Doombringer4u2nv wrote on 2026-03-21, 00:53:
My question is how do I even known if its using the 2d or 3d part of the card? I don't see any settings for that and no 3dfx logo pops up or anything so..
When it's the Glide API (Including MiniGL->Glide dlls i.e. glquake), by default it'll show the 3dfx splash animation, unless the application/game explicitly calls for it to be surpressed (UnrealEngine games do not display the splash for GlideDrv, and neither do id Tech3 games).
When it's the Direct3D API, there's never ever a splash.
Another thing to know if it's 3d accelerated by 3dfx is to look in close and notice any purple haloing around pixels. The Voodoo3 has two different screen filtering modes that can be toggled in the control panel (dubbed "High quality video") that can either use the old Voodoo Graphics filter or the newer 2x2 filter that gets overstated as good way too much for some reason (get a powervr if you want to see actual good 16-bit color dithering, jerks).
3dfx gamma is also usually brighter by default so it should also bring a generally more washed out picture.
3dfx 3d cards and the old Glide APIs do not support video modes below 512x384. (512x256 really but that's arcade and 3dfx cards came from there)
And finally the old Glide API doesn't support rendering in a window (newer ones do for Banshee/V3), so if you're playing in a window from before 1999, it's probably not 3dfx.
However I hadn't heard of a Voodoo2 bundling Mechwarrior 2, it's more of a 1996 Voodoo Graphics game (for Windows 95). I never got it to work on my Voodoo2 in the day, and MW2 would have to be the different Titanium Edition if it had to be bundled and that's a different can of worms to the og 3dfx MW2 wrt compatibility. I believe your DOS MW2 might had been bundled with something else (a joystick probably)
