Hey everyone, I was researching Voodoo2 SLI information recently to get to the bottom of whether different manufacturers could be relied-on to work together in SLI using period-correct drivers, and I stumbled on this Maximum PC article from January 1999 which quotes Tony Tamasi from 3Dfx directly:

Maximum PC (Jan 99 Issue, p. 75) From: https://books.google.com/books?id=IgIAAAAAMBA … o%20SLI&f=false Accessed: 20 July 2021 […]
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Maximum PC (Jan 99 Issue, p. 75)
From: https://books.google.com/books?id=IgIAAAAAMBA … o%20SLI&f=false
Accessed: 20 July 2021

Ask The Doctor
SLI Odd Couples
I have a 12MB Diamond Voodoo2. Can I add another manufacturer’s Voodoo2 card to go SLI, or do I have to get another Diamond card?
-Mark Simony
Yes and no. It’s been reported that you can accomplish this by using 3Dfx’s older reference drivers. But I tested this in our Labs and couldn’t get it to work, so I consulted Tony Tamasi, 3Dfx’s Senior Product Manager. He replies:
“Our reference drivers do not allow different Voodoo2 boards to be used in SLI. We don’t want a situation where you can’t get support from either manufacturer because the finger of responsibility doesn’t rest on either one.
“Some Voodoo2 boards differ from the reference design (or other Voodoo2 board designs) and can exhibit different electrical or timing characteristics. The SLI interconnect is sensitive enough that 3Dfx can’t guarantee different Voodoo2 designs working together in SLI.
“Board manufacturers such as Metabyte are free to create drivers that allow their boards to work in SLI with other manufacturer’s cards, and in doing so they assume the support responsibility regardless of who manufactured the other Voodoo2 board.”

I know that drivers now exist that attempt to solve the SLI problem between different manufacturers, but I thought this was an interesting piece of 3Dfx history that I thought I'd share.