Ok thanks a lot for the help. I can have the Athlon 2400+ for free, but if I wont use it for the config, then I dont need it.
I'm not a collector, I just need one good 3dfx PC.
So I'm going to try to put the 3000+ at 1.3ghz, which is good I think (I heard Voodoo2 sli scale up to 1ghz). I cant do it now because I have a noname psu and no heatsink :[ that suck

As melbar already says above, the Athlon XP 3000+ is still the better choice because it can underclock lower than than the 2400+. You should stick with what you have. Also, just because a processor is slower doesn't mean it consumes less power. For example, my Athlon 1400 CPUs use more power and run hotter than just about anything prior to the Core 2 Quad line.

Regarding video cards: If your primary focus is GLIDE games, then it doesn't much matter what you get for a primary graphics card when you'll mostly be using the Voodoo 2 cards in SLI mode. However, you should still consider getting something decent, just in case you want to play a newer D3D title. A GF4 Ti4200 will allow you to do so much more with an Athlon XP 3000+, even if you underclock it to 1.3ghz. A GF4 Ti4200 will cost about the same as any other old video card, so why choose something that performs worse? They're cheap, easy to find, run cool, and don't consume much power. They're pretty much the ideal generic all-purpose Win9x video card.

I received my Creative 12mb V2 SLI, it looks very nice. 😁 I also have the SLI cable so its fine. I do not have the small VGA connector but a long one should be ok
I should get a socket 462 heatsink in a week, and i'm searching a GF 6800/FX 5950/FX 5900/ Ti4200/Ti4600. I did not managed to find one of these cards for less than 15€ yet 😦 So I wait a good price.
When I'll have everything, idk yet which psu im going to use to test my hardware

Btw, is this PSU good enough to handle my config:
This is a noname 6/7 years old PSU,its a bit dusty but working fine.

I also have this 12+ year old psu, but its very dusty, not going to try I think. Also probably not reliable(?) :

Or I could use my PSU from my everyday computer, Antec HCG 520W:
http://store.antec.com/uk/highcurrentgamer/hcg-520.html
from their website "The High Current Gamer features a high-power +12V rail"
but not 5V 😐

This is the data for your Antec HCG 520W:

+3,3 V, 24 A
+5 V, 24 A
+5 Vsb, 2.5 A
-12 V , 0.8 A
+12 V, 40 A

The stronger your +5V rail is, the better is it.

If you can change your Vcore @1.5V while underclock to 1.3GHz, the TDP should be similar to an AthlonXP (T-Bred B) 1600+ to 1800+
~50W TDP. 25A on the +5V rail should be fine.
But if you cannot reduce the Vcore, i would take a strong PSU (+5V rail) anyway...

So I will try with my Antec PSU, and undervolt the lower i can. thanks. 🤣

Zehef,

Be very careful when choosing a PSU. Your motherboard doesn't have the ATX +12V 4-pin connector, so you'll be drawing heavily from +5V. Don't bother with your FSP PSU and that "Power" no-name unit. Your Antec might be OK with 24A on the +5V if you use an FX or GF6 series card. I think those video cards draw mostly from the +12V rail. GF4 series cards draw more power from the +5V rail, and that could be bad with only 24A available with your Antec PSU. I could be wrong about this. Hopefully somebody more knowledgeable can provide more insight.

If you're worried, you could always go with a Radeon 9600XT. They don't use much power at all when compared to other cards from that generation. You just won't get support for 8-bit palletized textures or fog tables with that card. Although, I suppose it won't matter much if you've also got a pair of Voodoo 2 cards in SLI. Any game that uses 8-bit palletized textures or fog tables will run better with the V2 SLI cards anyway.

Xbit Labs used to have some really excellent articles about this, but their website appears to be offline. Here are some archived versions with lots of details about where specific cards draw power from. Sadly, no info about GF4 series cards. You should definitely check these out:

Power Consumption of Contemporary Graphics Accelerators. Part I: Graphics Cards on ATI Chips

Power Consumption of Contemporary Graphics Accelerators. Part II: NVIDIA vs. ATI

I would be also careful as KT7AGuy already said.

The XP3000+ has a Typical / Maximum power dissipation of 58.4 Watt / 74.3 Watt.
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K7/AMD-Athlon%2 … A3000DKV4D.html

The XP1700+ (1.5V) and XP1800+ (1.5V) has around:
44.9 Watt / 49.4 Watt
46.3 Watt / 51 Watt

The are no detailed values in the internet, but you can estimate/calculate maybe with these values:

V2-SLI: ~20W
Voodoo 2 SLI Power Consumption?

GF4 Ti-4200: ~30W
https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/ti4200-p … -usage.1057236/

Your Antec HCG 520W:
5V x 24A = 120W

Your FSP has 140W on 5V. So your have more space for your devices...

KT7AGuy wrote:

Be very careful when choosing a PSU. Your motherboard doesn't have the ATX +12V 4-pin connector, so you'll be drawing heavily from +5V. Don't bother with your FSP PSU and that "Power" no-name unit. Your Antec might be OK with 24A on the +5V if you use an FX or GF6 series card. I think those video cards draw mostly from the +12V rail. GF4 series cards draw more power from the +5V rail, and that could be bad with only 24A available with your Antec PSU. I could be wrong about this. Hopefully somebody more knowledgeable can provide more insight.

If you're worried, you could always go with a Radeon 9600XT. They don't use much power at all when compared to other cards from that generation. You just won't get support for 8-bit palletized textures or fog tables with that card. Although, I suppose it won't matter much if you've also got a pair of Voodoo 2 cards in SLI. Any game that uses 8-bit palletized textures or fog tables will run better with the V2 SLI cards anyway.

Personally I'd choose my card depending on the parts that I use (which is a given, but I take it a little step further since I'm a perfectionist in a way).
For a system which uses mostly 5v and a PSU that has about equal load capacity on both 5v and 12v (many PSUs were kinda both heavy on the 5v and the 12v, though exact details differ from PSU to PSU), I'd give a slight preference to a graphics card that uses mostly 12v. And vice versa when using (say) a s478 Northwood (which is heavier on the 12v vs a graphics card that may use a bit more from 5v.

Btw, I've seen FSPs with odd rail wattage before. These tended to be OEM ones and it may have been bad luck but the ones I gotten tended to be very easy to develop bad caps. But these older FSP units tended to deliver their promised amperages (provided that they work of course 😜).

If a PSU has been unused for years and even is dusty, I'd never plug that into any rig without having opened it up first (and cleaning it up + doing a visual inspection + testing on some fodder test parts).

KT7AGuy wrote:

Xbit Labs used to have some really excellent articles about this, but their website appears to be offline. Here are some archived versions with lots of details about where specific cards draw power from. Sadly, no info about GF4 series cards. You should definitely check these out:

Power Consumption of Contemporary Graphics Accelerators. Part I: Graphics Cards on ATI Chips

Power Consumption of Contemporary Graphics Accelerators. Part II: NVIDIA vs. ATI

I had already downloaded all the tables from that site about a year ago (or at least all the ones I thought were important). If they don't exist on the original site anymore, perhaps I could upload the tables here? It's really good info and it would be a waste to have them lost.

I've uploaded the 9600XT one along with the FX5700, FX5900U and GF6800, for your convenience and the convenience of other readers 😜

The last attachment is all the tables I had downloaded into one convenient .zip archive (if I have done anything wrong by uploading this content, please feel free to delete the attachments or notify me and I will remove them 😀 ).

Melbar, thanks for helping, 120w on my Antec is a bit short.. 😐 but anyway others psu are the same 😢

I opened the FSP PSU, this is how it looked like :

I cleaned it, there is still sticky dust on some component but its kinda ok.
I powered it up without anything plugged on it (with the wire trick, I found a small tutorial).
The fan was running quite slow, it wasnt noisy. I think its working.
But its just a ~200w old psu and it ran without anything on it so.. x)

I may get a FX 5900 ULTRA from Asus (V9950) with a Zalman cooler on it instead of the original one. It's 12€ with shipping.
Or I can have a free Nvidia 64mb AGP, just need to pay the shipping ofc. I do not know the exact model.

Thanks for the recommandations so I'm going to look at mainly 12v Graphic card.

Anyway, it's so bad I cant buy a modern and new psu with heavy 5V >.<

edit : tetrium, I think I did not rly understand the table. Is the Fx5700 mainly 3.3v ? sorry i'm noob

edit2: If I can get the FX Graphic card, i'm going to use the Antec PSU as KT7AGuy said. I could try the FSP one, but if I destroy my V2 SLI im going to be very mad 🤣

edit3: I bought a 2€ SATA to IDE adapter on Ebay, so im going to use my Seagate 250GB SATA HDD.
The SD Card to IDE adapter is cool but it's 10€. 😠

Hi,
Just get this card :
serial A4-NV18DDR-A3-ZH (GF4 64mb) :

its weird, kinda no name :p it should run ok with v2 sli, i still did not tried yet.

That's a 64 bit geforce 4 - a crippled version of the card. It will perform close to a Geforce 2 MX400. Fine for up to 1024x768, but higher resolutions and some late win98 games will not run very well on it. It's a good idea to stay away from cards like this.

You can spot a crippled card by it's empty video memory pads, like the top of the card you posted.

For your machine, i'd go with a Geforce 4 Ti4200, a radeon 9600, a 128bit FX 5700 or a radeon 9700/9800 if you can get your hands on one.

Hello!

I´ve always have been a 3dfx enthusiast and had a few of them, and played games of their era, so I will say one thing:

On any rig newer than a K6-2/P2 using Windows XP can perform well on DX6/Glide games.

Near year 2000 I had a Celeron 433 with a V3 and remember that suffered on Win98 bugs and crashes and 2k wasn´t a good option for games, so on the launch of XP I passed to it and my games still were running well.

The actual V3´s XP drivers are very good and when my Radeon 8500 died I put my V3 on my Athlon XP-M only for that games I played on year 2000, and although of the CPU overkill, it´s a flexible rig that haven't a graphics card equal the rest but is made from parts that were waiting for my time.

On my opinion, a good choice is to have a simple V3 PCI to those Glide games and a DX9 AGP card (like was said 9600XT or other equivalent) to newer games, it have a large list of compatible games on a single machine.

ok kanecvr so its not a very good GC, but its still ok for a try. I hope my processor is going to work with this motherboard, i do not even know if it has the latest bios :x if not, im fucked.
I am looking for a good video card like ti4200, FX5900 etc. but there are like 15/20€ which is a bit expensive for these old cards, so im looking for a good deal.

@fcm : I have Voodoo2 SLI and not Voodoo3 so windows XP wont run fine.
But my HDD is a 250GB so I have to create 2 partitions. I could try XP on one of these just for fun.

I'm still waiting for my SATA to IDE adapter 🙁

brostenen wrote:

True that. On a P-II-400 + V2-Sli, I would personally not run Unreal and other games like that. A setup like that is more of a N […]
Show full quote

Deksor wrote:

I wouldn't recommand a p2/slow p3 because even voodoo 2 sli can scale up to the pentium 3 1GHz. My pentium 2 400 overclocked to 496 struggles to have a constant 60 fps under half life or unreal with my voodoo 2 sli whereas seing how those games run using the exact same gpus on a 1GHz pentium 3 makes me think that the best choice for a voodoo 3 (which is according to reviews as fast/a tiny bit faster than voodoo 2 sli) would be a pentium 3/original Athlon 1GHz

True that. On a P-II-400 + V2-Sli, I would personally not run Unreal and other games like that.
A setup like that is more of a NFS-III/Diablo-II kind of machine.
Not to say that persons like Phil, have used V3 in K6-III+ machines and it play's well enough
for some games. Yeah... They are more of a sort of Dos/Win98 machine and not pure Win98.

It depends in what resolution you're playing on. At 1024x768 V3/V2 SLI are reaching their limits and so you get deminishing returns when upgrading the CPU. I went from P2 450 > P3 550 > Athlon 600 and the difference is only a couple of frames.

If you want Windows 98 PC with Voodoo 3 then go with CUSL2-C motherboard and 1GHZ to 1.4Ghz tualatin

Godlike wrote:

If you want Windows 98 PC with Voodoo 3 then go with CUSL2-C motherboard and 1GHZ to 1.4Ghz tualatin

That's what I have, CUSL2-C with 1ghz coppermine and voodoo3, works fine up to 1024x768. Tualatin will likely not work at all on CUSL2-C, you would need TUSL2-C instead, it's better for a coppermine too. If only glide games are the point of this build, I'd definitely advice voodoo3 over voodoo2 SLI - it's a bit faster, also the latest drivers have a native OpenGL ICD for OpenGL games like Half-Life, while with voodoo2 SLI you need MiniGL and such which dont perform as good.

For power supply, a way exists to modify a modern power supply to be able to provide high 5v current, but with how much the modification would cost, it's most likely a better idea to just find a good old power supply for cheap and recap it. Most power supplies from that era have crappy capacitors. From my research Antec SL350 is the best power supply for such systems, it just needs new capacitors. Or if you don't want to deal with recapping, some Delta models have good capacitors, I think you can find some from old HP Vectra workstations.

For the PSU better go with NOS quality PSU nighter modifying latest tech PSU (IMO)

zehef wrote:

ok kanecvr so its not a very good GC, but its still ok for a try. I hope my processor is going to work with this motherboard, i […]
Show full quote

ok kanecvr so its not a very good GC, but its still ok for a try. I hope my processor is going to work with this motherboard, i do not even know if it has the latest bios :x if not, im fucked.
I am looking for a good video card like ti4200, FX5900 etc. but there are like 15/20€ which is a bit expensive for these old cards, so im looking for a good deal.

@fcm : I have Voodoo2 SLI and not Voodoo3 so windows XP wont run fine.
But my HDD is a 250GB so I have to create 2 partitions. I could try XP on one of these just for fun.

I'm still waiting for my SATA to IDE adapter 🙁

Did you try these drivers? http://www.3dfxzone.it/dir/3dfx/voodoo2/drivers/windowsxp/

On V3/V5 I used the Amigamerlin, they were stable and fast, but is another thing.

Looking this forum and my recently died R8500 make me use only my V3, I found a HD4650 AGP for a good price and now it´s mine, it´s from a wrong "era" but I will have both "worlds" on this rig, a few hours of benchs too 😀

Munx wrote:

It depends in what resolution you're playing on. At 1024x768 V3/V2 SLI are reaching their limits and so you get deminishing returns when upgrading the CPU. I went from P2 450 > P3 550 > Athlon 600 and the difference is only a couple of frames.

My experience is similar. Running Red Baron 3D with the Full Canvas Jacket mod, both my Celeron 600mhz with 384mb PC100 RAM and my Coppermine 1ghz with 512mb PC133 RAM perform the same. I tested at both 800x600 and 1024x768 using AGP Voodoo 3 3000 cards.

With the Voodoo 3, it seems like the point of diminishing returns is around 600mhz. I think there was a graph that showed something similar, but I can't find it now.