I was wondering what would be the most cost efficient 3dfx pci card to use along with my TNT2 Ultra and Pentium II 450 mhz. I was thinking about a Voodoo3 but they are too expensive for my budget. Also what are the models/brands to look for or avoid for that kind of card?
You can only use v1/v2 in conjunction with another card. V2 is not much cheaper than v3, but much faster than v1.
I don't think that anything else than Voodoo2 makes sense in this case. I assume that 3Dfx card will be used just for Glide games when your primary 3D accelerator is TNT2 Ultra.
Maybe you can find a Voodoo 3 2000 with a PCI interface for an acceptable price.
kolderman wrote on 2020-01-03, 09:48:You can only use v1/v2 in conjunction with another card. V2 is not much cheaper than v3, but much faster than v1.
So these would be the best option for ease of use with the TNT2, got it.
diagon_swarm wrote on 2020-01-03, 10:39:I don't think that anything else than Voodoo2 makes sense in this case. I assume that 3Dfx card will be used just for Glide games when your primary 3D accelerator is TNT2 Ultra.
Looks like I have to find a Voodoo2 then! Yes will use the TNT2 for all non glide games. Is there a big difference between the 8mb and 12mb for my build?
aaronkatrini wrote on 2020-01-03, 16:46:Maybe you can find a Voodoo 3 2000 with a PCI interface for an acceptable price.
How much hassle would it be to switch between the Voodoo3 and the TNT2?
elcold wrote on 2020-01-03, 18:18:[...]
How much hassle would it be to switch between the Voodoo3 and the TNT2?
Depends on your operating system, but assuming Windows 98, not much worse than any other card - boot with new card, Windows detects change and installs basic VGA driver, then reboots. You install Voodoo driver, then reboot again and you should be good to go.
.....not to mention switching the monitor cables around, flipping between PCI and AGP init in the bios probably too (Assuming the TNT2 involved is AGP as it damn well should be). The Voodoo3's a proper video card that has none of the pairing strategies of the V1/V2/PCX1/PCX2.
Windows 98 is able to run both cards at the same time (even for extended desktop setups). The only issue is with OpenGL, which works only on the card that was used for booting. Switching between cards will require just going into display properties, enable the screen connected to the secondary card and disable the one connected to the primary card (no restart required) + connect the monitor cable to the active card (if you don't have a monitor with two VGA inputs).
I would recommend you to buy a Voodoo2 instead. It's a cleaner setup.
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Regarding the difference between 8MB and 12MB versions of V2, go with 12MB one if you can. It can store twice as much texture data because it has 4MB connected to each of the two texture mapping units (instead of 2MB). Especially in early Direct3D, which loads each texture in both units, an 8MB version of V2 means that there is just 2MB of storage space for texture data... and that's not much.
Thanks for all the help! Will be keeping an eye out for a Voodoo 2 12mb card that fits my budget.
