Exact figures I don't remember, but a V2 is roughly 2x to 3x as fast as the V1.

Compatibility is the benefit, but image quality, resolution and performance are it's weakness.

Still, it will be fast enough to play those games with compatibility issues with playable framerates.

Some games can only* be run on a voodoo 1 card. For example, I haven't been able to run Uprising on anything except for a V1. Other games are buggy on anything other then a V1. There are of course fan made patches for most old glide games, but fo me finding and installing them is a bit of a hassle.

If nothing else, it's nice having a voodoo 1 for it's "historical" value - it is in fact one of the first (if not THE first) consumer 3D accelerator card and it has heralded the 3d gaming era we're enjoying today. They're not that expensive or hard to find (yet) either.

kanecvr wrote:

For example, I haven't been able to run Uprising on anything except for a V1.

The 1.05 patch have fixed this trouble. The game works ok on my nGlide test PC.

I can't find the 1.05 patch anyware. All download links I come across are are broken.

My reason for getting a Voodoo1 card, was to have it as a part of the collection.
I don't consider using it, other than for NFS-II-SE. This game feels right on V1.
The second reason, was to have it for a period correct build.

Totempole wrote:

does the Voodoo 1 bring significantly more to the table in terms of compatibility with early DOS Glide games?

Certainly yes. I'm not being absolute here, everyone's needs and desires vary. But only answering the above question is straight-forward: yes.

Totempole wrote:

I already have another machine with a Voodoo 3 3000 installed. It can already run most of the DOS Glide games I have, but not all of them.

So basically my question is, does the Voodoo 1 bring significantly more to the table in terms of compatibility with early DOS Glide games?

Yes. Check out Voodoo 2 DOS Glide compatibility matrix if you didn't come across it yet, page 2 for V3 results. I count 14 DOS games that have trouble with V3+, and then there's the early Win95 crop of games after that.
V2 vs. V1 it depends. Unless you're averse to fiddling with games to achieve results or a great fan of Tie Break Tennis 98, Prost Grand Prix 1998, Dreams to Reality or Blood specifically (they may run on your V3 instead), V1 is not a great investment.

Totempole wrote:

And if so does it offer comfortable framerates?

The DOS stuff was made to run on a V1 from the start. V2 will offer additional benefits most of the time, but V1's slower performance may actually be preferable in some circumstance.

Thanks for the info. It might be a nice card to have then.

Followup question, and I know this is very subjective, but would it be worthwile to trade an Athlon XP 3000+ CPU and Motherboard for it? 478 Pentium 4s are plentiful here, and although Athlon XP systems are a lot less common, I don't think they really have any benefit over an equivalent P4 setup right?

I have a soft spot for Voodoo Graphics (V1), especially the Orchid cards with the mechanical relay. Lots of good memories.
However, their performance is really pretty poor, even in some games that support them specifically, like EF2000.
I replaced mine with a V2 which was at least twice as fast and still has that 3dfx look & feel.

bjt wrote:

I have a soft spot for Voodoo Graphics (V1), especially the Orchid cards with the mechanical relay. Lots of good memories.
However, their performance is really pretty poor, even in some games that support them specifically, like EF2000.
I replaced mine with a V2 which was at least twice as fast and still has that 3dfx look & feel.

Does a little extra CPU power help at all? For example a P3 500 or thereabout?

Not sure about the mechanical relay thing, but the one I can get is similar to this one.

So do you think it's a worthwhile trade?

Totempole wrote:

bjt wrote:

I have a soft spot for Voodoo Graphics (V1), especially the Orchid cards with the mechanical relay. Lots of good memories.
However, their performance is really pretty poor, even in some games that support them specifically, like EF2000.
I replaced mine with a V2 which was at least twice as fast and still has that 3dfx look & feel.

Does a little extra CPU power help at all? For example a P3 500 or thereabout?
So do you think it's a worthwhile trade?

From what I've read Voodoo1 might start running into problems in some games with a CPU that fast.

Anything above a PII is wasted with a V1, even with CPU hungry games like Unreal. When I moved my Voodoo from a PII 300 to a Pentium 166 all games up to 1997 performed almost identically, and those that got a boost were still not running smooth anyway.

V1 is perfectly at home with a p1 mmx system. It can benefit from a faster cpu up to about a pentium2 300-350mhz. It will not go ANY faster after that with a faster cpu.

In fact, it even can give problems with some games if you use it with a p2 450mhz or higher. This depends a lot on the system and/or card as there are people who have no problems with it on a lot faster p3's.
The problem can be like graphical glitches in some games up to no display at all in others. Voodoo2 and higher do not have these problems.
But pushing any voodoo card with an extreme fast cpu can only make them run hotter, so going ''extreme overkill'' on the cpu is not a good choice imho and it is always a safe bet to add a fan for some cooling.

For v1 glide games i use a p1 233mmx and it runs very smooth. Any game that needs something faster will probably not run great on a voodoo1 anyway.

I frequently ran Unreal at 512x384 with the Voodoo1. I also had the card overclocked to 55MHz or so. IMO it's more game than the card can really handle. At the time of course it was the only way to go.

I don't really use it for anything. I guess if I were to want to mess with some of the old DOS game Glide ports, I would get it out.

So back to my followup question, would it be worthwhile trading my Athlon XP 3000+ CPU and motherboard for a Voodoo 1 card?

You been here longer than I have and should know that by now 🤣.
This generation of cards is the one that got everything started and is a must have for any collector plus their performance is good enough for a lot of games from their time. You can mod V1 era cards for extra memory for a small performance boost and adding some form of cooling does help. Overclocking is limited to the quality of the vram and 55mhz or so is usually the limit. I got two V1s and two Voodoo Rush that I enjoy using. 😀

If you feel that performance is really going to be an issue consider getting a V2 and it doesn't have to be two of them in sli.

Totempole wrote:

So back to my followup question, would it be worthwhile trading my Athlon XP 3000+ CPU and motherboard for a Voodoo 1 card?

If you can line up a bunch of exciting things to do with it, yeah that might be worthwhile. 😀

Totempole wrote:

So back to my followup question, would it be worthwhile trading my Athlon XP 3000+ CPU and motherboard for a Voodoo 1 card?

If you can get the same type of hardware for less than you can source another V1 for. Then yes.
The question is more like. What is the most easy to source!? The Athlon stuff? Or the Voodoo1?

Truth is, V1s seem to be getting constantly harder to come by as time passes. In my opinion, if you really mind the games you can't play with a V2 or better and you have a nifty little P233 or a socket 7 system close to this, go for it, just for the sake of period-correctness and the coolness factor of owning one, nothing more than that...

nforce4max wrote:

adding some form of cooling does help.

This is an excellent idea regardless of how you clock the card as it will serve to protect the chips.