First post, by murrayman
Searched around the forums and couldn't find anything quite the same, so:
I have a Voodoo 5 5500 64MB AGP that I've owned since the late 2000s. All stock, no modifications or repairs, still using the original HSFs and working just fine. It's paired up with an AOpen AX63 Pro w/ AGP 2x, PIII 933, 1GB (2x512MB) PC133 SDRAM, and a 40GB WD SATA HDD through a SATA to IDE adapter, running a recent clean install of Win98 SE w/ the unofficial SP3 3.60 using just the core updates, performance improvements, the 524288 MaxFileCache system.ini fix, and DirectX 9.0c, plus the pain ol' 3dfx Reference 1.04 drivers.
This computer has handled pre-2000s Glide and D3D games just fine for all the years I've used it, but recently I decided to benchmark it on 3DMark 99 MAX. Total 3DMarks was 4180.
Years before, the computer originally came with a Voodoo 3 1000 8MB AGP, which I've kept in storage. Pulled it out today, installed it in the machine, reinstalled the drivers, and ran the benchmark. Total 3DMarks was 4299, and there was a noticeable, though marginal, improvement in framerate for the first couple of tests, sans the texture rendering tests which the V5 bested until the 32M test.
I'm confused. I can't blame it on a dirty installation of Win98 or old, mismatched drivers vying for the pole position. Why would my V5 be performing worse than my V3?
P3B-F 1.04, PIII 1k, 512MB PC133, GF DDR 32MB + DM3DII 12MB SLI, SB0100
P3B-F 1.03, PIII 700, 384MB PC100, V5 AGP, SB0160
CP 5170, PII 350, 256MB PC100, Rage LT 2MB, ESS 1869
PB M S610, PMMX 233, 128MB EDO66, DM3D 4MB, Aztech