Not 100% sure if you need the same card. But that seller has 3. So it makes a lot of sense to buy 2 cards from him.
SLI is pure hardware. No driver issues I believe.
You will need a SLI bridge (small cable). I have two cards, but no bridge. So I couldn't try out SLI yet.
But IMO you can't go wrong with SLI Voodoo2. It's got historic value so to speak. For that price it's well worth owning.
Would I gain a noticeable performance boost going with 2x12MB (STB Blackmagic) over 2x8MB (Diamond Monster 3D II)?
Won't my P200MMX bottleneck the setup?
OH, and is it possible I get scrambled characters when I try to play some EGA games? and jerky scrolling in Commander Keen 4-6? Is that an incompatibility issue with my card? I know pretty much all my hardware was for W95 so yeah..
I hereby declare this the Official Thread of Questions to Mau1wurf1977
You can actually make your own SLI bridge pretty easily out of a floppy cable- I did that for my voodoo 2 SLI rig and it works without issues.
You do need drivers installed for SLI and you can change the setting between SLI or single card through the driver control panel.
As for 8MB vs 12MB it depends on the game, many games won't see a difference but some later games, (eg Quake 2 engined games) do benefit from the extra memory. You are limited to 1024x768 with SLI, or 800x600 with a single card, regardless of how much video memory is on them.
Voodoo 2 SLI actually scales very well with CPU speed, you actually won't see it reach its full potential untill you move to much faster CPUs over a gigahertz. So technically yes a 200MMX will bottleneck the SLI but its nothing to worry about as that is actually what was available at the time the Voodoo 2's were being sold 😀 You will still get a benefit from SLI.
As for commander keen, try enabling SVGA compatibility mode in the options. I think there are command line switches like /COMP or /LATCHPEL to help with video issues, check the readme or help file.
What about 12MB vs 8MB when SLI'ed? 😀 I have my finger on the buy button hehe
The memory on the voodoo 2 is split into texture and framebuffer memory. However when SLI'd only the framebuffer memory doubles, which is why you can run at a higher resolution in SLI over a single card. Higher detail textures take up more texture memory, so for games which use larger textures there is a performance hit, on the card with smaller memory, even in SLI.
Personally unless there was a big difference in price, or I was intending to only play pre-98ish games, I'd got the 12MB.
If you are squeamish, don't prod the beach rubble.
Nevermind guys, was about to purchase when I noticed I didn't have enough Molex connectors (2 left) and not enough physical space, the CPU socket and it's fan are too close one of my three PCI slots. My modest ATI Mach64 card can't fit in that slot, therefore noway the voodoo's can fit. 🙁
Yes that was always a problem 'back in the day', not every system could comfortably fit 3 video cards, plus a sound card and whatever else you needed (NIC, modem etc)
You shouldn't need a molex connector for a voodoo 2 though, they were powered from the PCI slots. If they have fans on them they will run quite comfortably with the fans disconnected (mine do 😉 ) Most V2's didn't come with fans or heatsinks at all, the extra cooling was only for overclocking.
Can you fit a single voodoo card instead?
If you are squeamish, don't prod the beach rubble.
Oh you're right, the connectors are for the fans. Should I get one with or without fans? 😜 I can fit one, I'm debating over buying two ''for the future'' though I'm not that interested in changing Mobo.
Should I get one with or without fans?
Entirely your choice. Like I said they work fine without fans. If you want to overclock and have enough power connectors then the fans are a good idea.
If you are squeamish, don't prod the beach rubble.
Alright I bought two with fans. Around 65$ shipped. Is there any difference in performance between ''primary cards'' (to replace my ATI, if I had something half a inch shorter it would all fit together)
OR something ISA
Isn't your ATI card integrated?
Anyway, the primary card won't have much effect when using the Voodoo cards. If you got a newer card like a TNT2 for example you could run OpenGL/DirectX games on the primary card for better speed and image quality, and run Glide games on the Voodoo cards. Otherwise just run all opengl/directx/Glide games on the Voodoo cards but you'll be limited to 16 bit color.
If you are squeamish, don't prod the beach rubble.
Nah the ATI card is standalone, I didn't have the PC opened when I did the list.
Anyway I'm gonna see if I can work something out 😜 There's no way I can remove the fan off the pentium? It's one of those ceramic-y chip. It doesn't even have thermal paste and the fan is barely touching it.
In other news I just assembled and tested the SLI cable. 1.5ft SVGA cable in the mail. 😀
EDIT: Bought a shorter card for cheap, ATI RAGE LT PRO, not the best thing, but Voodoo2 SLI is gonna be greeaaat ;P Any guideline/drivers/glide patch place?
wrote:wrote:no it isn't... I have a WB2 on my CT3900 with 4.13 DSP... NO hanging notes at all!!!!
and a linux driver page confirms this tooAll three of my AWE32 cards (CT3900, CT3980, CT3990) have a v4.13 DSP and the hanging note bug occurs on them. There are several reports from other people as well (search VOGONS).
Anyway, let's not blow this hanging notes problem out of proportion. The bug doesn't show up on all games, and it's easily circumvented by using another sound card for either digital sound or MIDI.
I installed the hexen demo on my K6-III retro box the other day... ran it on level 2 and no problems at all... worked fine on my 4.13 CT3900 😀
wrote:wrote:wrote:no it isn't... I have a WB2 on my CT3900 with 4.13 DSP... NO hanging notes at all!!!!
and a linux driver page confirms this tooAll three of my AWE32 cards (CT3900, CT3980, CT3990) have a v4.13 DSP and the hanging note bug occurs on them. There are several reports from other people as well (search VOGONS).
Anyway, let's not blow this hanging notes problem out of proportion. The bug doesn't show up on all games, and it's easily circumvented by using another sound card for either digital sound or MIDI.
I installed the hexen demo on my K6-III retro box the other day... ran it on level 2 and no problems at all... worked fine on my 4.13 CT3900 😀
Sometimes, it can take a while for the hanging note to occur. If you run hexen -warp 02 in pure DOS, and you don't hear the problem immediately, then try waiting for up to 10 minutes...
My Hexen level 2 start-to-hanging-note times:
CT3900: 2 minutes
CT3980: 33 minutes
These are just random results though. For quite some time I thought my CT3980 was bug-free, simply because it takes some time for the bug to show up.
Looking at my board, is it possible that it's both AT and ATX? (I have both power connectors on there, as well as having both SIMM and SDRAM slot)
My power switch is definitely does toggle though.
Very interesting. Got a picture?
There were some baby AT boards that had both connectors. I have one socket370 celeron only like that.
wrote:My Hexen level 2 start-to-hanging-note times: […]
My Hexen level 2 start-to-hanging-note times:
CT3900: 2 minutes
CT3980: 33 minutesThese are just random results though. For quite some time I thought my CT3980 was bug-free, simply because it takes some time for the bug to show up.
Thanks very much for taking the time to do those tests.
I played it for like 10-15 mins.. I forgot... I heard none of the sort
