appiah4 wrote on 2020-01-20, 14:14:

Is this a 2.0 or 2.1? And is the 2.0 E-0036 ultimately OK with AGP cards?

I would assume so, it has the "2.0 E-0036" marking under the chipset... only one way to find out x3

Honestly I would have figured one of your Voodoo Banshee's would have been the perfect fit for this system.

BinaryDemon wrote on 2020-01-20, 14:32:

Honestly I would have figured one of your Voodoo Banshee's would have been the perfect fit for this system.

True but.. Why go with a Banshee when you can go SLI? 😁

How about a Voodoo 3 PCI?

boxpressed wrote on 2020-01-20, 14:57:

How about a Voodoo 3 PCI?

I wouldn't be chasing an AGP SS7 board if I had one of those 😀 I have 4 AGP Voodoo 3s though.

You might be able to trade 3 of those AGP V3s for 1 PCI V3. 😀

I paired a V3 PCI with a GF2 MX in my VA-503+ (select via BIOS). Here's the profile.

K6-3+ Daily Driver Finally (Almost) Complete

aren't most super socket 7 boards AGP anyways?

And is the 2.0 E-0036 ultimately OK with AGP cards?

Should be. Also the north bridge on your board is "CE" revision, which supposedly fixed some VIA issues with AGP cards. I think the FAQ is more about the north bridge problems. Emphasis on "How do I make the board work with the card X".

That basically puts a damper on any plans of a Rage 128 Pro, order cancelled.

That's Fury MAXX, not the normal Rage 128 Pro, which will work on everything, apparently.

This reminds me that there was a common hack for my early Gigabyte GA-6BXC (Intel 440BX Pentium II/III) board where people would bypass the AGP voltage regulator with a wire from the ATX pins in order to power newer GPUs.

I used to have this hack in place on mine, but removed it at some point for some reason. My Geforce 2 MX seems to be working fine so far, though.

And the ATi card I bought is actually a 16MB Rage 128 GL that is 2x only apparently! Perfect.

Now I need to decide between these 1998 setups..

• TNT2 M64 + Voodoo 2 SLI
• Rage 128 + Voodoo 2 SLI
• Intel 740 + Voodoo 2 SLI
• Trio 3D/2X + Voodoo 2 SLI
• Voodoo 3 + Voodoo 1
• Voodoo Banshee + Voodoo 1

Now I need to decide between these 1998 setups..

Riva TNT + Voodoo 2. Classic.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2020-01-21, 06:59:

Now I need to decide between these 1998 setups..

Riva TNT + Voodoo 2. Classic.

I don't have a TNT AGP, just a TNT PCI. Would a TNT2 M64 as a TNT substitute be safe on this board? Also, what does a TNT have that a Rage 128 does not? They are all 1998 cards and the 128 seems to be on par at 16-bit and significantly faster at 32-bit?

Also, what does a TNT have that a Rage 128 does not?

Better drivers, texture filtering.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2020-01-21, 08:42:

Also, what does a TNT have that a Rage 128 does not?

Better drivers, texture filtering.

Maybe at the time, but current latest retro drivers for Rage 128 from ATI work fantastically well.

I also sourced back the Savage3D AGP I had given away to someone as a gift at some point, apparently. So now I also have the option of Savage3D + Voodoo 2 SLI, although the Savage3D is a 1999 card..

When I think of the Savage line, I think of graphics glitches in D3D/GL stuff and frequent hardlocks on certain motherboards, so best of luck with that.

Also if you're bleeding into 1999, go with the V3 anyway. V2SLI=V3=V2SLI is a lie. V3 doesn't thrash as hard, doesn't interlace, and has a greater variety of resolutions. also MVP3 boards and Voodoo3s are a frequent combination because it's least likely to have stability problems (for MVP3 not properly supporting AGP reasons than anything else, and there's also that 3dnow'd driver benefits)

I have two PCs similar to this (out of about 10).

Savage4+V2SLI (win98)
Virge GX2+Voodoo1 (DOS6)

The savage is not a fast card, but I put it in to play Unreal with HQ textures and Metal API. Once I am done with that game the card is coming out and being replaced with a MX440 most likely, or just a geforce2 GTS.

> V3 doesn't thrash as hard, doesn't interlace

Playing Quake1 with trademark interlaced lines on a V2SLI is the definitive 90s gaming experience if you ask me 😁

When it comes down to things you shouldn't put something together that has a date code attached to some purity test. You should put something together that works and that is literally all that matters.

Warlord wrote on 2020-01-22, 06:44:

When it comes down to things you shouldn't put something together that has a date code attached to some purity test. You should put something together that works and that is literally all that matters.

When it comes to my signature builds I tend to try my best to stick with parts within a certain year range to play the games of that year range. For this computer, the target is 1996-1998 to play late DOS and early 3dfx games. Hence, I want to stick with a primary AGP that was released before the end of 1998, although I could relax that slightly into 1999 (the CPU of this build is a K6-2/500 released in early 1999 for example. I envisioned this as a Super Socket 7 PC built around late 97 to early 98 then upgraded in late 98 to early 99..) I also have builds with hardware from very weird time periods for very weird purposes (a Cyrix mII 300 DOS PC, a Duron 1300 Voodoo 3 PC, and possibly soon a Cx5x86 Voodoo 1 PC). This is a different build philosophy though 😀

Considering this approach (and the fact that the deal for the Riva 128ZX fell through), I have limited my choices to the following:

Early 1998:

Late 1998:

A lot of people tend to throw a MVP3+a Mobile K6+and a Voodoo 3 altogether not because of period correct. They do it because it just works. It kinda sucks because it's a wheel that cannot really be reinvented, and there is other options but there are no better options on that platform. So thats why I am just blunt about it. I think the MvP3 chip set sucks personally, but there is not a better substitute for running a mobile K6, and besides that is the best cpu for the platform and its unlocked multipliers it can't hold a candle to Intel offerings. But wheen you put a voodoo 3 in that system it is like sprinkling gold dust on a turd and then it becomes amazing.