Hi Joe! My understanding is that 'mismatched cards' in this context means 'different manufacturers' - back in the day they had to be the same brand, which was an intentional limitation of the driver I presume.

The FastVoodoo2 driver allows mismatched cards and I use this, it works well. My understanding is that if you use an 8MB and a 12MB then - regardless of how you install them - the driver will simply treat the setup like 2 X 8MB cards.

The 'system info' function that comes with FastVoodoo2 will tell you what memory it's configured.

badmojo wrote:

Hi Joe! My understanding is that 'mismatched cards' in this context means 'different manufacturers' - back in the day they had to be the same brand, which was an intentional limitation of the driver I presume.

The FastVoodoo2 driver allows mismatched cards and I use this, it works well. My understanding is that if you use an 8MB and a 12MB then - regardless of how you install them - the driver will simply treat the setup like 2 X 8MB cards.

The 'system info' function that comes with FastVoodoo2 will tell you what memory it's configured.

Exactly.

From FastVoodoo2 readme:

1What's it?
2----------
3
4FastVoodoo2 4.6 is a device driver that supports 3dfx Voodoo2 based cards in Windows 95/98/98SE/ME 
5environments, adding compatibility for Voodoo2 SLI done by mismatched cards. We remember that 
6mismatched means two no same manufacturer boards go to make up your Voodoo2 SLI setup: for example 
7one arrives from Creative and one from Diamond.

As far as I remember, only exactly identical Voodoo 2 cards were guaranteed to work in SLI at first. That included manufacturer, memory configuration, even revision. However, as Voodoo 2 left the top segment of the market, new drivers became available that allowed different cards of the same manufacturer to work in SLI.

Considering 8MB and 12MB cards paired together, they'll work as 2 8MB cards. That's because each of them renders exactly half of the scene (even or odd lines).

badmojo wrote:

Hi Joe! My understanding is that 'mismatched cards' in this context means 'different manufacturers' - back in the day they had to be the same brand, which was an intentional limitation of the driver I presume.

The FastVoodoo2 driver allows mismatched cards and I use this, it works well. My understanding is that if you use an 8MB and a 12MB then - regardless of how you install them - the driver will simply treat the setup like 2 X 8MB cards.

The 'system info' function that comes with FastVoodoo2 will tell you what memory it's configured.

Thanks badmojo for the response.

Wasn't sure about what the "mis-matched" was referring to for sure and was thinking I might need to replace one of the cards. It's good to know that I won't need to after all! I have read the readme file for the FastVoodoo2 drivers, and they appear to be fairly mature- and even come with lots of extra utilities and tweak options. I will definitively be giving them a try.

I have a Voodoo 1 in my Windows 95 machine next to a Matrox G200 right now, and I would like to replace the Voodoo 1 with these cards. I think that these two in SLI should really do well with glide games through to the 1998 time frame -

Using a P2 233mhz processor, running games that ask for no more than roughly a 166mhz requirement.

RacoonRider wrote:

As far as I remember, only exactly identical Voodoo 2 cards were guaranteed to work in SLI at first. That included manufacturer, memory configuration, even revision. However, as Voodoo 2 left the top segment of the market, new drivers became available that allowed different cards of the same manufacturer to work in SLI.

Considering 8MB and 12MB cards paired together, they'll work as 2 8MB cards. That's because each of them renders exactly half of the scene (even or odd lines).

I plan to use the final release of the FastVoodoo2 drivers and am looking forward to seeing how well they perform. From the list of revisions, and for the time they were actively being improved upon, they look like they should be fairly stable. I read the release notes but missed the quote about manufacturers. Thanks!

JoeCorrado wrote:

I have a Voodoo 1 in my Windows 95 machine next to a Matrox G200 right now, and I would like to replace the Voodoo 1 with these cards. I think that these two in SLI should really do well with glide games through to the 1998 time frame -

Using a P2 233mhz processor, running games that ask for no more than roughly a 166mhz requirement.

Yeah I'm no expert in these matters but I think SLI Voodoos might be overkill for a 233MHZ machine? It wouldn't hurt I guess, although 2 would produce more heat and (I think) introduce visible scanlines.

I use my SLI setup with a PIII 1GHz and 1 Voodoo2 in my Pentium 166.

I had an SLI going with one faulty card (faulty memory). It would only work up to 640 x 480 because that was the max. resolution of the faulty card:)

That was with official Diamond drivers as well as those FastVoodoo2.

Installed these in SLI and am using the FastVoodoo2 4.6 drivers.

The link below shows a screen capture of the info reported by FV2... this correct for the setup?? I have an 8mb and a 12mb in SLI.
I am able to run Q2 at 800x600 full screen and it looks good, runs smooth.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/l9d49tw3eh6zpu6/V2.gif

Yup that looks fine!

Swapping that 8MB for a 12MB card will allow you to run 1024 x 768.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Yup that looks fine!

Swapping that 8MB for a 12MB card will allow you to run 1024 x 768.

Thanks so much for the response Mau1wurf1977. Your always willing to share your knowledge and it is appreciated! I will be keeping my eye open for a 12MB card at a good price to upgrade- but till then, I am happy.

BTW, I snagged a 64MB Voodoo 5 today and will be putting it into my Windows 98 system. 😀 It just makes better sense than having the G4 ti-4200 in there with a P3 600MHZ... I think the GPU was outpacing the CPU.

Thanks again!

I always use Geforce cards because the drivers are easy to get a hold off, the cards are cheap and plenty full and in general I never had any issues. We aware with Matrox cards and Vodooo 2. There is some bug that causes the Voodoo 2 driver to get stuck. Was very frustrating to sort it out and it was only because of a forum member who pointed me in the right direction 😀