When does the Voodoo actually work?

[martin939]

I am wondering when does the Voodoo actually do it's 3D magic?
What happens when I have a 2D+3D card like the Riva128 and connect it's output to the Voodoo, will it always use Voodoo's 3D capabilities or also Riva's 3D acceleration?

[FFXIhealer]

As long as nothing's actually USING the installed Voodoo driver, then the Voodoo card just passes the video signal through. It's only when the Voodoo driver calls the card into service that it cuts off the video feed and sends out its own signal instead. Games are either configured to use the Voodoo card (Glide), or you have to specify it in the program's configuration settings. Like, I can choose which card to use in Unreal, but GLQuake automatically calls the Voodoo into use directly.

[martin939]

That's exactly my concern - when is the Voodoo actually worthwile and if there is any kind of tool to see whether it's being used or not.

[squiggly]

That's exactly my concern - when is the Voodoo actually worthwile and if there is any kind of tool to see whether it's being used or not.

Glide was one of the the earliest supported 3d APIs (for games) and is only implemented by Voodoo cards. So if you want to play an early Windows/late DOS 3D game with hardware accelerated 3d, Glide/Voodoo may be the only/best option.

[derSammler]

What happens when I have a 2D+3D card like the Riva128 and connect it's output to the Voodoo, will it always use Voodoo's 3D capabilities or also Riva's 3D acceleration?

If the game uses Glide, it will always use the Voodoo. If it uses DirectX and you have more than one 3d-capable card, you can normally choose which card to use.

[psychz]

Use 3D Control Center to switch between those two regarding DirectX games. (Not all games allow you to select a display driver, hence 3dcc sets the card you choose as your primary display device.)

[chinny22]

what a few people do is with screens that have say a vga and DVI adaptor is plug the voodoo card into the vga and the DVI into their other card.
This reduces any quality loss when say playing a DirectX game as it no longer has to pass though the voodoo.
However its also a simple way for you to see when the card is being used just by checking where the screen is getting the signal from.

[meljor]

If you can run in a small window, you're not running on the voodoo since v1 and v2 are ''full screen only''.

Also the default settings for the voodoo's is always a little bright (too me) so that is a way i can see the voodoo is running. When running a Glide executable you'll see a 3dfx splash screen so you'll know the voodoo is taking over.

When you pair it with a S3 card or something like that you'll know.....you will certainly know.... since the voodoo will be fast and the s3 mega slow.

[martin939]

The S3 option is intersting. I've just grabbed an S3 VIRGE DX 2themax
Using dual VGI and DVI could also work, it's just not that convenient.

But what would happen in, let's say 3dmark if we took a 'crazy' combination like Radeon 9600XT + Voodoo 1. Would it count Radeon's score?
How important is the primary 2D graphics adapter when using a Voodoo, not at all? I have a 3D RAGE II but it's as good as unusable in 3D because of 2MB VRAM.

@
I will give 3DCC a shot, thanks!

[Koltoroc]

But what would happen in, let's say 3dmark if we took a 'crazy' combination like Radeon 9600XT + Voodoo 1. Would it count Radeon's score?
How important is the primary 2D graphics adapter when using a Voodoo, not at all? I have a 3D RAGE II but it's as good as unusable in 3D because of 2MB VRAM.

You need to benchmark each card individually (select appropriate card in 3dmark) and the "2D" card is irrelevant for the Voodoo card. they operate completely independent. Btw, the Rage II is not exactly good in 3d anyway. 4MB or more don't make it usable, just less awful.

[Deksor]

On DirectX games, you usually find some sort of launcher where you can select which directx peripheral you want to use (it can be as well in the game's options). For opengl games, as far as I know, all you really need is to move and rename some dlls to use the voodoo card (and to remove them to have the other card being used) though that relies a lot on how opengl was implemented. But that's not a big deal as there's not that much retro games having open gl only as a video renderer.

[martin939]

I've tried to use my Voodoo II (Trust/Skywell Magic 3D II 12MB) but no luck at all so far.
The card is being recognized, I can install the drivers (Fastvoodoo2) but trying to run a Glide demo returns an error, also clicking on the screen properties, then on the 3Dfx tab returns a Windows error.

[derSammler]

First, never start with hacked drivers. Try the drivers for your card or the 3dfx reference drivers first.

Second, "an error" won't help us help you. Tell us the actual error message that appears.

[martin939]

Thanks for the advice, I thought maybe the hacked drivers would work a bit better in terms of compatibility with my card as I couldn't find any Trust branded drivers for this particular card.
I've tried the official 3Dfx ones instead but had no luck either.

Reporting back soon!

[Deksor]

the fastvoodoo drivers are actually overclocking your video card by 3 more MHz ! Even that may cause some trouble ...

[martin939]

Reinstalled the OS and gave it another go w. official 3Dfx driver - I can run a 3Dfx tech demo, can see the card 'activating' itself when checking the Voodoo controls but games like TR:II freeze right away and the PC reboots after ~20 seconds....any idea why? When I ran TRII the first time, it came with a "Zbuffer" error, I turned it off in the settings, it went through the intro and then froze/rebooted directly afterwards.

[Deksor]

Which card do you have ? Is it a voodoo 2 ?

Some early glide games don't like later 3dfx cards though you can often make them to work with some tweaking

[martin939]

Voodoo II 12MB (Skywell/Trust Magic 3D) and an S3 Virge DX 4MB PCI as primary, for compatibility's sake. I remember another game that represented the same behaviour (it was on a Voodoo 1 4MB then) - Interstate 76'. After the intro clip the PC froze and rebooted.

[Munx]

Could the PSU. PCI cards feed off the 3.3-5V rail and with new PSUs those are quite limitted. What are the amp ratings? If it's something like 15A then that might be the peoblem.

[martin939]

Plenty, 16A on 3.3 and 16A on 5V:
http://hardwareinsights.com/wp/wp-conte ... /Label.jpg

I've bought a second Magic 3D II for SLI just now....guess I'd have to change the PSU?