There might be a handful of games that would take advantage of a Voodoo 1. Depends on how important those games are to you. Games like GLQuake and Tomb Raider 1. Personally, with your V2 SLI system, I wouldn't bother. That's just me, though. Most of those games would already play on your PIII.

Might be worth keeping a VG just for its other filter (VG and V2's screen filters are different) and the extra inch of early DOS Glide compatibility. Also since i'm freaky I would remove the TNT in for something earlier, like a Riva128 (AT BEST) so you can enjoy more charmingly imperfect, yet very period correct 3D 😀

What's up with 48MB though?

I would swap the RivaTNT for something more modest (performance-wise) such as a ATI Rage or Matrox Millennium and pair it with a Voodoo or a Voodoo2.

Reason?

The TNT, while a period-correct card time wise (released around 1998) is not the optimal pairing for a system this old. You will actually end up getting better performance on 3D-games that a system such as this would run with a Voodoo / Voodoo2 due to the fact most games that ran on Pentium era-hardware were optimized for 3Dfx cards.

The TNT is a great card for an early Pentium II system though, as more games that ran OpenGL and Direct3D could benefit from it's abilities such as 32-bit rendering etc.

If you have the TNT and the Voodoo2 in the same system, you risk running into some bugs with older games that don't deal well with choosing renderers (because both the TNT and the Voodoo will do Direct3D)...

viper32cm wrote:

That is the question . . . […]
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That is the question . . .

I've decided to build a Pentium MMX based 1 in 136 style system similar to that featured on PhilsComputerLab. Here's what I'm planning:

FIC VT-503 Motherboard (i430TX)
Pentium MMX 233Mhz
48MB EDO RAM
Riva TNT PCI 16MB
Audician 32 Plus
WD 4GB UDMA Hard Drive
Windows 95C

I already have a GF4 + Voodoo 2 SLI setup in a PIII-1Ghz, so I don't need another Voodoo equipped system. However, this late-Windows 95 style system just seems to scream for a Voodoo card. Another Voodoo 2 would be best, but I don't like the idea of spending the money on a third Voodoo 2 when I already have an SLI setup. So, that leaves me with an original Voodoo. Is it worth it in light of the TNT I'm planning for this system and my SLI setup?

leileilol wrote:

Might be worth keeping a VG just for its other filter (VG and V2's screen filters are different) and the extra inch of early DOS Glide compatibility. Also since i'm freaky I would remove the TNT in for something earlier, like a Riva128 (AT BEST) so you can enjoy more charmingly imperfect, yet very period correct 3D 😀

What's up with 48MB though?

I had a 32MB pair and 16MB pair of SIMMS. The system will boot with a 64MB single-sided PC100 DIMM. I might install that eventually.

As for why the TNT. The card I purchased is a 5V 32-bit unit, the same as the current video card in the system (a POS Trident). I actually have two TNT2 M64 cards, but they are 3.3/5V 32-bit units and won't boot in this motherboard for some unknown reason. I really wanted a RIVA 128, but most of the cards on ebay are 3.3/5V. The one 5V 32-bit card I found was four times more expensive than what I paid for the TNT. In light of the price difference, I figured going one generation newer wouldn't be that big of a deal, especially since I'll be sticking with original drivers and the earliest version of DirectX possible. If I'm wrong, I can pick up an early ATI Rage for fairly cheap and then add a Voodoo card later on. I'd actually thought about a Rendition card too, especially since I wanted the Sierra Screamin' 3D when I was a kid. We'll see . . . the TNT arrives in the mail today.

Also, my understanding is that the RIVA 128, TNT, and TNT2 have great VESA compatibility in BIOS, which sounds like a good idea for DOS.