elfuego wrote:Advising someone to use GF2 today is like advising him to buy a 14" TFT monitor with lousy response time for the same price as a […]
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maddmaxstar wrote:The Voodoo3 will run any Glide/OpenGL/DX7 game, however some Direct3D games won't run as nice on them as they would on the GeForce2 due to the V3's limited graphics performance and lack of Hardware T&L. Ultimately the best option is to get a Voodoo2 for use with any Glide games and use it with the GeForce2.
Then again, if the Voodoo3 runs every game you throw at it just fine, you should be good, plus you won't have to mess with any passthrough cables. 😜
Advising someone to use GF2 today is like advising him to buy a 14" TFT monitor with lousy response time for the same price as a brand new 22" wide screen. In other words, Whatever GF2 can do, a GTX580 can do much, much better. In terms of game and OS compatibility, use AGP GF 6800 Ultra instead.
The real options he has are:
1) retro 2D video card (S3 Virge/Trio, Matrox Millenium/Mistique,Ati Rage) + Voodoo 2 in a retro system
2) ultra modern (yet Win 2k / XP /9x compatible) system with Voodoo 2
3) V3/4/5 as a main card in a retro system
Whatever option he chooses, he will be pleased as 3dfx Glide never fails to deliver. 😅
Actually, recommending the GF2 today vs a GF 6800U is like recommending 17" 4:3 LCD vs a 24" Widescreen with DVI-D only. Here's the difference though, he already has the 17" LCD, where he'd have to buy the 24" screen, and possibly a video card that supports DVI-D, etc. The 17" works with the existing setup without spending any money.
Using a GF2 would run anything period accurate perfectly that a Pentium III 800-1.4GHz system would run adequately, while also keeping with what class of video card a Pentium III owner in 2000-02 would have been using. A Voodoo2 would simply add Glide functionality, and there's hardly any Glide-based games that wouldn't run well on a Voodoo2 or V2 SLI.
The Geforce2 Ultra is much faster than a V3/4/5, a Trio/Virge with a Voodoo2 would make a good 96-98 system, a GF 6800 Ultra would need a bigger PSU, and a GTX 580 would need a modern computer with PCIe slots - which would defeat the purpose of building/owning a Retro system.
Long story short, simply adding a Voodoo2 is the easiest way to get Glide while maintaining the period accuracy of the P3 retro system and also preserve the performance it has.
= Phenom II X6 1090T(HD4850) =
= K7-550(V3-3000) =
= K6-2+ 500(V3-2000) =
= Pentium 75 Gold(Voodoo1) =
= Am486DX4-120(3DXpression+) =
= TI486DLC-40(T8900D) =
= i386sx-16+i387(T8900D) =