not sure but i think those boards came with this cable
http://www.recycledgoods.com/images/s_p_21889_1.jpg

Great Hierophant wrote:

Also, some Voodoo 5s 5500 PCI has a DVI port, but these product was supposed to be used in Macintosh computers. Does it work with a PC?

Yes, but you need to flash the BIOS.

What about the performance of the PCI version vs the AGP version, is it really noticeable in games?

DVI specification was officially released in April 1999. So only cards released after April 1999 can have DVI. It is worth to know that sometimes card's manufacturers were adding DVI to GPUs released before year 1999. The oldest one I found is Riva TNT2 from Creative. It is just a matter of sticking TMDS chip to the board and you can make most of 1998 cards DVI capable. GPU chip needs only to provide I2C video output on its pins to connect TMDS DVI transmitter chip. The only company at that time making TMDS chips was Silicon Image. On some cards DVI needs some activation tool to make it working so beware in DOS because since a long time manufacturers do not provide DOS tools.

Remember that card having DVI connector may not support digital signal but pure analog only.
DVI-I is analog + digital
DVI-A is analog only
DVI-D is digital only
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVI

There are also some industrial connectors who look like DVI but are not DVI:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMS-59
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Force_Helix
They may have digital DVI signal but not for sure. For sure they need special cable with DVI-D on one end and provide DVI-D signal to make LCD panels working with such card.
If you are looking now for Geforce/Riva cards on PCI bus there are very easy to find because Riva TNT/Geforce 2 MX or other old GPUs are still manufactured in small quantities for Industry needs (their PCs have only PCI bus) and have DMS-59 or LFH connector.

Great Hierophant wrote:

What about the performance of the PCI version vs the AGP version, is it really noticeable in games?

Nope, the performance of AGP and PCI versions is so similar you won't make out a difference without comparing the FPS (sometimes not even then).

As far as I can remember someone on this Forum has got a Voodoo5 Mac version flashed with the BIOS from the PC version, but I can't recall whether he got the DVI output working...

Great Hierophant wrote:

What about the performance of the PCI version vs the AGP version, is it really noticeable in games?

There seems to be noticeable difference in 3dmark, although it's getting smaller as you enable AA. Also, the higher the resolution is, the smaller the difference becomes (V5 PCI is still 7 frames slower than V5 AGP when playing Q3A in 1024x768, though.

Depends on the game played. I saw some q2 test levels that were just crawling with pci cards (yes, v2 included) - it just had too much textures to fit into onboard texture memory. But the game designers at the time usually targeted the broadest audience and voodoo2 was around for a long time...

yep v2 cant handle textures larger than 256x256

I think I have confirmed that the Voodoo 3 3500 uses a port that is physically identical to a DVI port, but does NOT carry DVI signals. It carries VGA and video signals.

If I want DVI, I will have to pay up for a Voodoo 5 5500 MAC PCI and flash the BIOS.

IIRC there is VGA to DVI converter out there (not cable, but box). Unfortunately I don't have one myself. Anyone experienced with this?

Ghetto edit: here's one. The price tag is quite intimidating though.

Why bother, the monitor's conversion circuitry will do almost as well.

I have a Voodoo5 MAC with PC bios (c.imp too), there are hacked bios to enable DVI at start up, it work with dos but mode-X works better with VGA connector and CRT monitor.

Great Hierophant wrote:

Why bother, the monitor's conversion circuitry will do almost as well.

"conversion circuitry"?

yep all lcd's will accept an analog signal

Davros wrote:

yep all lcd's will accept an analog signal

Obscenely, many LCDs, lower quality devices especially, will not accept a digital signal, having no DVI-D port. The LCD is about the most digital in function of any known display technology.

Davros wrote:

yep all lcd's will accept an analog signal

I see. Duh. 😦

But I think a dedicated VGA to DVI converter should provide better conversion than the built-in conversion circuits in a monitor, right? Or maybe the difference is negligible? Anyone ever tried a converter box and compare the results?

Great Hierophant wrote:

Obscenely, many LCDs, lower quality devices especially, will not accept a digital signal, having no DVI-D port. The LCD is about the most digital in function of any known display technology.

IIRC Voodoo5 DVI-out is not DVI-D. I'm not sure, I still use CRT for my voodoo system.

IIRC Voodoo5 DVI-out is not DVI-D. I'm not sure, I still use CRT for my voodoo system.

There are three varieties of DVI:
DVI-D - Digital Only (comes in single and dual link varieties)
DVI-A - Analog Only
DVI-I - Analog & Digital (comes in single and dual link varieties)

The analog only connector has the fewest pins, which does the DVI port on the 5500 have?

Great Hierophant wrote:

The analog only connector has the fewest pins, which does the DVI port on the 5500 have?

Duh. I checked again and it's dual link DVI-D.