VOGONS


First post, by clueless1

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edit: thread title changed to clarify topic intent

There's plenty of lists of glide games, games that support V2 SLI, openGL games, mini-gl games, etc. This is a different list. Nevermind which platforms the game supports, let's make a list of games that play best on Voodoo2 SLI. If you could play these games on any graphics subsystem, which games would you choose to play on V2 SLI? It could be for reasons of performance, nostalgia, compatibility, or visuals. I'll start. If this gains any momentum, I'll keep the opening post updated with a running list from the thread.

MotoRacer
MDK
Incoming
Quake II
Wing Commander Prophecy
Dark Forces 2
Descent: Freespace
Thief
Half-Life
Unreal
Wizardry 8
Need for Speed: High Stakes
System Shock 2
Unreal Tournament 99
Thief II

Games that are fully compatible, but I think might be too demanding for V2 SLI even with fast cpu (at least at 1024x768):
Deus Ex
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Undying

Last edited by clueless1 on 2019-04-19, 02:26. Edited 1 time in total.

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Reply 1 of 25, by leileilol

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RTCW has a bunch of 512s that'd get blurred down so that'd be a poor choice for V2 in general, SLI or not. also it's a cpu hug

I think a list of games that are broken for SLI could be more practical, i.e. Metal Gear Solid

Also SLI's clock issues disable the filter so anything "looking better on SLI" is probably due to that.

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Reply 2 of 25, by bestemor

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Perhaps a stupid question, as I've never tried it with a Voodoo card of any kind, but... why exactly does SystemShock2 play 'best' on a V2 SLI ?

I've played/tested that game extensively, on most 3D-cards, ranging from the basic TNT1(agp) in 1999 to a blistering HD3850(agp) almost a decade later. And granted, on the fastest cards, movement actually got waay too fast(!) and twitchy. But didn't (consciously) notice much that bothered me when it came to differences in picture 'quality' etc... or maybe I remember it wrong.

Also played Wiz8 on a GF4400ti, looked just fine to me back then, but have nothing to compare it to, so...

Reply 3 of 25, by clueless1

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@bestemor

My reasons for System Shock 2 are mostly nostalgic. The engine is not held back at all by the Voodoo2's, so any added performance of a faster D3D card is wasted. Yes, dithering might be an issue, but this is one of those games that felt best to me on 3dfx hardware at the time it was released.

As for Wizardry 8, I'm not claiming it looked better on Voodoo, but again, similar stance to Shock2. Wiz8 was not particularly demanding for a 2001 game, so it shined on older V2 tech. It was a game that played very well on the platform, so it stood out for me as "best on V2".

@leileilol

Yeah, I agree on RTCW. Same with Deus Ex (though this game was probably more cpu limited than anything else).

I guess where this question comes from is, if you have a V2 SLI config, what's a great group of games to have to represent the graphics subsystem? Games that will look great, play great, not be held back at all performance-wise. Basically, games from 1997 to about 2000-2001 that were a pleasure to run on a V2 SLI setup.

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Reply 4 of 25, by clueless1

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I came across Moody's Voodoo2 page with some very good info on it.
http://www.3dgw.com/faq/moodys_voodoo2_faq.htm
Only problem with it is it stops in November 1998.

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Reply 5 of 25, by appiah4

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I strongly doubt there are any games that you would rather play on a V2 SLI than on a V3.

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Reply 6 of 25, by Garrett W

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None.

Since you mention MDK in particular, it is actually one of those games that actually looks worse on non VSA-100 Voodoo cards, since MDK had some really high resolution textures for the time (512x512 I believe). You can learn more about this in Digital Foundry Retro - MDK, which is actually a great video series if you're into old games and technologies powering them/ports etc.

Reply 7 of 25, by jheronimus

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I've tried running a combo of GeForce 2 GTS with V2 SLI and I was actually disappointed:

1) surprisingly, many games from the era don't expect to see two (well, three) different devices for 3D graphics. In some cases there is simply no way to specify your main rendering device, in others you get various issues from switching (crashes, etc).
2) there is really no added benefit from having a GeForce on this system. A lot of games gave me glitches and artifacts on this card (tried various versions of graphics drivers and DirectX).

So yeah, since I have a choice, I prefer to use Voodoo 5 on my Slot 1 machine. If I had to choose between V2 SLI and V3 — I'd pick V3.

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Reply 8 of 25, by havli

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appiah4 wrote:

I strongly doubt there are any games that you would rather play on a V2 SLI than on a V3.

There is at least one:

Official Formula 1 Racing

As far as I know, V2 SLI is the only platform that allows it to run at 1024x768 @ glide. V3/4/5 can only run it at 800x600 and I think AA isn't working properly either.

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Reply 9 of 25, by clueless1

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Maybe I asked the wrong question, because I'm getting more naysayer responses than actual game recommendations. How about this:

If you've got a V2 SLI setup, what are the best games to showcase them?

@havli - thanks, I'll check out Official Formula One Racing. Not sure I'd heard of that one before.

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Reply 10 of 25, by Garrett W

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havli wrote:
There is at least one: […]
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appiah4 wrote:

I strongly doubt there are any games that you would rather play on a V2 SLI than on a V3.

There is at least one:

Official Formula 1 Racing

As far as I know, V2 SLI is the only platform that allows it to run at 1024x768 @ glide. V3/4/5 can only run it at 800x600 and I think AA isn't working properly either.

There's also Archimedean Dynasty which does not render properly on Banshee and above, so a Voodoo2 is the way to go here.

clueless1 wrote:

Maybe I asked the wrong question, because I'm getting more naysayer responses than actual game recommendations. How about this:

If you've got a V2 SLI setup, what are the best games to showcase them?

@havli - thanks, I'll check out Official Formula One Racing. Not sure I'd heard of that one before.

Now that's more appropriate, consider changing the thread title too 😀. I'll have to think about it though and I will return with some games that I feel really allow the SLI setup to show off its capabilities.

Reply 11 of 25, by clueless1

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A few more games I've tested that show off the Voodoo2 SLI:
-Grand Prix Legends
-Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator
-Need for Speed III

I had some problems with European Air War that I could not resolve, otherwise it would make the list too. For some reason, this game only works in Glide with SLI disabled. At first I thought it was a known issue with forcing 2MB textures in the Glide drivers, but that was supposedly resolved in the 1.2 patch, but even after applying the patch I had the same problem. Then I came across this thread and this thread that indicated that the game needs an old Glide driver (2.53) in order to work in SLI mode, but even after finding and dropping the old glide2x.dll driver into my EAW folder, it still froze with a black screen when going from the menu into flight mode. I'm using FastVoodoo 4.6 drivers, maybe I need to roll the entire driver package back or DirectX itself (I'm on DX8), but I'm not willing to do that for one game, so this game is reserved for my GF3 in D3D.

Flight Unlimited 2 might also make the list, but I haven't had a chance to test it yet.

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Reply 12 of 25, by appiah4

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Freespace 2 running at 1024x768 blew my mind when I got my Voodoo 3 3000 in 2000 so I guess it was similarly mind blowing for an SLI setup in 1999.

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Reply 13 of 25, by swaaye

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Voodoo2 SLI was the first practical 1024x768 setup. That's really its big draw.

It didn't take long for the limited texture memory to become a problem though. I think Unreal already hits that.

Reply 14 of 25, by slivercr

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I think NFS2SE is a nice one: contemporary with the V2, only features Glide as 3d acceleration, dramatic improvement in image quality and fps. Simply put, the difference is night and day.

That said, I have a SLI set in my computer just so I can play Diablo2 with Glide and still use a more powerful accelerator for other games. D2 is also a "good example" in the sense that some graphical options only work properly when using Glide.

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Reply 15 of 25, by clueless1

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slivercr wrote:

I think NFS2SE is a nice one: contemporary with the V2, only features Glide as 3d acceleration, dramatic improvement in image quality and fps. Simply put, the difference is night and day.

That said, I have a SLI set in my computer just so I can play Diablo2 with Glide and still use a more powerful accelerator for other games. D2 is also a "good example" in the sense that some graphical options only work properly when using Glide.

Yeah, I've got two retro setups. One pure DOS, and the other WinME. The second rig has a GF3 and V2 SLI on a P3-933. I have a lot of games that support both and for the most part, the GF3 is the better choice. But it's cool to come across some games that can showcase specific hardware. Thanks for the recommend on Diablo2. I'll have to keep my eye out for a cheap copy on ebay.

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Reply 16 of 25, by FFXIhealer

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Nobody ever puts down some of the console-ports that were so much better on PC...

Turok
Turok 2
Star Wars Rogue Squadron 3D

Add those to your list. I thoroughly enjoyed playing both Turok games on my V2 setup - MUCH more fun using keyboard/mouse instead of the N64 controller. Don't get me wrong, I like the N64 controller. I just hate FPS on consoles... any console. I hated trying to play CoD4 on my PS3. Loved it on my PC.

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Reply 17 of 25, by slivercr

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FFXIhealer wrote:
Nobody ever puts down some of the console-ports that were so much better on PC... […]
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Nobody ever puts down some of the console-ports that were so much better on PC...

Turok
Turok 2
Star Wars Rogue Squadron 3D

Add those to your list. I thoroughly enjoyed playing both Turok games on my V2 setup - MUCH more fun using keyboard/mouse instead of the N64 controller. Don't get me wrong, I like the N64 controller. I just hate FPS on consoles... any console. I hated trying to play CoD4 on my PS3. Loved it on my PC.

+1 for Rogue Squadron, what a great game! I know what I'll be installing tomorrow to play!

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Reply 19 of 25, by auron

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FFXIhealer wrote:
Nobody ever puts down some of the console-ports that were so much better on PC... […]
Show full quote

Nobody ever puts down some of the console-ports that were so much better on PC...

Turok
Turok 2
Star Wars Rogue Squadron 3D

Add those to your list. I thoroughly enjoyed playing both Turok games on my V2 setup - MUCH more fun using keyboard/mouse instead of the N64 controller. Don't get me wrong, I like the N64 controller. I just hate FPS on consoles... any console. I hated trying to play CoD4 on my PS3. Loved it on my PC.

the platforming in these games is worse with keyboard&mouse though. these were really games designed around the n64 first and foremost. i'm not fond of how playing at high resolutions makes the low-res textures stand out either.

turok 1 doesn't even have a option to adjust its very narrow FOV so given how close one usually sits in front of a pc monitor compared to a tv, the game feels extremely twitchy on PC compared to games actually designed for PC. one can make a case for turok 2 on PC though because FOV can be adjusted and the framerate on n64 is pretty bad there.