swaaye wrote:

Voodoo5 is of course another story compared to the other retro GPUs. It has some serious value for that game era.

It does indeed, but 950Mhz is not enough to power it up properly. It would be a shame to limit such a card with that CPU 😒

elfuego wrote:

swaaye wrote:

Voodoo5 is of course another story compared to the other retro GPUs. It has some serious value for that game era.

It does indeed, but 950Mhz is not enough to power it up properly. It would be a shame to limit such a card with that CPU 😒

I'm wondering how you're figuring the V5 5500 could possibly be better than a GeForce2 when it wasn't even as fast as a GeForce 256. It takes a V5 6000 just to pull even with a GF2 Ultra. The only advantage the V5 has is that it takes a lighter hit with FSAA turned on. In every other way the GF2U outclasses it.

The earliest Radeon i'd ever consider to stick into there is a R300...

leileilol wrote:

The earliest Radeon i'd ever consider to stick into there is a R300...

I think R300 would be too much for that CPU. It would probably be more appropriate for an Athlon XP. I'm also trying to avoid AGP issues.

elfuego wrote:

It does indeed, but 950Mhz is not enough to power it up properly. It would be a shame to limit such a card with that CPU 😒

In some cases that's true. If you want really high framerate on a moderately complex game and run low resolution without FSAA, the CPU will be a bottleneck. But you can easily shift the bottleneck back to the Voodoo5 by using either high resolution or FSAA.

sliderider wrote:

elfuego wrote:

swaaye wrote:

Voodoo5 is of course another story compared to the other retro GPUs. It has some serious value for that game era.

It does indeed, but 950Mhz is not enough to power it up properly. It would be a shame to limit such a card with that CPU 😒

I'm wondering how you're figuring the V5 5500 could possibly be better than a GeForce2 when it wasn't even as fast as a GeForce 256. It takes a V5 6000 just to pull even with a GF2 Ultra. The only advantage the V5 has is that it takes a lighter hit with FSAA turned on. In every other way the GF2U outclasses it.

In fact the GF2U is also limited by a 950 MHz CPU. So the decision has to take always into account that a CPU limitation is present.
The main difference is that a V5 enables Glide which has lower CPU overhead than D3D. So the CPU limit is at higher frame rates.
A GF2 on the other hand takes advantage in D3D games that use TnL.

But there is an easy way to answer this, just plug the cards and bench for the games where you'd like to know the performance. As games use different engines there can not be a general best solution. So it is only possible to recommend a card due to it's strengths. But the final test is to get comparison numbers...

swaaye wrote:

In some cases that's true. If you want really high framerate on a moderately complex game and run low resolution without FSAA, the CPU will be a bottleneck. But you can easily shift the bottleneck back to the Voodoo5 by using either high resolution or FSAA.

This. There is no telling whether this is balanced if we do not known what settings are you aiming at in what games. For example in 1600x1200x32 the CPU would have easy time.

sliderider wrote:

I'm wondering how you're figuring the V5 5500 could possibly be better than a GeForce2 when it wasn't even as fast as a GeForce 256.

I see you didnt bother with the more recent benchmarks (V5 with a modern CPU), so I'll put it simply: Glide. Practically every 3D game up to 1999-2000 (practicaly the 1Ghz era) has Glide mode. If you never tried Glide, I can warmly suggest you try it and reconsider the above statement.

...and if you care only about speed, then why GF2? Why not go for GF 6800 ultra and be done with it? 😉

elfuego wrote:

sliderider wrote:

I'm wondering how you're figuring the V5 5500 could possibly be better than a GeForce2 when it wasn't even as fast as a GeForce 256.

I see you didnt bother with the more recent benchmarks (V5 with a modern CPU), so I'll put it simply: Glide. Practically every 3D game up to 1999-2000 (practicaly the 1Ghz era) has Glide mode. If you never tried Glide, I can warmly suggest you try it and reconsider the above statement.

...and if you care only about speed, then why GF2? Why not go for GF 6800 ultra and be done with it? 😉

I think that pairing up a 950mhz athlon with a 6800 wouldn't have the same "magic" than it would with a Geforce2 Ultra or a 5500. Anyway if I were you I'd spend 50 bucks and go with both an Ultra and a 5500 PCI so you could have fast opengl and glide + great FSAA too. Granted, it could be a bit overkill but that way you would have best of both worlds 😁

elfuego wrote:

swaaye wrote:

Voodoo5 is of course another story compared to the other retro GPUs. It has some serious value for that game era.

It does indeed, but 950Mhz is not enough to power it up properly. It would be a shame to limit such a card with that CPU 😒

Again, pair of voodoo 2's in sli. These cards would drag down 5-600mhz machines. They are still my #1 choice for a 800-1.4 processor.

I paired my voodoo 5 with a dual 2800+ amd. Overkill? A bit, but it let me do things like have emulated cd/dvd with no performance hit to the game.

A 950 should be enough to saturate a voodoo 2 with a bit of overhead for background tasks.

Ok, a Geforce2 ultra and a pair of V2 then? 😐

Filosofia wrote:

Ok, a Geforce2 ultra and a pair of V2 then? 😐

I'd get a matorx card, like the 450

elfuego wrote:

sliderider wrote:

I'm wondering how you're figuring the V5 5500 could possibly be better than a GeForce2 when it wasn't even as fast as a GeForce 256.

I see you didnt bother with the more recent benchmarks (V5 with a modern CPU), so I'll put it simply: Glide. Practically every 3D game up to 1999-2000 (practicaly the 1Ghz era) has Glide mode. If you never tried Glide, I can warmly suggest you try it and reconsider the above statement.

...and if you care only about speed, then why GF2? Why not go for GF 6800 ultra and be done with it? 😉

Is a V5 6000 and GF2U runing on an Athlon XP 2800+ recent enough?

http://www.x86-secret.com/articles/divers/v5- … 00/v56kgb-7.htm

The V5 6K gets curb stomped by the GF2U even with a fast CPU behind it. A V5 5500 would do considerably worse.

For awhile it seemed GeForce 2 will be matched by competitors, then Nvidia put fast CPU's into use with Detonator 3.

sliderider wrote:

elfuego wrote:

sliderider wrote:

I'm wondering how you're figuring the V5 5500 could possibly be better than a GeForce2 when it wasn't even as fast as a GeForce 256.

I see you didnt bother with the more recent benchmarks (V5 with a modern CPU), so I'll put it simply: Glide. Practically every 3D game up to 1999-2000 (practicaly the 1Ghz era) has Glide mode. If you never tried Glide, I can warmly suggest you try it and reconsider the above statement.

...and if you care only about speed, then why GF2? Why not go for GF 6800 ultra and be done with it? 😉

Is a V5 6000 and GF2U runing on an Athlon XP 2800+ recent enough?

No, its not recent enough. Do not judge a fish by its' ability to climb a tree nor judge a voodoo based on 3dmark only. Here, take something on equal terms (and more recent!) for example:
http://www.3dcenter.org/artikel/3dfx-voodoo5- … real-tournament
Let me phrase it in your way:
The GF2U gets curb stomped by the V5 6K even with a slow CPU behind it. A V5 5500 does exactly the same as GF2 GTS.
Full review:
http://www.3dcenter.org/artikel/3dfx-voodoo5-6000-review

luckybob wrote:

Filosofia wrote:

Ok, a Geforce2 ultra and a pair of V2 then? 😐

I'd get a matorx card, like the 450

I actually wouldn't. If a pair of voodoo 2's are used in a usual way (VGA pass-through cable), then the output resolution will be limited to 1024x768. Anything above that will be blurry whatever the card he will be using, so he might as well take GF2...or any modern GF for that matter.

Of course, if he bothers to create a VGA switch or uses a monitor with 2 VGA inputs, then he may even profit from the legendary matrox output quality; but then again, if he uses a modern monitor, he could be better off with a modern DVI-capable card (GF 6800), and attach DVI to the primary display card and VGA to voodoo. Get most out of both worlds 😊

Lawl. Using Unreal Tournament to compare the V5 6000 with a GF card. Why the hell are we even bringing the V5 6000 in this? And using UT to compare them? Unreal Engine 1 was practically tailor made for Glide, it's Direct 3D (and OpenGL) support is legendarily bad. Maybe using UTGLR would have been more fair.
So what's next? Deus Ex?
I gotta agree with sliderider here, the GF2 cards are generally faster than the V5 cards(and yes I mean 5500, who the hell owns a working 6000?).

elfuego wrote:

No, its not recent enough. Do not judge a fish by its' ability to climb a tree nor judge a voodoo based on 3dmark only. Here, ta […]
Show full quote

sliderider wrote:

elfuego wrote:

I see you didnt bother with the more recent benchmarks (V5 with a modern CPU), so I'll put it simply: Glide. Practically every 3D game up to 1999-2000 (practicaly the 1Ghz era) has Glide mode. If you never tried Glide, I can warmly suggest you try it and reconsider the above statement.

...and if you care only about speed, then why GF2? Why not go for GF 6800 ultra and be done with it? 😉

Is a V5 6000 and GF2U runing on an Athlon XP 2800+ recent enough?

No, its not recent enough. Do not judge a fish by its' ability to climb a tree nor judge a voodoo based on 3dmark only. Here, take something on equal terms (and more recent!) for example:
http://www.3dcenter.org/artikel/3dfx-voodoo5- … real-tournament
Let me phrase it in your way:
The GF2U gets curb stomped by the V5 6K even with a slow CPU behind it. A V5 5500 does exactly the same as GF2 GTS.
Full review:
http://www.3dcenter.org/artikel/3dfx-voodoo5-6000-review

luckybob wrote:

Filosofia wrote:

Ok, a Geforce2 ultra and a pair of V2 then? 😐

I'd get a matorx card, like the 450

I actually wouldn't. If a pair of voodoo 2's are used in a usual way (VGA pass-through cable), then the output resolution will be limited to 1024x768. Anything above that will be blurry whatever the card he will be using, so he might as well take GF2...or any modern GF for that matter.

Of course, if he bothers to create a VGA switch or uses a monitor with 2 VGA inputs, then he may even profit from the legendary matrox output quality; but then again, if he uses a modern monitor, he could be better off with a modern DVI-capable card (GF 6800), and attach DVI to the primary display card and VGA to voodoo. Get most out of both worlds 😊

Did you even look at the charts at the links you posted? In most tests the GF2U beats the V5 6K. There are very few tests where the V5 6K pulls even or goes faster and the V5 5500 is WAY behind the GF2U. The V5 6K results are irrelevant anyway because so few of them exist. all that matters is that the GF2U is faster than the V5 5500 because that's the only card that is really available to buy.

sliderider wrote:

The V5 6K results are irrelevant anyway because so few of them exist.

Well, you brought V5 6k into discussion, really 🤐

sliderider wrote:

all that matters is that the GF2U is faster than the V5 5500 because that's the only card that is really available to buy.

So, for you, speed is all that matters. In that case, the choice is clear: go for GF 6800.

What I am really trying to explain here is that GF, GF2 and GF 4MX are pure garbage in terms of retro gaming. They offer absolutely nothing interesting or worth owning.

Why V5?
V5 has glide. It offers a very usable FSAA 4x for older games that are have fixed resolution of 640x480. It has great DOS support and flawless output quality. It has DVI (mac version). LOD settings at -2 are a sight to see practically in any game.

Why GF2? Because it's faster then V5? Well, so is GF 6800 and it has much better quality, it has much more advanced FSAA and it actually supports hardware acceleration of Flash (if anyone would be crazy enough to waste time for internet browsing on a retro computer). The only, and I mean, *the* only interesting GF2 card would be the Asus model with shutter glasses. Everything else should be either recycled or decomposed and used as jewelery 😜

I hope I cleared things up 😅

In case you have to pick one solution for 90's 3d games probably everyone would agree it should be 3dfx based for broadest compatibility. But that does not mean every such machine has to be built that way. Beauty of that time was how many very different architectures were competing at once. There is a lot of experience to hunt for and I don't think it matters where one starts. Unless you want to make someone who did not live it actually feel the change 3dfx/others made, then he should stick with some free d for certain time. But do we want to create more fans 15 years later, I don't want to see such 3dmark and Unreal comparisons ever again.

elfuego wrote:

So, for you, speed is all that matters. In that case, the choice is clear: go for GF 6800. […]
Show full quote

So, for you, speed is all that matters. In that case, the choice is clear: go for GF 6800.

What I am really trying to explain here is that GF, GF2 and GF 4MX are pure garbage in terms of retro gaming. They offer absolutely nothing interesting or worth owning.

Why V5?
V5 has glide. It offers a very usable FSAA 4x for older games that are have fixed resolution of 640x480. It has great DOS support and flawless output quality. It has DVI (mac version). LOD settings at -2 are a sight to see practically in any game.

I'd definitely go with the 6600 or 6800, great cards and you always get DVI. GF4 MX cards also have DVI sometimes, so again that's a plus.

FSAA 4x on 640x480 games? I don't know, I prefer to use DgVoodoo or nGlide and actually get a much higher resolution! 🤣
I also have to disagree on the DOS support. What's so great about it? I could never get my V3 or V5 to play Mechwarrior 2 at SVGA (640x480 or 1024x768) and a lot of other SVGA games. Nvidia cards however aways worked great on that regard.

I have to agree on the output quality though, the V5 probably has one of the best analog outputs. Nvidia cards tend to get blurry quite a lot of times. DVI makes that irrelevant though!
I really hate Glide and other proprietary crap like that, I wish everything was D3D or OpenGL so I could have just one card on my retro PC 🙁.