Funny 🤣

Work has approached me with recycling some older machines. Old being a mix of Core 2 Duo, Athlon II X2, Athlon 64 X2 and maybe a Pentium 4 here and there.

Planning on testing them all, stripping them for parts. Nothing shall go to waste. 6-32 screws, jumpers, optical drives, you name it 😀

@Phil
I would definately keep the 939 and AM2 dual cores!

I finally put the Voodoo 5 AGP into the Tualatin rig.
I have UT99, Unreal and Quake 3 to test it.

Did you use any special timedemo? Or should I just use "timedemo 1" in Unreal Tournament and measure my avg framerate?

I love getting Core2 and am3 stuff for free because there is usually an OEM Windows 7 key or Vista at least. So you either get to setup a solid supported Windows based system or have a spare key to use later on 😀

Arctic wrote:

@Phil I would definately keep the 939 and AM2 dual cores! […]
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@Phil
I would definately keep the 939 and AM2 dual cores!

I finally put the Voodoo 5 AGP into the Tualatin rig.
I have UT99, Unreal and Quake 3 to test it.

Did you use any special timedemo? Or should I just use "timedemo 1" in Unreal Tournament and measure my avg framerate?

Nice! Happy benching 😀

I wrote the steps up in this post:

A 3dfx Voodoo 5, Vortex2, Pentium III-S based Glide Beast Gaming PC

ODwilly wrote:

I love getting Core2 and am3 stuff for free because there is usually an OEM Windows 7 key or Vista at least. So you either get to setup a solid supported Windows based system or have a spare key to use later on 😀

A lot of these boxes will have the same hardware. I know that the AM2 boxes have MSI K9A2VM-FD boards. They all seem to have two 1 GB sticks of DDR2, 160 or so SATA storage and a DVD-RW drive. Processor or a Athlon II X2 2.9 GHz. Eager to see what the Core 2 Duo machines are like and if I find anything "special", like Server gear or older P4 stuff.

One of the great things about getting a bunch of machines that are the exact same is you can basically guarantee yourself that you will be able to keep atleast one of those systems running for a very long time because you have so many extra components from the other identical systems, even down to the capacitors and IC's. What I would do is pick out the cleanest of the bunch, max it out in memory/CPU and have it fulfill a semi-important role and then have 1 or 2 extra towers "for parts" on standby in case the main one needs repairs.

I have trouble starting a timedemo in Unreal Tournament (It only shows my current and average fps) and opening the console in unreal at all.
When I press ~ nothing happens. 😒

Also I am stuck with 75 FPS somehow. Even though I had vsync disabled first in the driver and the game. weird 🙁

UT, you open console at the very start, after launching the game. Type timedemo 1. Close console and walk away. After it does 4 or 5 runs, press console again and you should see a list for each loop. Take the third one.

Unreal, at least for me, I have to open twice. The first time textures are missing and timedemo doesn't work. Maybe you have the same issue? Otherwise just benchmark Quake II. It works on pretty much any machine I've had so far 😀

Nope, it starts up perfectly, what version are you using?
I can't figure out which one I have. I think it's still the unpatched 3dfx bundled copy. (the cd is labeled "unreal tournament" 🤣 )

The timedemo is about rendering the "intro", right?

Yes it's looping the intro. I've got the DVD Anthology version. But you can also use the GOG versions. Just INNOUNP the installers and delete the nGlide files. You can launch the games from the folder.

I would really love to build a 1400S + V5500 setup, but it's just so hard to find a V5500 less than one SD from the mean sale price. It's killin' me.

blank001 wrote:

I would really love to build a 1400S + V5500 setup, but it's just so hard to find a V5500 less than one SD from the mean sale price. It's killin' me.

It should be possible to find one below 100 dollars.
70-80 dollars is a realistic number these days for a voodoo 5 agp.

Good luck 😀

Arctic wrote:

It should be possible to find one below 100 dollars. 70-80 dollars is a realistic number these days for a voodoo 5 agp. […]
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blank001 wrote:

I would really love to build a 1400S + V5500 setup, but it's just so hard to find a V5500 less than one SD from the mean sale price. It's killin' me.

It should be possible to find one below 100 dollars.
70-80 dollars is a realistic number these days for a voodoo 5 agp.

Good luck 😀

I've been really stubborn I guess. A while back I made the calculation that one SD from the mean was $65 shipped because there were rare occasions of nobody bidding on a V5500 and winning it for like $50. The good news is there are new V5500 for sale every few days.

Update:

I found a V5500 for a good price. It's actually remarkably clean and quiet. Like very little noise. I'm kind of in love. Anyway, I skipped a bunch of the benchmarks as Unreal appeared to be the most harsh. I'm seeing very similar scores. I am just posting average over 5 runs.

640x480: 172.17
1024x76: 111.1
1280x1024: 73.36
1600x1200: 52.36

Pentium III 1400-S SL6BY
TUSL2-C rev 1.04, bios latest beta
512Mb CL2, tightest timing
Voodoo 5500 AGP, default clocks, 1.04 drivers
MX300, 2041
W98SE SP3

The 1400S + V5500 is kind of like an e46 M3. I want to drive it but not too much. This is in contrast to a 486/VLB setup which is like a porsche 964 😉

Maybe someone can help me out! I just got my Voodoo 5 5500 today! However performance is no where near what any of you have on 1.04 drivers!

Machine specs:
Pentium 3 1.2 133 tualatin oc'ed to 1.513
Asus TUSL2-C
256mn pc133
Diamond Monster MX300 Vortex 2

with all culling and optimisation options enabled for the voodoo5 ( don't know if i can enable dual chip mode or if that is just automatic )
UT99 intro averages 64fps at 1024 x 768

Other games like Jane's WWII Fighters glide mode averages 30 -40 fps which is close to the voodoo 3.

Be awesome if you guys can help me get that performance!

EDIT: Just realized this was a major necro...you got me new guy. This might sound crazy but I had problems with my Voodoo 5 downclocking, or at least I thought that is what it was, until I moved my SSD away from my CPU cooler. Somehow the SSD overheating caused the voodoo 5 to run much slower, dont ask me how, but it's the only thing I changed. I really have no idea how to help you but thought I would try.

Decided to dip my toe into the water. I ran Unreal through the paces on my Shuttle. Running on last release of official 3dfx drivers.

Shuttle SK-41G (FX41S026) VIA KM266
Athlon XP 1800+ @ Stock
512MB PC 2100 @ Stock
Soundblaster Audigy
Voodoo 5 5500 @ Stock

I ended up swapping out the mobo and cpu with a athlon XP 1800+ on the ECS K7S5A Pro. I do not use SSD, I am using a new old stock IDE and all of this is in the Rosewill Thor V2 ( has a gigantic side fan )

Unreal I see 112, but UT99 I get about 87 avg.

This is what I like to read about.
“lean mean and straight to the point retro gaming computers”
This is a very nice build engineered for best performance.
You put your knowledge and experience in retro computers to work and built a “Lean, Mean 3DFX machine”

Bravo !

xXmobiusXx1 wrote on 2021-08-29, 10:46:

I ended up swapping out the mobo and cpu with a athlon XP 1800+ on the ECS K7S5A Pro. I do not use SSD, I am using a new old stock IDE and all of this is in the Rosewill Thor V2 ( has a gigantic side fan )

Unreal I see 112, but UT99 I get about 87 avg.

I'm running UT G.O.T.Y. Edition so maybe there is a version difference : V432

I use also that ide sata adapter direct on the ide port. Here my bench with a samsung evo ssd:

win98se, Asus P4S533-e