PCI

Yep PCI

AGP has what looks like a double row of those gold connectors that go into the motherboard slot, as the bottom connector in the image:

Thanx guys, thought so!

S3 Virge GX2 is actually one of the few S3 cards that will run S3 accelerated games at an actually decent framerate, so you have a pretty good find here.
Here's an example how it should perform in S3D games:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM7Wx4tteVQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFVcYvOvCrs

Note that while Havoc runs a little slower on the S3D, it is actually the game's correct speed. The DirectDraw renderer gets sped up on too fast PCs, and RetroCompaqGuy (thanks for all the vids btw) is testing it on a 1.4 Ghz Pentium III so... (the "optimum speed" for the DirectDraw renderer is around a 300 Mhz Pentium II, which should be around the same as the S3D version on GX2).

m1so wrote:

S3 Virge GX2 is actually one of the few S3 cards that will run S3 accelerated games at an actually decent framerate, so you have […]
Show full quote

S3 Virge GX2 is actually one of the few S3 cards that will run S3 accelerated games at an actually decent framerate, so you have a pretty good find here.
Here's an example how it should perform in S3D games:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM7Wx4tteVQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFVcYvOvCrs

Note that while Havoc runs a little slower on the S3D, it is actually the game's correct speed. The DirectDraw renderer gets sped up on too fast PCs, and RetroCompaqGuy (thanks for akl the vids btw) is testing it on a 1.4 Ghz Pentium III so... (the "optimum speed" for the DirectDraw renderer is around a 300 Mhz Pentium II, which should be around the same as the S3D version on GX2).

What about compatibility with pre 1995 DOS games m1so?

Virge has a Trio chip for 2D I think so it should be very compatible and fast in DOS games (not as fast as Matrox Millenium, but more compatible), never tried it tho, only used the 2D only Trio64+.

I've been trying to look up information about this card but not found much. Was it not very popular back then?
From what I'm seeing it looks like a pretty good solution for having both 2d + 3d on the same card for early 3d games.

It was not so popular because other 3D cards were far more powerful at the time GX2 came out. But there are games that only support the S3 Virge for 3D acceleration and GX2 runs them smooth (unlike say the Virge 325 which frequently got 5-15 fps in 3D mode even on games supposedly made for it), with quite nice filtering, resolution and textures as you can see.

I've never gotten into early 3d, I use a 486 DX2 66mh and I prefer to keep Windows out of it.
Is Ms-Dos actually a good environment to play early 3d games? Or should we go with Windows 95 directly. I'm thinking on replacing my S3trio 64+ with this one. Maybe change to a Socket 7 133mhz to be able to play some of these games.

http://vintage3d.org/index.php u can find more info about the virge series,under the reviews section.
As far as i remeber the virge series sold well,becouse there where a lot of cheap videocards on the market with this chip and the 2D part was fast and had good dos compatibility,output image quality wasn't the best compared with matrox or ati cards.
They weren't very popular with gamers,becouse they were slow.
So if u want to enjoy early 3d gaming,imho get the virge and pair it up with a voodoo 1.

I was under the impression the gx2 had some compatibility issues with s3d games which is why I went with a virge/gx and voodoo 1 combo.

But there are games only the S3 Virge GX2 will play correctly, not every early 3D game was 3dfx compatible.

And with a virge gx+voodoo combination u can play both s3d only games and the rest.

The GX2 is generally very compatible. On top of my head I can only think of Battle Race which won't run and Terminal Velocity which gives glitches. Other than that it provides much better frame rates than the other cards and thus can be considered the only card actually viable to play most of the S3D titles.

battle race?

any info on it? I never heard of that game.

German game released in Europe only.

A short video clip seen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7tTYwNDWlU

Moby games:
http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/battlerace

m1so wrote:

It was not so popular because other 3D cards were far more powerful at the time GX2 came out. But there are games that only support the S3 Virge for 3D acceleration and GX2 runs them smooth (unlike say the Virge 325 which frequently got 5-15 fps in 3D mode even on games supposedly made for it), with quite nice filtering, resolution and textures as you can see.

That's because S3 only made small, incremental improvements and clock speed bumps to the Virge line over it's life. It's great for backwards compatibility with earlier Virge games, but those early cards are just too slow for running later Virge games. I think the Trio3D was the final hurrah for the Virge based cards before Savage was released.

Pingaloka wrote:

I've never gotten into early 3d, I use a 486 DX2 66mh and I prefer to keep Windows out of it.
Is Ms-Dos actually a good environment to play early 3d games? Or should we go with Windows 95 directly. I'm thinking on replacing my S3trio 64+ with this one. Maybe change to a Socket 7 133mhz to be able to play some of these games.

DOS is a great enviroment for early 3D games. Many games were just forced into Windows 95 for their non-DOS versions, resulting in technologically inferior software (Fury3 is great, but it was only hacked to run in SVGA by some fans a few years ago as opposed to Terminal Velocity which is basically Fury3, but it is the original, and SVGA is a menu option for it).

The developers of Duke Nukem 3D and other Build engine games in fact downright thought impossible for their engine to run in Win 95 due to it requiring exclusive use of large (at that time) amounts of memory.

Accelerated games are more mixed, some DOS, some Windows. Havoc for example was a Windows 95 title, so was Mechwarrior 2 for VIRGE. I think Destruction Derby and others were DOS through.

What brand is the card pictured by Pingaloka? I am trying to find a GX2 that is on PCI, to pair with my Voodoo1. Anyone have suggested ebay terms to look for besides "gx2"? Sometimes people do not post auctions based the text they see on a chip.