Need help making final decision on CPU for Voodoo 3 3000 \ VOGONS

Need help making final decision on CPU for Voodoo 3 3000

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First post, by GiSWiG

Posted on 2017-11-01, 18:02

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I've been fiddling with hardware more than actually using it and I just want to finish this system based around a Voodoo 3 3000 AGP. I'm down to the CPU, which does determine the motherboard to use, and could use some advice from thoes who might have more experience with a Voodoo 3 build. Back in the day, I had a V3 3500 but I cannot remember what I had exactly but I know it was a K62 or K63.

So I have a Pentium II 400, a Pentium III 650 and 933, all slots. The P2 400 has an unlocked multiplier and I can run it all the way down to 133MHz. On a VIA based mobo the P3 650 and P3 933 work well being slowed down using the throttle DOS utility. (http://www.oldskool.org/pc/throttle/DOS/). On the 933MHz, I can run Descent in DOS at normal speeds using throttle. The P2 is nice because I can go into the BIOS of the VIA board and change FSB and multiplier there. The P3 650 and 933 can be down-clocked by adjusting the FSB. The reason why that is a good thing is that 2D games seem to have graphic issues with the Voodoo 3 when the FSB is 100MHz or 133MHz. 3D games have no issues. There are no issues at 66MHz. At 100MHz they can be seen but minor, and definitely noticeable and annoying at 133MHz. Other graphic cards have no problem and I don't have another Voodoo to test to see if it is the card. This problem also does not exist on a 440BX board. However, I'm not looking to resolve the issue in this thread, it is just an FYI.

I'm down to having this machine focus on Voodoo 3 3000/glide games up until the early 2000s at 1024x768. Late DOS games are great, older 2D games without glitching is nice but there is DOSBox for that. For games that would benefit from faster glide I have an Athlon build with a Quadro FX 3000 and I use nGlide.

My main questions are:
- How well do glide games play at either a P2 400 or P3 460 (the 933MHz running at 7x66) using a Voodoo 3 @ 1024x768? Are there any that would stutter a lot at the 450MHz?
- Ditto with a P2 400

Thanks

Reply 1 of 11, by GiSWiG

Posted on 2017-11-01, 18:04

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Sound card will be either AWE64 or Audician 32 Plus

Reply 2 of 11, by Adrian_

Posted on 2017-11-01, 19:40

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The Gigabyte Bx 2000+ mobo had a jumper that was specifically designed to enable the use of Voodoo cards at 100 FSB. There may be other slot 1 motherboards with similar features.

Reply 3 of 11, by dries_86

Posted on 2017-11-01, 19:44

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It depends but I think if you're looking to get max. performance out of the Voodoo III I would go with the PIII 933 Mhz because the Voodoo III benefits really well from higher cpu speed. The others would bottleneck the Voodoo III more.

Reply 4 of 11, by GiSWiG

Posted on 2017-11-01, 19:49

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Adrian_ wrote:
The Gigabyte Bx 2000+ mobo had a jumper that was specifically designed to enable the use of Voodoo cards at 100 FSB. There may be other slot 1 motherboards with similar features.

Interesting. Do you remember what it was labeled?

Reply 5 of 11, by GiSWiG

Posted on 2017-11-01, 19:57

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dries_86 wrote:
It depends but I think if you're looking to get max. performance out of the Voodoo III I would go with the PIII 933 Mhz because the Voodoo III benefits really well from higher cpu speed. The others would bottleneck the Voodoo III more.

I think I'll go that route and back down the FSB and use throttle as needed but the "Voodoo" jumper Adrian_ mentioned seems interesting.

Reply 6 of 11, by GiSWiG

Posted on 2017-11-01, 19:58

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I'm also going to be using an ASUS P3V4X

Reply 7 of 11, by badmojo

Posted on 2017-11-01, 20:03

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I run my V3 in a 1Ghz PIII and think it’s the bees knees - I don’t think you can have too much speed in that system.

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Reply 8 of 11, by Adrian_

Posted on 2017-11-01, 22:01

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GiSWiG wrote:

Interesting. Do you remember what it was labeled?

Something like JP nr 2 (if memory serves) for Voodoo card. And the manual mentioned that the jumper had to be shorted if using a Voodoo card with 100FSB.

Reply 9 of 11, by GiSWiG

Posted on 2017-11-02, 04:23

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Well, I found nothing like that. I'll stick with the 933MHz and downclock it to 66mhz as needed.

Reply 10 of 11, by CkRtech

Posted on 2017-11-02, 08:17

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Adrian_ wrote:
if using a Voodoo card with 100FSB.

Wouldn't it have been for 133 FSB? 100 FSB was a pretty normal speed on a BX chipset (along with 66), so it used a divisor of 2/3 (100 * 2/3 = 66) for AGP.

I assume the jumper on the motherboard would have added an auxiliary 1/2 divider (133 * 1/2 = 66.5) to an otherwise incapable BX chipset.

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Reply 11 of 11, by chinny22

Posted on 2017-11-03, 14:31

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If the focus is Win9x Glide then yeh, faster the CPU the better

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