I'm building a slot A system specifically for my voodoo 2's. I'm "planning" on putting a 1ghz thunderbird in it.

IIRC voodoo 2's were common until cpu's were in the 600mhz range. So having one at 1ghz should be more than plenty to keep a pair happy and well fed.

What software can make use of a 1ghz CPU and still looks best on a V2? The V2 doesn't do T&L, which was introduced in 1999. So anything after that is more likely best played on a Geforce. So we're really just talking about 1998-1999 games. The 1ghz P3 wasn't introduced until 2000, so that might be overkill.

I like to "overkill" on the cpu a bit. That way I know they game will play at full resolution/eye candy and still rock a high frame rate. I hate the idea of having a "model 199X" computer and limited to JUST that year. All my retro systems are based off the video card and I build a powerful system around that card.

I have a voodoo 1 in a dual pentium pro setup using overdrives (think 333mhz P2)
My voodoo 5 is in a dual socket 462 system, with 2 2800+ processors.
My voodoo 2's are in a slot A system, and the only reason it isnt a dual cpu is because they didnt exist.
I have a voodoo 3 but no plans for a specific system as it performs the same as a pair of 2's. (mostly)

luckybob wrote:

I like to "overkill" on the cpu a bit. That way I know they game will play at full resolution/eye candy and still rock a high frame rate. I hate the idea of having a "model 199X" computer and limited to JUST that year.

I feel exactly the same...

For me it's mostly about software compatibility.

That's the good thing with XP and it's really long lifespan. You can play most games (a few have video driver issues on modern cards / drivers like Splinter Cell and Pandora) on a current Phenom II or i5 / i7.

Yes Far Cry does run on a period correct Athlon 4000+ and 6800GT, but it runs so much better on a modern machine in Full HD and with HDR rendering enabled 😁

How about a Asrock 775i65G with a Core 2? That's what I used for my goofy Youtube vids of GeForce FX and Radeon 8500. 😁 Bubye CPU limit!

SNAP 🤣

Yah one has to appreciate the wacky combinations of hardware that Asrock whips up.

When it come to old 3dfx Voodoo cards.
3Dfx Voodoo Graphics PCI You want low end 450Mhz P2 or 450Mhz P3 CPU.
3dfx Voodoo 2 SLI PCI you want bear min 800Mhz to 1.4Ghz P3 CPU.
3dfx Voodoo Rush PCI it did not perform as well you better off Voodoo Graphics and separate VGA card.
3dfx Voodoo Banshee PCI/AGP 1x-interface it did not perform as well you better off with Voodoo 2 which was significantly faster any way.
3dfx Velocity 100 (Voodoo 3) it was Low-End OEM card AGP 2x-interface only
3dfx Voodoo 3 and 5 PCI/AGP 2x-interface
3dfx Voodoo 5 with AGP 4x-interface are prototype board which was not always compatibility
3dfx Voodoo 4 AGP 4x-interface
Specification, Speed Pumping Rate (MB/s), Frequency (MHz), Voltage (V)
AGP 1.0, 1x, single 266, 66, 3.3v
AGP 1.0, 2x, double 533, 66, 3.3v
AGP 2.0, 4x, quad 1066, 66, 1.5v

No Voodoo where ever made with
AGP 3.0, 8x, octuple, 2133, 66, 0.8v
So there no guarantee that the Voodoo 4 will work here

Beware that overclocking front side bus that can cuase problem with Voodoo cards.
Voodoo Graphics maybe limited to Windows 2000 I don't know if Vista or if Windows 7 will work being I haven't tested my old mod INF I worte for voodoo 1 with them that I still thing on NT Compatible web site under my old name SHS 3dfx.
Voodoo 2 can be used on any latest system as long you have PCI how ever you need stick to 32bit os and seach for Vista Voodoo2 (Glide) & Another mapmem memory Fix! on 3dfxzone.
Beware that with Voodoo AGP cards that limited up to Pentium 3 and Series 8xx chipsets with AGP 4x they where the last know working chipset I'm not sure about any of the other chipset but I pettey sure they can't be more then AGP 4x or AGP 2.0 Specification.
Pentium 4 chipsets where not always compatibility even with Voodoo 4 it mostly depend on the motherboard chipset I think only 4x AGP where work at the time where AGP 8x not working if recall rigth.

When it come to Dual CPU your pettey much limited to WiindowsNT OS and to Glide only Games with the standalone separate Voodoo cards as they didn't support DirectX under Windows 2000 (YES there Beta but uselss) so we have to thanks MS for remove which was called detached device support mode so there for only Win9x is support just like when they remove Direct3D Sound from Vista.

I was thinking of putting Voodoo2 SLI in my Core 2 box and seeing how that goes. Its 865 chipset even supports 98SE but I would probably try XP for various reasons.

But really even the Athlon 700 can max out Voodoo2 SLI in plenty of games. I've noticed stutters in Unreal at 1024x768, probably due to the cards running out of texture memory and swapping across PCI to RAM. And Quake3 is clearly pushing them hard (and wow is that game ugly on 16-bit color).

swaaye wrote:

I was thinking of putting Voodoo2 SLI in my Core 2 box and seeing how that goes. Its 865 chipset even supports 98SE but I would probably try XP for various reasons.

But really even the Athlon 700 can max out Voodoo2 SLI in plenty of games. I've noticed stutters in Unreal at 1024x768, probably due to the cards running out of texture memory and swapping across PCI to RAM. And Quake3 is clearly pushing them hard (and wow is that game ugly on 16-bit color).

That one of main problem with ICD even back then texture memory and frame buffer speed where to small and slow speed of PCI bus which all didn't help matter

I see Voodoo 2 non-sli gets little love here? 😜

Anyway, I'm kinda the opposite sometimes, I try to 'somewhat' maximize a CPU (= fast VGA and slow CPU) at times instead of maximizing the graphics card.

Hmm hang on a minute...

Don't 3DFX use the PCI bus? Doesn't this mean that you can run all the DOS based glide games on a modern Phenom II / i5 machine?

Properly stretch the legs of Voodoo2 in SLI 🤣

Voodoo's scale to the moon, so the faster the CPU you use with them, the better they get. For SLi V2's I'd go with a Tualatin or P4 to get the most out of them. You might need to cool them, though. I think I remember someone mentioning that they get hot with a really fast CPU pushing the geometry data to them.

I don't know about voodoo2's, but I have used voodoo3 in everything from a 233 MHz PMMX all the way to a 1000 MHz P3.
The last gaming box had a p3-650. I was planning on replacing it with something faster - but that processor seemed more than fast enough for what I was doing (half-life, unreal, descent 3).

I've not used a V2 SLI on anything faster than a 500+mhz cpu but a single V3 feels faster with the same cpu and a GF256 beats them both flat.

Thanks for the comments. I might try to pick up an 800-1ghz P3 for these cards then. I don't think my IBM supports more than 550mhz CPUs. I do have a GF2MX in that computer too, so maybe I'll move it over and get some head to head comparisons of Glide vs DirectX/GL on late 90s games.

Just for benchmarking purposes, what's the most resource intensive game that supports Glide? I guess anything OpenGL will run on V2s, but what about those that use the Glide API? Diablo II is the latest (2000) Glide native game I know of.

Edit: Looks like Undying is a good high water mark for Glide games. Unreal 1 engine, 500MHz CPU required. I definitely need another PC for this one.

If your IBM only supports Katmai, you 'could' up it to *GASP* 600Mhz 😳

The sweet spot for V2 SLI should be around 800 to 1GHz. If nostalgic about time period it would around PII 400 - PIII 500

About Voodoo 1 I think it would be best paired with a P1 166 to 233 w/MMX if not a Pentium Pro.

I'm currently setting up a pair of Diamond Monster 3D II (Voodoo 2 12MB) in SLI with a Savage 4 32mb, Pentium 3 550 Slot 1 (Katmai), ASUS P3B-F mobo, 128mb PC133 SDram, Soundblaster 64 AWE gold for testing. Just got Win98SE installed after 10 tries!

The same pair was under a Pentium 3-S 1.4GHz, Geforce 4 Ti4600, Via Apollo Pro 133T chipset, 768MB PC133 and SB 64 AWE Gold! I don't believe performance was much better than a 1GHz Voodoo 3 setup I got going on.

Hmmm...now I'm actually starting to consider building an SLI rig...
Thinking out loud...VC820 board, Slot 1 1Ghz, 512MB RIMM, Voodoo 2 SLI, 20GB laptop drive (2006 vintage, should be speedy enough for loading), Windows ME 😁 and some random AGP card 😁
And a 300W FSP PSU.