Intended feature, it's the 4x1 DAC filter smoothing out the dithering to approximate a 24-bit picture. Most older Glide games activate this. Direct3D and OpenGL (ICD - not MiniGL) games don't activate this.

Thanks for the photos 😀

I thought only the voodoo 3 had the 4x1 "22-bit" filter-- and that voodoo 2s were exclusively 16-bit?

Voodoo Graphics cards always had the characteristic look of blurring 4 pixels to the right per 1 vertical line.

If your voodoo is showing these 'lines' then there is nothing wrong with it 😀

leileilol wrote:

Voodoo Graphics cards always had the characteristic look of blurring 4 pixels to the right per 1 vertical line.

If your voodoo is showing these 'lines' then there is nothing wrong with it 😀

Yeah but the 4x1 filtering is exclusive to the 22-bit output from my understanding (as required to simulate more colours), so if the RAMDAC is doing some extra stuff on a voodoo2, it wouldn't be 4x1 filtering it's exclusively 16-bit.

I've never noticed anything like this on my voodoo2, but then again I never use LCDs.

Alright, thanks for your responses. I'm not sure if I've noticed any blurring for vertical lines, but that's good to know. I've only noticed these horizontal lines having different colors / brightness. I had no idea these cards did that. I lack a CRT so I don't have a way to see what it would look like on there. I assume it would be the same as your case; not noticing it at all.

Oh, and something I didn't mention. I know that Tomb Raider has a 3DFX logo appear right before the menu, but for some reason it doesn't appear when I'm using the real thing. Is this the work of emulators and there shouldn't be any splash logo? (and I would also like Lara's shadow to come back, guess that's the price of using these cards because the devs couldn't be bothered to add it properly)

This effect is very visible on a CRT btw.

I even wrote a pixel shader to replicate this filter effect, studied off my own Voodoo2

For image quality V3 is the way to go. Late news having just gotten V2 SLI.

At low resolutions especially, V and V2 produce look this certain way. I haven't investigated this any closer, just noticed how good the image was with a V3.

The V, V2, V4 and V5 also have odd image positioning. This is likely not an issue on CRT monitors, but when capturing or displaying on LCDs some parts are cut off. The V3 has the best positioning and does the best captures with everything on the screen.

leileilol wrote:

This effect is very visible on a CRT btw.

I even wrote a pixel shader to replicate this filter effect, studied off my own Voodoo2

What I'm getting stuck on is the fact that it can't be related to the 22-bit filter as this was never designed on a voodoo2.

Now I often play modern games in 16-bit deliberately (like warcraft 3) for the dithering effects as I quite like them. So perhaps I have not noticed extra artifacts introduced in earlier glide-games due to me passing them off as 16-bit artifacts.

I'll have to compare some glide against non-glide stuff of the same game later as I am intrigued now. Heck, may as well see what the 22-bit filter introduces as well as there are *zero* comparisons with all three possible modes simultaneously.

Shouldn't be hard to test with games that support Glide as well as Direct 3D. Descent 3, Hitman, Turok, Turok 2, Unreal?

or id Tech2-based games since they all ship with a 3dfx MiniGL that links to Glide2x, using this 4x1 filter automatically.

It's not an anachronism. It's not "22-bit".

leileilol wrote:

This effect is very visible on a CRT btw.

I even wrote a pixel shader to replicate this filter effect, studied off my own Voodoo2

Actually, when I tested Quake2 demo, I didn't notice the lines on the HUD elements, but the 3D environment had it. (notably, the health icon looked perfectly normal as with the numbers from what I could tell)

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

For image quality V3 is the way to go. Late news having just gotten V2 SLI.

At low resolutions especially, V and V2 produce look this certain way. I haven't investigated this any closer, just noticed how good the image was with a V3.

I actually chose the Voodoo 2 over others because of the games I want to use it with, namely Tomb Raider and Redguard, though I plan on getting some of the classics eventually like Quake. I saw from the compatibility list on here that this card works well with those games so that's why I picked them.

EDIT:

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

The V, V2, V4 and V5 also have odd image positioning. This is likely not an issue on CRT monitors, but when capturing or displaying on LCDs some parts are cut off. The V3 has the best positioning and does the best captures with everything on the screen.

Darn, I was actually planning on doing some video capture with mine too once I get a new system running that can actually do it.

Agent of the BSoD wrote:

Actually, when I tested Quake2 demo, I didn't notice the lines on the HUD elements, but the 3D environment had it. (notably, the health icon looked perfectly normal as with the numbers from what I could tell)

They should look blurry once you enter the menu as they're dimmed.

Agent of the BSoD wrote:

Darn, I was actually planning on doing some video capture with mine too once I get a new system running that can actually do it.

My AVermedia Game Broadcaster HD for example can't capture the V2 @ 800 x 600. SLI @ 1024 x 768 works fine however.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Agent of the BSoD wrote:

Darn, I was actually planning on doing some video capture with mine too once I get a new system running that can actually do it.

My AVermedia Game Broadcaster HD for example can't capture the V2 @ 800 x 600. SLI @ 1024 x 768 works fine however.

And that's the card I was going to get. I really should look into a Voodoo 3 later, then. Thanks for the info though!

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

My AVermedia Game Broadcaster HD for example can't capture the V2 @ 800 x 600. SLI @ 1024 x 768 works fine however.

What about 512x384? The doublescanned output of that resolution should be useful and expose the pixels more accurately.

leileilol wrote:

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

My AVermedia Game Broadcaster HD for example can't capture the V2 @ 800 x 600. SLI @ 1024 x 768 works fine however.

What about 512x384? The doublescanned output of that resolution should be useful and expose the pixels more accurately.

My memory is fuzzy but a single card should work. That is after editing the registry and setting it to 60 Hz. But I can't remember to be honest. The LCD had no issues however.

SLI is a different story. 60 Hz isn't possible, it defaults to 70 or 72 per design. Nothing can be done about it.

I might revisit IQ down the track as part of a project I got planned 😀

Yeah, I just tried the Redguard demo and those lines are not present, so that's nice. (though most of the conversations were muted for some reason) Laggy game on anything above 640x480 (with SLI), but beautiful. It also suffers the same problem Tomb Raider has from me having to reboot the system to make the cards usable again.

i am having same problems. messed up control panel text (suspecting have something to do with riched20.dll file) and having to restart pc after dos game. or just open V2 control panel and close it. that somehow resets V2 cards without reboot. (doesnt always work)

Speaking of 22bit, does anybody have a comparison between 16bit and 22bit on the Voodoo 3?