable 😉
At least in campaign mode 😉

V2's are the most incredible cards of their time period. If there were faster CPU's available during the time when they were still being sold, nobody would have bought anything else because nothing else would have been able to keep up with them.