Voodoo 2 SLI is extremely CPU bottlenecked.

are there any glide games the Radeon 8500 would not be able to run with a wrapper anyway

Most likely not, but picture quality will be worse in some aspects.

appiah4 wrote:

So I guess the TL;DR question is, what is in your opinion the most modern system that will benefit from adding a Voodoo 2 or SLI to?

I think Phil's V2 Scaling Project already answers that.

IMO there is a small window of systems between about 1998-1999 (in the 300-800Mhz range) where it makes the most sense to use V2 either single or SLI. You can use it in earlier systems, but you'll be really CPU-bound, or you can use it i newer systems, but there are better period-correct options there.

No straight answer and it depends a lot on the game and the resolution.

One benefit of V2 SLI is running 1024x768, and at that resolution the cards quickly run out of steam. I would say a 500 MHz Pentium III will do the trick.

At lower resolutions however, they scale very well and a much faster CPU is needed to max them out. Having said that, maxing out could be 300+ FPS, so playable frame rates don't require anything high end.

clueless1 wrote:

appiah4 wrote:

So I guess the TL;DR question is, what is in your opinion the most modern system that will benefit from adding a Voodoo 2 or SLI to?

I think Phil's V2 Scaling Project already answers that.

IMO there is a small window of systems between about 1998-1999 (in the 300-800Mhz range) where it makes the most sense to use V2 either single or SLI. You can use it in earlier systems, but you'll be really CPU-bound, or you can use it i newer systems, but there are better period-correct options there.

Well, yes and no. Phil's study answers where scaling stops in each resolution, but it's just that. The question is, even when the scaling stops, is it worth having these in a system alongside a much faster DX8/DX9 class GPU. If you were stuck with, say an Athlon and a GeForce 4 Ti, would you ever rue not having a Voodoo 2 (or SLI) in the system?

Asking this because I can't remember for certain whether certain games had, or ever later got, DirectX hardware rendering. Games off the top of my head that required glide for hardware acceperation back in the day are games like Jane's F-15, Descent 2 and Freespace and I don't know if you can run/play them on semi-modern hardware that might not be fast enough with a glide wrapper, etc.

I have no problem running V2 SLI even on Core 2 Quad. "Period correct hardware" is a silly and unpractical self-limitation really.

If all I'm after is performance and image quality, then I'd pick the GF4 Ti over V2 SLI anytime for opengl games. To use the V2 SLI in that situation would be an impractical self-limitation. 😉

clueless1 wrote:

If all I'm after is performance and image quality, then I'd pick the GF4 Ti over V2 SLI anytime for opengl games. To use the V2 SLI in that situation would be an impractical self-limitation. 😉

For OpenGL, of course. The issue here is glide games, though.

The Serpent Rider wrote:

I have no problem running V2 SLI even on Core 2 Quad. "Period correct hardware" is a silly and unpractical self-limitation really.

As long as you dont have issues with new processors with older games, Im also fine with your comment. I find a Core 2 Quad absolutely overpowered and underutilized as Win98SE cant use more than 1 core, but if you are ok why not.

Is there a list of glide games don't work with opengl?

Glide and OpenGL are two different things. Most games with OpenGL support don't have native support for Glide at all. Instead they use OpenGL wrapper. There are few exceptions though like Hitman: Codename 47.

The Serpent Rider wrote:

Glide and OpenGL are two different things. Most games with OpenGL support don't have native support for Glide at all. Instead they use OpenGL wrapper. There are few exceptions though like Hitman: Codename 47.

Right. My point is that something like a GF4 could play most glide-supported games via opengl better than V2 SLI could with glide. Especially since we are talking about in newer, faster systems, the support will be there in the driver of the GF4, while the performance will be better and capable of higher resolutions. That's where I come back to V2 SLI being a perfect fit for systems in the same era the V2 was king, in games that existed during its lifetime. Personally, if my system is more modern, I'd rather play those glide-compatible games under opengl on a newer card. Just my opinion. You and OP are free to do what makes most sense for you. My opinion is directed at appiah4, not you, since he asked for opinions.

The Serpent Rider wrote:

Glide and OpenGL are two different things. Most games with OpenGL support don't have native support for Glide at all. Instead they use OpenGL wrapper. There are few exceptions though like Hitman: Codename 47.

Glide is just a stripped down version of OpenGL in fact the codes were merged after 3dfx made glide open source.

Here's my experience, completely anecdotal. On my P3 733Mhz Win 98 build, when running Quake 2 with SLI at 1024x768, I would notice v-sync kicking in and dropping my fps to 30 whenever a lot of particle effects were happening. I'm using reference drivers so I can't disable v-sync, not that I'd want to anyway as I hate screen tearing. When upgrading to a 933Mhz P3, the stutter went completely away and Quake 2 holds 60 fps rock solid. So, with no benchmarking or scientific analysis, I'd say that you will cap out near a 1Ghz CPU. I'm betting that when Quake 2 dipped under 60 fps, it was probably just a few frames and thus you can probably get by with around an 850Mhz CPU. Again, purely anecdotal and subjective, others have done the thorough analysis to truly know such things.

The Serpent Rider wrote:

"Period correct hardware" is a silly and unpractical self-limitation really.

If you neglect the "nostalgia" factor, yes it is, you're right. But you can't just erase it, it's important for many.

clueless1 wrote:

The Serpent Rider wrote:

Glide and OpenGL are two different things. Most games with OpenGL support don't have native support for Glide at all. Instead they use OpenGL wrapper. There are few exceptions though like Hitman: Codename 47.

Right. My point is that something like a GF4 could play most glide-supported games via opengl better than V2 SLI could with glide. Especially since we are talking about in newer, faster systems, the support will be there in the driver of the GF4, while the performance will be better and capable of higher resolutions. That's where I come back to V2 SLI being a perfect fit for systems in the same era the V2 was king, in games that existed during its lifetime. Personally, if my system is more modern, I'd rather play those glide-compatible games under opengl on a newer card. Just my opinion. You and OP are free to do what makes most sense for you. My opinion is directed at appiah4, not you, since he asked for opinions.

No, the point is the two aren't interchangeable that simply. OpenGL cards don't just run Glide, it's a proprietary API. The early releases aren't even very modular, addressing the hardware directly. There are third party wrappers that translate Glide to OpenGL, but that could be true of any other API with just more complexity involved. Personally, the way I approach the hobby, emulation takes away most of the fun.

There is a bunch of stuff from 1996-1998 that only offers Glide and software rendering.

As for V2 SLI, I'd probably put it in almost any machine I'd bother with Glide games, unless maybe the main GPU is already a Voodoo 3-5. A 1998 beast P2-450 is what they originally belonged with. SLI is all about output resolution; with time period setups you don't see a real performance benefit, and later the practical use of the extra performance is pretty limited.

firage wrote:

No, the point is the two aren't interchangeable that simply. OpenGL cards don't just run Glide, it's a proprietary API. The early releases aren't even very modular, addressing the hardware directly. There are third party wrappers that translate Glide to OpenGL, but that could be true of any other API with just more complexity involved.

I never said opengl cards run glide. I said*[meant] that games that support glide usually also support opengl.

firage wrote:

There is a bunch of stuff from 1996-1998 that only offers Glide and software rendering.

I guess I'm not familiar with these games then. I'm thinking along the lines of Quake 1-3, Half-Life, and Unreal. Any of these games play very well on something like a GF when using OpenGL.

edited for clarity.

Oh sure. OpenGL games are some of the least problematic out there, but it took a while and more powerful hardware (and a MiniGL hack for 3dfx) to catch on.

Red Baron II/3D was the first Glide game I couldn't live without. 😀

clueless1 wrote:

games that support glide usually also support opengl.

No.
I have tested around 280 windows glide games with the "native" support. Most are glide/d3d or glide/software/d3d. Opengl is rarely used.

Gamecollector wrote:

clueless1 wrote:

games that support glide usually also support opengl.

No.
I have tested around 280 windows glide games with the "native" support. Most are glide/d3d or glide/software/d3d. Opengl is rarely used.

I stand corrected then. So Half-Life, the Quakes, and Unreal are the exceptions?