Question: which planet are you from?

meljor wrote:

Question: which planet are you from?

🤣. OK be kind now... I have been out of the retro hardware scene for some time now and just recently jumped back in. It's all slowly coming back to me but you experts can help me a little with that. 😉

Hello! The Voodoo 5 is an older card, so no it won't compete with your GeForce 4 or GeForce 6800, it's usually on par with the GeForce 2 depending on the game and CPU speed. It is a special card for a few reasons though:

a)It is the last of the 3Dfx to be released and as such the last video card with Glide support

b)It can do some pretty unique anti-aliasing, for the timeframe, in the form of RGSSAA, which does look spectacular, although it is not really usable in games from 1999-2000 because of the performance hit
In general it has fantastic image quality and supports 32bit color, something that previous 3Dfx cards lacked

c)It is sort of over-engineered, it features two GPUs (akin to modern day dual-GPU releases such as the 7990, R9 295X, Radeon Fury Pro, GTX 590, GTX 690 and Titan Z) and is particularly long, which means that it was expensive to manufacture and as such was released in more limited quantities than, say, the GeForce2 GTS (or especially GeForce2 MX)

All of the above, has made it sort of a legendary card and its prices have skyrocketed in the last few years. Is it worth using it on a system? Depends really, I quite like it to be honest 😁.

Thanks for the info F2bnp!

I am still going through my extensive collection and I do recall having a Voodoo 1 and possibly two Voodoo 2 cards and a Voodoo 3 card stashed away still. So for pre 1999 games that support Glide, this card would be ideal. So I am wondering if most or all the games that were pre 1999 supported both glide and "standard 3D" (Direct3d or OpenGL I vaguely recall?) and if that was the case than perhaps the GeForce 4 would run all of them better than the Voodoo 5?

F2bnp wrote:

Hello! The Voodoo 5 is an older card, so no it won't compete with your GeForce 4 or GeForce 6800, it's usually on par with the GeForce 2 depending on the game and CPU speed.

The lack of a HW T&L engine hit its performance pretty hard in benchmarks around its release date. However, if you pair it with the fastest CPU/Motherboard with a 3.3V (and only use 3.3V) AGP slot, it actually performs much better than a GeForce 2.

F2bnp wrote:

b)It can do some pretty unique anti-aliasing, for the timeframe, in the form of RGSSAA, which does look spectacular, although it is not really usable in games from 1999-2000 because of the performance hit
In general it has fantastic image quality and supports 32bit color, something that previous 3Dfx cards lacked

Yea, the image quality of VSA-100 was seriously a step up from most video cards of that time period. Add in the AA support and many older games will look superb.

So can someone give examples of a good system setup for this card? I've been thinking about putting together such a build and would be nice to know what CPU/mobo combo would work best.

Anything around the 1GHz mark would be nice, Pentium 3 or Athlon. The card will be fine with a Pentium III 733 or similar too, I'm using it on a 440BX board with a 1GHz Pentium 3 clocked at 750MHz to avoid overclocking the FSB.

I like to pair Voodoo5 with Athlon XP on a KT333 motherboard. For example, almost any Unreal-based game can become CPU limited in various situations. Being able to use Glide is a major benefit already because it definitely has better efficiency than D3D or OpenGL with that engine, but you can still drop frame rate in firefights. Or just by playing Deus Ex in general....

Yes, that's a very good point. Unreal Engine games are the exception rather than the rule though (thankfully 🤣 ), so if you don't want to fork out a lot of money on a fast Athlon XP system, you have the option to opt for something slower.
I tried the Voodoo5 on a Pentium III 1GHz and then on a Tualatin 1.4GHz and framerates were mostly the same. I'm sure Unreal Engine games would have seen a nice performance boost though. Deus Ex is such a hog 😵 .

swaaye wrote:

I like to pair Voodoo5 with Athlon XP on a KT333 motherboard. For example, almost any Unreal-based game can become CPU limited in various situations. Being able to use Glide is a major benefit already because it definitely has better efficiency than D3D or OpenGL with that engine, but you can still drop frame rate in firefights. Or just by playing Deus Ex in general....

Be careful some later revision KT333 boards are 1.5V only.

dexvx wrote:

Be careful some later revision KT333 boards are 1.5V only.

Yeah I'm aware of that. If the board has a universal AGP slot you're usually good to go. Best to do some web searches before buying though.

I have had a few different KT333 boards. Currently have an ECS K7VTA3 v6 and I think it's my favorite. I like its simplicity and its VT8235 southbridge.

dexvx wrote:

Be careful some later revision KT333 boards are 1.5V only.

You're thinking of the rebranded KT400 (KT333 CF) chips. Yeah, avoid!