VOGONS


Voodoo 1, 2, and 5 questions

Topic actions

First post, by Scythifuge

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Greetings,

I have been running tests on my Ultimate 1980-2000 3dfx rig. So far, it seems that this Voodoo 5 works (testing with Deus Ex,) and the V1 Typhoon card seems to work. I haven't tested having the V1, V2, and V5 all connected with installed drivers yet, as I haven't procured a 2nd V2 and SLI cable, and I am waiting for 1' VGA extension cables to arrive.

This situation, and Deus Ex (1024x768) running weird with all of the V5 settings cranked up under 3dfx tools (Amigamerlin drivers) and using the Live!Ware 3.0 CD to install the drivers for the Live! card (and getting skipping sound and less FPS than I would like) has caused me to ask some questions.

1. What are the best settings for the Voodoo 5? I am running with a P3-550 until I can procure a slocket with a 1.4Ghz Tualatin. I remember playing with these 3dfx tools settings with my V3, back in the day - on a P3-450 and Deus Ex ran fine.

2. I know that there are Voodoo1-specific games that don't play nicely with V2 and up. Is there a list?

3. Are there any Voodoo2-centric games? While being neat to have four Voodoo cars in my system, I still have to sink money into another V2 and I am looking at buying an AWE64 legacy. Right now, with a 2nd V2, I will have absolutely no slots left for NICs, SATA cards (would be nice to use the TBPlus package and put a 1TB or two in there,) USB 2.0 or 3.0 cards, or any other nifty cards that could make life easier in this rig. Would I benefit from having V2-SLI in this system, or can any game that I would run at 800x600 and up work with the V5? If there is no benefit, I could put the V2 in another computer (maybe in my AthlonXP machine, connected to my ATI x800XT, or in a P1 box.) Or, I could sell it and put the money towards an AWE64 Legacy, or just hold onto it...

Any information will be greatly appreciated! This rig has been in the making for a long time, from concept to putting it together and running tests.

Scythifuge

Reply 1 of 30, by mothergoose729

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Vertz Voodoo 2 DOS compatibility Matrix:
Voodoo 2 DOS Glide compatibility matrix

The Voodoo 5 is the only card to officially support AA (AFAIK). The most intensive AA settings can definitely kill your performance. You didn't say exactly what your issue is.

Reply 2 of 30, by swaaye

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Actually even Voodoo1 has anti-aliasing support. You can see it on the 3DFX logo that plays when you load a Glide game. It's a form of edge AA. Few games implemented it for whatever reason. Voodoo5 does have more sophisticated full-scene anti-aliasing.

I don't have all the answers to the above questions stored in my brain currently, but you can bet they've been discussed on here so a search might be illuminating.

Reply 3 of 30, by Scythifuge

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
mothergoose729 wrote on 2021-03-26, 03:45:

Vertz Voodoo 2 DOS compatibility Matrix:
Voodoo 2 DOS Glide compatibility matrix

The Voodoo 5 is the only card to officially support AA (AFAIK). The most intensive AA settings can definitely kill your performance. You didn't say exactly what your issue is.

Thank you for the link to the Voodoo matrix. I remember other games from that era, like Pandemonium and Myth - The Fallen Lords (has 3dfx on the box,) so I will run some tests. It seems that I don't have the games listed on the matrix that don't like the Voodoo2 (yet.) Ugh, decisions... If I could find a way to get this to connect to my LAN without a NIC and if I could figure out how to use the TBPlus package to get this 1tb drive working, I would just continue with all of the Voodoo cards just for the coolness factor.

The issues I was having with Deus Ex is that after turning up all of the options in 3dfx tools to max, and running the game at 1024x768, the game ran choppy and with sound issues. Running it at 640x480 solves the sound issue, though FPS increases marginally. I suppose I have to research the settings under 3dfx tools, though I find it strange that the game is having issues with a V5 when I seem to recall running the game perfectly with a V3 back in the day. The V5 is an ebay purchase, so I don't know if there could be age/use factors versus driver settings.

I should also note that I haven't patched D.E. yet (going to try that tomorrow as the game keeps switching to 16 bit color even after restarting the game,) I haven't installed any updates to this Win98SE install, and I haven't used the driver update for the Live! card. I used to tweak my Win98 installs quite a bit, and I haven't done any of that yet (I have to relearn it all.)

Reply 5 of 30, by swaaye

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

A P3-550 is actually not a great choice for Deus Ex or other Unreal Engine games around that timeframe. The Tualatin will be a big improvement. The CPU demands are even higher if you are trying to use the stock Direct3D renderer. A high-end Athlon XP becomes appealing.

But yes the Voodoo5 anti-aliasing also has a very significant performance hit.

Reply 7 of 30, by Aebtdom

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

As for my experience with having multiple 3dfx cards installed in your system, the main problem you will run in to in at least windows 98, is that unless you can manually pick a graphics card when starting a game like in 3dmark, the games automatically select the last 3dfx card installed for 3dfx or d3d.

Builds:

Xp3000+ gf3 ti200 + vd2 SLI 12MB + 768MB + SB live @ WinXP & 98 Dualboot.

P2 350mhz + Diamond Viper V550 + 3Dfx Voodoo 2 12MB + AWE64 + 128MB SDR @ msdos / win98.

Reply 8 of 30, by havli

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

There is a workaround for OGL / Glide. You can copy the glide2x.dll, glide3x.dll and opengl32.dll (that belongs to the desired card) to the game folder and it will run on the card you wish. I had V5 + V2 SLI in one system once and it worked fine.

HW museum.cz - my collection of PC hardware

Reply 9 of 30, by Aebtdom

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

True, but this still wont work with d3d when your voodoo2 is installed second.

Builds:

Xp3000+ gf3 ti200 + vd2 SLI 12MB + 768MB + SB live @ WinXP & 98 Dualboot.

P2 350mhz + Diamond Viper V550 + 3Dfx Voodoo 2 12MB + AWE64 + 128MB SDR @ msdos / win98.

Reply 10 of 30, by Scythifuge

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I read that installing in ascending order is the best way along with copying the files pertaining to the Voodoo to be used into the game directories, and another user posted that they used scripts to run each card. I wish I could remember exactly how I had D.E. set up back in the day. I beat it with a V3 in a P3 450 with 64mb of RAM and it wasn't slow. It wasn't 60+ FPX, but I never really cared about that, as long as I got 30 FPS or close to that.

Reply 11 of 30, by Garrett W

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

It was slow, but we just accepted it at the time because we didn't really know better and our idea of smooth gameplay was very different from today. Videocards were actually fast enough, it was mostly CPUs that were holding those games back. Pair a single Voodoo2 with a fast CPU and run games from 1997-1998 (and even 1999 arguably) at 640x480 and you'll notice that it hits 60fps on most of them.

Deus Ex was exceptionally bad in this regard, you can read more in this thread.

Reply 12 of 30, by Scythifuge

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
Garrett W wrote on 2021-03-27, 01:01:

It was slow, but we just accepted it at the time because we didn't really know better and our idea of smooth gameplay was very different from today. Videocards were actually fast enough, it was mostly CPUs that were holding those games back. Pair a single Voodoo2 with a fast CPU and run games from 1997-1998 (and even 1999 arguably) at 640x480 and you'll notice that it hits 60fps on most of them.

Deus Ex was exceptionally bad in this regard, you can read more in this thread.

Thanks, I'll give it a read. Perhaps I will hold off on D.E. until I can find a slocket and a Tualatin. Maybe I played it in 640x480 back in the day and just can't recall for sure. I am having a difficult time procuring a decent slocket; they all seem to be jumperless slockets for Celerons. I will keep searching for information on decent 3dfx tools settings for the V5 in a P3 system.

Reply 13 of 30, by Aebtdom

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

I remember playing the game on my pc back in the day, it was running smooth on my intel I740 640x480x16 all max settings. So I took the liberty to plug my old card back into the pc to test it. It had an avg of 33fps on liberty island.
Switching to glide on my voodoo 5 5500, i managed to keep an average of 47 fps. But... it was on 1280x1024x16. Also the voodoo 2 in SLI had none or whatsoever problems with the resolution 800x600x16 all well above 40fps.
I put my 2ghz cpu back to 900mhz.

20210328_213333.jpg
Filename
20210328_213333.jpg
File size
518.32 KiB
Views
1137 views
File comment
640x480 16bit
File license
Public domain
20210328_213350.jpg
Filename
20210328_213350.jpg
File size
919.39 KiB
Views
1137 views
File license
Public domain

Builds:

Xp3000+ gf3 ti200 + vd2 SLI 12MB + 768MB + SB live @ WinXP & 98 Dualboot.

P2 350mhz + Diamond Viper V550 + 3Dfx Voodoo 2 12MB + AWE64 + 128MB SDR @ msdos / win98.

Reply 14 of 30, by Scythifuge

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
Aebtdom wrote on 2021-03-28, 20:25:
I remember playing the game on my pc back in the day, it was running smooth on my intel I740 640x480x16 all max settings. So I t […]
Show full quote

I remember playing the game on my pc back in the day, it was running smooth on my intel I740 640x480x16 all max settings. So I took the liberty to plug my old card back into the pc to test it. It had an avg of 33fps on liberty island.
Switching to glide on my voodoo 5 5500, i managed to keep an average of 47 fps. But... it was on 1280x1024x16. Also the voodoo 2 in SLI had none or whatsoever problems with the resolution 800x600x16 all well above 40fps.
I put my 2ghz cpu back to 900mhz.
20210328_213333.jpg20210328_213350.jpg

I am thinking that I should up the ram, create a permanent swap file on the secondary IDE, and tweak start up files through msconfig like I did back in the day, and keep playing with 3dfx tool settings until I find the best ones that work. I should also install all of the W98 updates, the Live! update, and patch D.E. to the GOTY edition. Right now, I haven't done any of these things in order to simply test the V5 in this P3 550 system.

The more I think about it, the more I think that I was running D.E. at either 800x600 or 640x480 on my P3-450 with a Voodoo3. It was back in 2000 and many computers ago.

Reply 15 of 30, by Aebtdom

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Just some extra photo's.
Tested Deus Ex GOTY @ 1024x768x16 3Dfx rendering.

Attachments

  • 20210329_113453.jpg
    Filename
    20210329_113453.jpg
    File size
    894.86 KiB
    Views
    1077 views
    File comment
    Voodoo 2 1000 SLI @ 1Ghz CPU
    File license
    Public domain
  • 20210329_112138.jpg
    Filename
    20210329_112138.jpg
    File size
    958.81 KiB
    Views
    1077 views
    File comment
    Voodoo 3 3000 @ 1Ghz CPU
    File license
    Public domain
  • 20210329_111133.jpg
    Filename
    20210329_111133.jpg
    File size
    791.34 KiB
    Views
    1077 views
    File comment
    Voodoo 5 5500 @ 1Ghz CPU
    File license
    Public domain

Builds:

Xp3000+ gf3 ti200 + vd2 SLI 12MB + 768MB + SB live @ WinXP & 98 Dualboot.

P2 350mhz + Diamond Viper V550 + 3Dfx Voodoo 2 12MB + AWE64 + 128MB SDR @ msdos / win98.

Reply 17 of 30, by Aebtdom

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

The best settings are the default settings. I prefer to run it with v-sync off.
You could turn on AAx2 if you play in 800x600 16bit or with lighter games on 32 bits.
4x aa destroys your performance. At your 550mhz i wouldnt run aa at all if i were you. Voodoo 5 runs best at a 1.2ghz and up.

Voodoo 2 has problems with amd athlon processors and fast cpu's. Running hot, crashes etc.

Best to use the voodoo 2 SLI at your 550mhz pc.
800x600 for the best of both world in the eye of quality graphics and performance.

Builds:

Xp3000+ gf3 ti200 + vd2 SLI 12MB + 768MB + SB live @ WinXP & 98 Dualboot.

P2 350mhz + Diamond Viper V550 + 3Dfx Voodoo 2 12MB + AWE64 + 128MB SDR @ msdos / win98.

Reply 19 of 30, by cyclone3d

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

You mention installing the Live! Drivers withe the Liveware 3.0 CD. Did you update the drive verscafter that? Creative still has them available. Pretty sure there were updates after the 3.0 CD.

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
YMF7x4 Guide
Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK