VOGONS


First post, by lionel.tardy

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Hello guys!

Since one week I'm stuck with my 3Dfx Voodoo 2 SLI setup on my AMD K6 under Win98SE. I have two Diamond Voodoo 2 12MB. They work fine under DirectX 6/7 (Tested in 3D Mark 99 1024x768 ✓) but as soon as I try to use Glide things becomes... dark. I just got a black screen with the app runing fine (I can ear the intro sound of UT 99, I can exit the app). If I disable the SLI in the pref panel, UT and other 3Dfx demos are working (but no hi-res 1024 ;–).

I spent a lot of time reading all the SLI issues on this forum or other website, I switched the cards, tested them independantly, tried various drivers (Diamond, 3Dfx Reference, FastVoodoo2, etc.). No solution found.

One strange thing is the card VGA connection. If I connect (as it supposed to be according to documentation) VGA Card → Voodoo 2 A → Monitor, I got a "no signal message" on my monitor as soon I run a Glide/DirectX app. If I connect VGA Card → Voodoo 2 A → Voodoo 2 B → Monitor, it work fine (DirectX: ✓, Glide: black screen).

Also, by using FastVoodoo 2 drivers, instead of a black screen, I got weired artifacts.

I even tried on an other computer (PIII @600Mhz). Same behaviour.

Now I'm a bit out of solution. If anyone has an idea (please don't tell me to swap the card or test them intependantly ;–) already done this).

This is my hardware setup:

  • Motherboard: SOYO SY-5EMA
  • Processor: AMD K3 @300Mhz
  • RAM: 64MB Dimm
  • VGA: ATI Rage Pro 8MB
  • Storage: 2× Diamond Voodoo 2 12 MB
  • 3D: IBM Deskstar 10Gb @7200RPM
  • 3D: 2× Diamond Voodoo 2 12 MB
  • Sound: Creative Labs Sound Blaster AWE 64
  • Network: TRENDnet TE100-PCIWN

Reply 1 of 4, by maxtherabbit

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you sure they are working under directx? How do you know it's not the ATI rage providing the DX support?

anyway it sounds like the VGA output on one of your two v2 cards is dead, which in an SLI config is ok because you only need the output of the "primary" card to work

test each voodoo2 individually in glide mode (by physically removing the other one)

Reply 2 of 4, by lionel.tardy

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Hello maxtherabbit. Thank for your quick reply!

maxtherabbit wrote on 2021-11-20, 14:18:

you sure they are working under directx? How do you know it's not the ATI rage providing the DX support?

It's easy to choose the card under 3DMark 99. I benchmarked both Rage and Voodoo 2, results are complety different. That's why I can say SLI is working fine with DirectX. Also, I replaced the Rage with a Matrox Athena (no Direct 3D acceleration) and the bug is the same.

anyway it sounds like the VGA output on one of your two v2 cards is dead, which in an SLI config is ok because you only need the output of the "primary" card to work

I switched the card many times. The result is the same whatever card is master.

test each voodoo2 individually in glide mode (by physically removing the other one)

Already does this too. The two card works fine if I use them alone.

Reply 3 of 4, by maxtherabbit

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your OP said you disabled SLI in the control panel - but you also tested by physically removing?

in any case, the only thing I'm 100% certain about is connecting the passthrough to both cards should NOT be required, either that is indicative of some bizarre failure mode or you're not correctly identifying the "primary" card

Reply 4 of 4, by lionel.tardy

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maxtherabbit wrote on 2021-11-20, 14:39:

your OP said you disabled SLI in the control panel - but you also tested by physically removing?

Yes, I tried by physically removing each one of them.

in any case, the only thing I'm 100% certain about is connecting the passthrough to both cards should NOT be required, either that is indicative of some bizarre failure mode or you're not correctly identifying the "primary" card

I did not understand why I have to connect passthrough cable like this. It agains every documentation I found... but work with DX. WTF?!
I also tried VGA → Voodoo B → Monitor but it does not work. Maybe I should try VGA → Voodoo B → Voodoo A → Monitor :–D.

I suspect and issue with master/slave but I have to idea how to check/change this.