Personally, I'd go with the Matrox because that's the one I had 😁

Regarding your Direct3D question: before creating the D3D device, the game can query the available devices. So if the game is smart enough, they offer the option to select the device. Otherwise the game will use the default device. I've found a registry key that can set this default, but I'm not sure from which version on this is supported. The key is located at

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DirectX\UserGpuPreferences

For OpenGL it is similar, so the application can enumerate the available devices and chose one, or use the default device.

Got it, that makes sense, thanks. I'd completely forgot it was fairly common for games to to give the user the option to select an adapter. I think I'll go with the G200, it seems to be very highly regarded as a companion for Voodoo 2 setups.

Firstly, most people would prefer the Matrox for it's consistently better image quality. The S3 is not consistent between its manufacturers. I have 2 Trio3D, basically the AGP version of the Virge, and one of them has good image quality, the other is much worse. Also with the Matrox you save one of your limited number of PCI slots. If AGP is an option, I'd choose AGP.

Secondly, the G200 is a competent 3D accelerator by Matrox standards for the time, but comparing to the V2-SLI, you won't benefit from it. You'd need something a lot better for it to really matter. At least Geforce/Radeon level.

Perfect, that's what I want to hear. I've got enough other machines with more power, this one is purely for the experience and fun of SLI 😀

For OpenGL games, they'd either have to be explicitly coded to be voodoo1/2 aware and most of that's from checking if a 3dfxogl.dll o r3dfxvgl.dll exists in windows/system first, and load that for the ICD, or they'd have a MiniGL wrapper (For the earlier ones) provided for convenience and not try to autodetect at all. Otherwise it'll just use OpenGL32.dll which'll be rendered in software if the host video card isn't providing an ICD (which G200 and ViRGE are both guilty for not doing)

Thanks for the technical explanation! It's great to be learning more about this. I only had a Banshee back in the day so never encountered any of this, apart from the MiniGL wrapper. I'm re-playing Half-Life at the moment as it happens, again using a Banshee (with a K6-2 500, same setup as I first played HL on at the time, performance is... not as good as I remember it!), but that's using at MiniGL wrapper in the game.

Presumably the MiniGL wrapper is translating OpenGL calls to Glide?

Presumably the MiniGL wrapper is translating OpenGL calls to Glide?

Technically, both early MiniGL and OpenGL ICD for 3dfx are classified as Glide wrappers. MiniGLs are application specific.

MiniGL's more of a quake-specific stopgap before the need for a proper actually-OpenGL-compliant driver and the importance of that sharply raised when Q3Test rolled around (public test version of Quake3 from April 1999 on gave a rude awakening).