VOGONS


First post, by envagyok

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I am interested to know which older games—originally released during the era of Voodoo 1 and Voodoo 2 cards—run in their original state, which require a patch, and which ones simply won't run at all on a Voodoo 3 card.
I am planning to build a system where, ideally, all 3dfx games would run at an acceptable speed.
The best-case scenario would be using a Voodoo 3 3000, as this would avoid the image quality issues associated with pass-through cables and allow newer 3dfx games to be played at good resolutions and graphical quality.
However, if too many games have issues with this setup, I would be willing to use a pass-through cable with a Voodoo 2 SLI configuration instead.
Or maybe best is build a dual setup with AGP Voodoo 3 and pci voodoo1?

Thanks for any help!

Reply 1 of 15, by dr.zeissler

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There was a time when I used a V3 as main GFX card beside a V1 or V2.
Keep in mind V1 has issues in D3D when main cpu is >350mhz (mostly on fsb 100 but there are also cases with FSB66)
The very early dosglide-games (extreme assault, schleichfahrt) could be a problem for the voodoo3.

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 2 of 15, by envagyok

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I am looking for a suitable solution for an AMD K6-3 450 processor to use with a Super Socket 7 motherboard.

Reply 3 of 15, by dr.zeissler

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The V3 does not take any advantages from AGP so it will work just fine, even in problematic agp-boards.
Put a V2 (for dosglide-stuff) beside it and (mostly) everything will work.

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 4 of 15, by FullYes

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I’m also interested to know this. I have a voodoo3 2000 PCI in my k6-3+ system. I haven’t yet tried any dos voodoo games on it.

System 1: K6-3+ 600MHz! MS-5158 (430TX), 256MB SDRAM, Voodoo3 2000 PCI, AWE64 (Dos/95-early 98)
System 2: Athlon XP-M 2800+ 2.4GHz, SL-75KAV (KT133A), 512MB SDRAM, FX5900XT, Audigy 2ZS (late 98)
System 3: i7-2600k, P8P67-M, 2x4GB DDR3-1866, GTX 460 (XP)

Reply 5 of 15, by swaaye

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It's something that's been thoroughly discussed over the years. There is a ton of info to find if you search the forum.

For example, Carmageddon can be made to work in DOS with even Voodoo4/5 with some DOS environment settings and the official Voodoo2 patch.

Reply 6 of 15, by RetroPCCupboard

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What CPU are you looking to pair it with? Voodoo 3 scales quite well with CPU, even up to 800Mhz, which is very fast for DOS. It isn't really much better than a Voodoo 1 if you put it in a Pentium MMX.

Reply 7 of 15, by dr.zeissler

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Yes and that is exactly the case why I do not use a voodoo3 on low-end. for low-end I would go for a better featureset and much better/wider driver support.
e.g. Rhapsody (MacOS), old linux, os/2, amithlon, win3x (fast! not that slow v3-driver).

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 9 of 15, by envagyok

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dr.zeissler wrote on Yesterday, 18:01:

The V3 does not take any advantages from AGP so it will work just fine, even in problematic agp-boards.
Put a V2 (for dosglide-stuff) beside it and (mostly) everything will work.

Voodoo1 or voodoo2 is more compatible with old dos glide stuff?

Reply 10 of 15, by dr.zeissler

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voodoo1 is 100% compatible with dosglide-stuff because it's made for it.

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 11 of 15, by Carrera

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I eventually replaced my Voodoo3 with a Voodoo 2SLI plus NameYourFavoriteGraphicCardHere as I realized for peak DOS and older game Glide compatibility the Voodoo2SLI was going to be as good or nearly as good as the Voodoo3 and for anything more modern I would need another card anyway...
You can get the Voodoo3 to work in some older games using start up variables but for really old stuff like EuroFighter 2000 it really doesn't work.

Reply 12 of 15, by dr.zeissler

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The additional or main gfx-card is pretty simple. Go for a card with pixelshader-support if you have more than 700mhz. Below that a card that can do TnL and or EMBM is nice. I would always use a card with a wide range of driver support and first of all a really sharp picture. It does not get better when routed through the voodoo-cards.

Go for the right loop-cable!
https://www-3dfx-cz.translate.goog/articles/l … =de&_x_tr_hl=de

As main gfx-card I would go for a Matrox or an ATI. I don't like the early Nvidia cards.

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 13 of 15, by BaronSFel001

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I got a Voodoo3 which is GREAT as an all-in-one card, only to realize I am dogged by one statically-linked Glide game on my list: EF2000. That game also has a Rendition Verite mode, however I am unaware of 1) how it compares to 3dfx mode or 2) whether it still works fine on a V2x00 card, but I AM aware of 3) how EXPENSIVE V1000 cards have become [for the novelty of being natively supported by only a handful of games]. All that being said, I am still keeping my options open because I happen to also have a Voodoo2 SLI pair and, in light of learning this, developed second thoughts on selling it.

System 20: PIII 600, LAPC-I, MK1869 Xtreme, Voodoo3, SQ2500, R200, 3.0-Me
System 21: G2030 3.0, X-fi Fatal1ty, GTX 560, XP-Vista
Retro gaming (among other subjects): https://baronsfel001.wixsite.com/my-site

Reply 14 of 15, by BitWrangler

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Heh, this is one of the reasons that might have had me, on a forgotten account, post on VOGONS back in it's infancy, when I was running my V3 2000 for serious and I couldn't get V1 or V2 games working. Anyway, since then, seems there are ways and means to get all V2 stuff going, then V1 stuff is conditional or takes a lot of mods.

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 15 of 15, by dr.zeissler

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I go from bottom up, which means I lose interest in later glide-games because they are better played with other cards in higher quality.
e.g. you only get S3TC with V4/5 in OpenGL mode, not in glide, because glide never got more than 256x256. sure there are tricks that unreal used in multi-texturing (later) to let glide seem to be more detailed, BUT if you ever payed unreal or ut99 in S3TC on a let's say s3 card, you will never go back to a low-detailed, washed-out-colored 3dfx card.

But at the end the v1 as one of it's kind and you simple have to have one, especially to see THAT HUGHE JUMP in hires with 30+/60+fps stutter free compared to software rendering.

V1 is the clear must have here.

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines