Likely because there are games that will work on V2 but not on V3.

Indeed, Voodoo3 can't bend itself back to support all DOS games.

MechWarrior 2's 3dfx release and EF2000's 3dfx patch are a couple of those few titles that don't use Glide 2.x and thus don't play nice on later cards.

In fact, you basically have to configure a Voodoo2 to act like a Voodoo1 for them to work right, and EF2000 actually doesn't use Glide at all, instead making direct hardware calls.

I can definitely see the justification in keeping both a Voodoo1/2 and a later card for anyone interested in such games.

That just leaves the question of how to ensure a Voodoo2 and Voodoo5 5500 AGP don't step on each other's toes when installed in the same machine for later Glide games. I've thought about throwing both cards in a single computer for a DOS/98 build before.

That's easy. Install Voodoo2 drivers first, and then your VoodooBanshee/3/4/5 drivers afterward. If you need to use the V2 for a game, just pull the applicable Glide2/3x.dlls out of V2's driver archive and stick them in your game's folder which will initiate the V2 instead.

The proper combo is Voodoo3 or Voodoo5 + Voodoo1.
Voodoo1 is used for static linked DOS glide games (Battle Arena Toshinden, EF2000 etc) and glide 2.1.1 only Windows glide games (Mechwarrior 2: 31st century combat 3dfx, Pandemonium! etc). All others glide games use Voodoo3/5.
Almost all Windows glide games can be switched to the Voodoo1 if you just copy voodoo1 glide2x.dll/glide3x.dll and fxmemmap.vxd to the game .exe directory.

Why is that? Are there games the voodoo2 doesn't support but the voodoo1 supports? And then does all the games that the voodoo2 supports work on voodoo1?

What about the voodoo4? I'm curious because I just got one for $7 from a recycling place...

Every case I've seen for a game that was only really designed for the Voodoo1 would work on a Voodoo2 if you ran a bunch of batch commands to make the Voodoo2 basically perform as a Voodoo1. They have a similar enough architecture for this to work.

The Voodoo4 4500 is a VSA-100 card like the Voodoo5, just with only one VSA-100 instead of two. Anything that works on the V5 should work on the V4, albeit at reduced performance. If people have the choice, they'd naturally go V5.

You are too optimistic.
There are 3 DOS glide games (glide2x.ovl) which are Voodoo1 only. Dreams to Reality, Prost Grand Prix and Tie Break Tennis.
And for the glide 2.1.1 games - well, I have tried. Looks like I missed something...
Plus some glide games (glide2x.dll/glide3x.dll) freeze too (FIFA 99, Hind, World Cup 98) on Voodoo2 and above cards.

Gamecollector wrote:

You are too optimistic. There are 3 DOS glide games (glide2x.ovl) which are Voodoo1 only. Dreams to Reality, Prost Grand Prix an […]
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You are too optimistic.
There are 3 DOS glide games (glide2x.ovl) which are Voodoo1 only. Dreams to Reality, Prost Grand Prix and Tie Break Tennis.
And for the glide 2.1.1 games - well, I have tried. Looks like I missed something...
Plus some glide games (glide2x.dll/glide3x.dll) freeze too (FIFA 99, Hind, World Cup 98) on Voodoo2 and above cards.

All games I've admittedly not heard of or not tried...the world of mid-'90s PC hardware sure is a finicky one.

Meanwhile, my Voodoo2's been collecting dust in a box somewhere because everything I have tried generally works with some form of Glide wrapper or the right DOSBox build. Same for the Voodoo5.

NamelessPlayer wrote:

Every case I've seen for a game that was only really designed for the Voodoo1 would work on a Voodoo2 if you ran a bunch of batch commands to make the Voodoo2 basically perform as a Voodoo1.

Do you have a link for this?

And does GTA require a Voodoo 1? IIRC, I have a Voodoo 2, and I tried tons of different drivers, but could not get any of the 3DFX demos of GTA to run.

Asaki wrote:

And does GTA require a Voodoo 1? IIRC, I have a Voodoo 2, and I tried tons of different drivers, but could not get any of the 3DFX demos of GTA to run.

No, GTA is one of the few games that even supports 800x600 mode. You just have to be sure you have the right .OVL file. Just download a bunch of drivers and test the OVL file one by one.

Asaki wrote:

NamelessPlayer wrote:

Every case I've seen for a game that was only really designed for the Voodoo1 would work on a Voodoo2 if you ran a bunch of batch commands to make the Voodoo2 basically perform as a Voodoo1.

Do you have a link for this?

And does GTA require a Voodoo 1? IIRC, I have a Voodoo 2, and I tried tons of different drivers, but could not get any of the 3DFX demos of GTA to run.

See this thread:
Voodoo 2 DOS Glide compatibility matrix

Actually, I dug out my Voodoo today, and it's a 3, not a 2 =/ I guess that would explain why it doesn't work.

Asaki wrote:

Actually, I dug out my Voodoo today, and it's a 3, not a 2 =/ I guess that would explain why it doesn't work.

The Voodoo3 runs quite alot of DOS Glide games, including the most popular ones like Descent II, GTA, Carmageddon and Screamer 2/Rally.

Voodoo 2 DOS Glide compatibility matrix

Idunno, I tried every driver file I could find and nothing worked. The card works fine in Windows, so I don't think that's the issue. Could be the CPU (Core 2 Duo), but the game worked fine without 3DFX.

I didn't try running Descent II or Carmageddon. I can't imagine they'd look very good with bilinear filtering.

Well, I pulled out my Voodoo 3 the other day, and I got the ECTS demo to work (though no 3DFX logo shows up before the game loads), but the regular 3DFX demo doesn't work...it just shows a garbled mess, and if I blindly change the resolution a few times, it'll crash back to the menu with the same old "What 3DFX card?" error message.

Didn't try the full version of the game, the free version doesn't come with any DOS files, and I'm too lazy to find and burn an ISO.

Is this in windows 98? Or are you using xp...

It is in DOS 😉

Does your installed version of GTA contain the GLIDE2X.OVL files (i.e.: C:\GAMES\GTA\GLIDE2X.OVL) ? In that case you can try removing those files or replace them with the Glide files that correspond to your graphics card. I remember a few of the older GTA releases (not sure about the retail install) which came with .OVL's written for the Voodoo Graphics. Using a Voodoo 2 or newer wouldn't work ("What 3DFX card?") unless you change the .OVL.

The best way to go would be to remove the .OVL's in the games' directory and place the correct .OVL in one of the directories mentioned in the PATH-environment (SET PATH=...).