The Voodoo3 does not need a separate 2D card, and can run Direct3D games up to DirectX 7 😀

Excellent! Thanks for the quick response.

The only trouble is - Voodoo3 Agp is 3.3V Card. In other words - Agp 1.0, Agp 2x... So - you must have Agp 1.0 or Universal Agp slot and the compatible chipset (many motherboards have universal Agp slot, but not work with the 3.3V cards). So - no Intel 815/820, just Intel 4xx.

OK good to know. My board has the VIA Apollo Pro 133A chipset which... should be OK?

@ Gamecollector. Any voodoo will work just fine with a Pentium 3 (slot1/s370) boards. Socket 7 (as long as there is enough voltage on agp slot) and Slot A. It started getting iffy around Pentium 4 and later Socket A boards.

All Voodoo's support OpenGL/D3D/GLide. Of coarse which versions depends on the hardware.

Voodoo 1 and 2 are 3D add-on cards through PCI bus.
Voodoo Rush/Banshee/3/4/5 are 2D/3D single card solutions which many come in PCI or AGP.

As far for what you can run. It would be easy to run you Geforce 2 with 2x Voodoo 2's in SLI and just use the V2's for you GLide games.

Alternatively others have run a Voodoo 3/4/5 PCI card paired with a AGP card of choice and either create seperate profiles in windows and selecting which card you want to use in the BIOS by selecting AGP or PCI video detection option. This option can be hard to get working for some. I haven't tried it myself.

Voodoo 2 and Voodoo 3 have the highest compatibility of all 3Dfx line.

badmofo wrote:

OK good to know. My board has the VIA Apollo Pro 133A chipset which... should be OK?

IIRC, Via Apollo Pro 133A use Universal Agp 2.0 slot. You can use any 3.3v or 1.5v Agp 1x/2x/4x videocard.

You can also just plug in a Voodoo 5 5500 PCI next to that geforce and enjoy both worlds at once. Or a voodoo 2 😀

The Voodoo3 will run any Glide/OpenGL/DX7 game, however some Direct3D games won't run as nice on them as they would on the GeForce2 due to the V3's limited graphics performance and lack of Hardware T&L. Ultimately the best option is to get a Voodoo2 for use with any Glide games and use it with the GeForce2.

Then again, if the Voodoo3 runs every game you throw at it just fine, you should be good, plus you won't have to mess with any passthrough cables. 😜

Thanks for the replies, now I have more options to think about... is that good or bad? I'm gonna end up with about 6 PC's by the time I've covered everything. This is getting out of control!

maddmaxstar wrote:

The Voodoo3 will run any Glide/OpenGL/DX7 game, however some Direct3D games won't run as nice on them as they would on the GeForce2 due to the V3's limited graphics performance and lack of Hardware T&L. Ultimately the best option is to get a Voodoo2 for use with any Glide games and use it with the GeForce2.

Then again, if the Voodoo3 runs every game you throw at it just fine, you should be good, plus you won't have to mess with any passthrough cables. 😜

Advising someone to use GF2 today is like advising him to buy a 14" TFT monitor with lousy response time for the same price as a brand new 22" wide screen. In other words, Whatever GF2 can do, a GTX580 can do much, much better. In terms of game and OS compatibility, use AGP GF 6800 Ultra instead.

The real options he has are:
1) retro 2D video card (S3 Virge/Trio, Matrox Millenium/Mistique,Ati Rage) + Voodoo 2 in a retro system
2) ultra modern (yet Win 2k / XP /9x compatible) system with Voodoo 2
3) V3/4/5 as a main card in a retro system

Whatever option he chooses, he will be pleased as 3dfx Glide never fails to deliver. 😅

I like the 'voodoo 5 as the main card' option - less is more. And this is a P3 system aimed at games in the 97-2000 era, so the V5 is about the right age.

There's one selling locally for about 70 bucks, but I don't usually spend that much on my retro bits. Also, I would be bumping a Geforce2 Ultra for the voodoo5, and my understanding is that the Geforce is a much faster card.

I never seem to be able to have my cake and eat it too god damn it.

A GF2 Ultra is faster than a V5 5500. Here's a test to kinda show voodoo performance of the day against a GF2-MX 32MB. http://thedodgegarage.com/3dfx/bench.htm

I keep reading the GF and GF2 have sub par IQ. Back in the day I had a GF1 32Mb SDram but don't remember how bad it looked!

I have a hard time recommending the Voodoo 4 and 5 series. The 4500 may have more memory and 32-bit color than a Voodoo 3 but doesn't perform much better than the Voodoo 3. The Voodoo 5 series can take a bit more effort to get older games working although much more powerful.

The best setup I think there would be is something like a Geforce 4 Ti 4600 or Geforce 6600 (the 6600 may not work with the P3 AGP spec) paired with Voodoo 2-SLI setup as this setup should give you a good range between 1997-2004 as long as the CPU isn't bottlenecking too much. Here in the states I just got a GF4 Ti 4600 for $11 shipped which isn't bad at all.

For my system I keep going back to a Voodoo 3 with higher clocks. My P3 system is really meant for 1996-2000 games for now. I do have the GF4 and a pair of V2's ready to rock though if I want to branch out.

do voodoo2's work with geforce4/6 cards? I was under the impression they did not....?

I had a Voodoo2 working with a GeforceFX before, worked fine though I never did mess with the D3D HAL much, Nvidia drivers tend to be aggressive over being the primary video device for D3D and get really upset if it doesn't

so theoretically one can have a voodoo2 for glide-only apps and a new-ish geforce for the rest... interesting! gonna slap a sli set in my p4 😁
disabling v2's d3d device is very easy, it's just a registry key that you delete 😊

RogueTrip2012 wrote:

A GF2 Ultra is faster than a V5 5500.

GTX 580 is also faster then a V5 5500. Radeon HD7970 too. 😒

keropi wrote:

so theoretically one can have a voodoo2 for glide-only apps and a new-ish geforce for the rest...

Exactly. And thats not only theoretically - I was using V2 SLI until recently in Core2Duo system with GF 8800 GTS. The only downside of such a setup is that display sharpness drops heavily with resolutions >1280x1024. Solution for that is to bypass the pass-through cable and connect monitor directly to V2 when V2 is active (playing time).

elfuego wrote:

[...]

keropi wrote:

so theoretically one can have a voodoo2 for glide-only apps and a new-ish geforce for the rest...

Exactly. And thats not only theoretically - I was using V2 SLI until recently in Core2Duo system with GF 8800 GTS. The only downside of such a setup is that display sharpness drops heavily with resolutions >1280x1024. Solution for that is to bypass the pass-through cable and connect monitor directly to V2 when V2 is active (playing time).

I just installed my Diamond MonsterII sli setup in my p4 machine... it works! (at least tombraider2!) awesome! 😁 😁
Thanks for the correction elfuego... all this time I was under the wrong impression that voodoo1/2+gf don't mix 😖

elfuego wrote:

Advising someone to use GF2 today is like advising him to buy a 14" TFT monitor with lousy response time for the same price as a […]
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maddmaxstar wrote:

The Voodoo3 will run any Glide/OpenGL/DX7 game, however some Direct3D games won't run as nice on them as they would on the GeForce2 due to the V3's limited graphics performance and lack of Hardware T&L. Ultimately the best option is to get a Voodoo2 for use with any Glide games and use it with the GeForce2.

Then again, if the Voodoo3 runs every game you throw at it just fine, you should be good, plus you won't have to mess with any passthrough cables. 😜

Advising someone to use GF2 today is like advising him to buy a 14" TFT monitor with lousy response time for the same price as a brand new 22" wide screen. In other words, Whatever GF2 can do, a GTX580 can do much, much better. In terms of game and OS compatibility, use AGP GF 6800 Ultra instead.

The real options he has are:
1) retro 2D video card (S3 Virge/Trio, Matrox Millenium/Mistique,Ati Rage) + Voodoo 2 in a retro system
2) ultra modern (yet Win 2k / XP /9x compatible) system with Voodoo 2
3) V3/4/5 as a main card in a retro system

Whatever option he chooses, he will be pleased as 3dfx Glide never fails to deliver. 😅

Actually, recommending the GF2 today vs a GF 6800U is like recommending 17" 4:3 LCD vs a 24" Widescreen with DVI-D only. Here's the difference though, he already has the 17" LCD, where he'd have to buy the 24" screen, and possibly a video card that supports DVI-D, etc. The 17" works with the existing setup without spending any money.

Using a GF2 would run anything period accurate perfectly that a Pentium III 800-1.4GHz system would run adequately, while also keeping with what class of video card a Pentium III owner in 2000-02 would have been using. A Voodoo2 would simply add Glide functionality, and there's hardly any Glide-based games that wouldn't run well on a Voodoo2 or V2 SLI.

The Geforce2 Ultra is much faster than a V3/4/5, a Trio/Virge with a Voodoo2 would make a good 96-98 system, a GF 6800 Ultra would need a bigger PSU, and a GTX 580 would need a modern computer with PCIe slots - which would defeat the purpose of building/owning a Retro system.

Long story short, simply adding a Voodoo2 is the easiest way to get Glide while maintaining the period accuracy of the P3 retro system and also preserve the performance it has.