I got my dual monitor setup working and the game runs fine on my Voodoo3. So at this point, I guess it's fine not to worry about it.
The only thing I find annoying about the Riva128 was the buggy texture support. The card runs Gunman Chronicles nicely but sometimes the textures will flicker. The drivers were never too great, but once I installed ASPI, OpenGL stopped locking up my PC. If you think that's bad, you'd be surprised to find out that the Riva128 doesn't support certain blending modes since the card was specifically designed to conform to the Direct3D 3.0 and 5.0 specifications.
But one thing I REALLY like about the Riva128 is it's context management. It's really more advanced than 3Dfx Voodoo 3's, but in a way, it's a bit overly complicated. The advantage is that the Riva128's registers have no "fixed" address like Voodoo3's making it easier to manage multiple windows (from what I've read and studied on the hardware level myself).
Each card has it's fair share of ups and downs. The Voodoo3 generally runs faster with less bugs, but the Riva128's lighting model is more realistic (I never liked 3Dfx's lighting model). In most cases, games just run slightly better on the Voodoo3, but at the same time, there are games and other apps that run better on the Riva128. Surprisingly, OpenGL generally runs faster on my Riva128.
I did a comparison on the games/3D apps I own to see which is better for which:
1. Aliens versus Predator Gold
- Riva128: Slower, missing blending modes and bogus alpha testing, but the lighting is more realistic (to me).
- Voodoo3: Faster and so far the only card that shows the crosshair properly that I've seen to date, but the game is a little brighter than what I prefer.
2. Sinistar Unleashed
- Riva128: Freezes ingame
- Voodoo 3: Runs fine, but with some faint grey vertical lines and lots more aliasing.
3. Axy Snake
- Riva128: Runs the game flawlessly, minus a few polygon seams and extremely minor z-fighting. Framerates are perfect.
- Voodoo3: Runs fine, but mipmaps look ugly.
4. Please the Cookie Thing
- Riva128: Runs great when the OpenGL drivers are working with some barely noticable z-fighting.
- Voodoo3: Runs horribly slow! Doesn't look nearly as good IIRC.
5. Frogger
- Riva128: Runs okay with the exception of alpha blending bugs.
- Voodoo3: Flawless with Glide.
6. SGI OpenGL demos
- Riva128: Most runs fine without problems
- Voodoo3: Much less compatible and not nearly as fast.
7. Gunman Chronicles:
- Riva128: Runs good, but textures tend to flicker in some scenes and looks dithered.
- Voodoo3: Runs faster, and the lighting is brighter. Frame rates are generally the same.
8. Galactic Patrol:
- Riva128: Runs great with really high framerates.
- Voodoo3: Same as above, but a little slower (so far).
9. Blackhawk Striker I
- Riva128: Perfect except for missing blending modes
- Voodoo3: Perfect.
10. Quake (OpenGL)
- Riva128: Couldn't get it to run properly
- Voodoo3: Same as above, but not even the 3Dfx OpenGL driver .dll worked properly!
11. Return to Castle Wolfenstein
- Riva128: Ran it surprisingly well, but only a few missing alphablending modes.
- Voodoo3: Ran a bit faster without the blending bugs, but the textures were less realistic IMO. Blending aside, I'd rather use the Riva128 for this one.
I've got more games, but haven't done any comparisons on them yet. In spite of it's limitations and buggy drivers, it still competes well in certain areas. In most cases the Voodoo3 outperforms it, but in other cases, the Riva128 demolishes the Voodoo3, especially in the OpenGL department. From a random article I read on the performance and quality of cards running Turok, the Voodoo card did the best, but the Riva128 also did a much better job than all of the other competitors.
So don't be hatin' on my Riva128 y'all. 😀 Love that card...