VOGONS

Rather suprising Voodoo 1 search results...

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First post, by FeedingDragon

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Already placed a bid on a Voodoo 1 card (the price is right if I don't get out bid on it.) But am still researching the different V1 cards. Was rather surprised at the limited number of cards over 4MB. I only found 2 cards with 6MB, the Canopus Pure3D and Miro Hiscore 3D, both with proprietary passthrough cables. I did, however, find a 3rd card with a 6MB version, only it had many more even higher versions than I was expecting. That is the Quantum3D Obsidian cards. A quick listing:

  • 50-2200 (2M / 2M)
    50-2400 (2M / 4M)
    50-4200 (4M / 2M) **Never sold on its own, only with the DB 50-4220**
    50-4400 (4M / 4M)
    100-4400 (2x4M / 2x4M) **2 50-4400 boards SLI on a single board**

All of these had the option to have a daughterboard doubling the texture RAM. The 100- card actually had connections to add 2 DB's adding 4M each (one for each "card" I assume.) They all (except the 100-4400 of course,) had their own SLI connector allowing them to be connected in SLI mode. Though all the pictures of the 50-4400 I could find it looked like the connectors weren't actually installed on the card. The 100-4400 also used a proprietary VGA passthrough port (like the 2 listed above.) It also had a "V" version that had a MGV port so a 2M 2D daughterboard could be attached (removing the need of a passthrough cable.)

So, even the V1 had a SLI mode available, up to the full 24MB of the V2 SLI. Though the availability of these cards seemed to be rather limited. I actually found some benchmarks performed with these cards HERE. Which also shoed that V2 SLI w/24MB actually comes quite close to the V3 (that haven't been overclocked.) The V3 3500 being the only one that had a sizable performance boost over the SLI V2. Though the V2 non-SLI still consistently beat the V1 even when in SLI. By a sizable margin too.

Admittedly, the only reason I'm getting a V1 is for the game Blood (which I own,) and the 2 games I would buy & play if the price was right. All the others work fine on my V2's (or a V3 I would assume.) Won't go above the V3, I'm afraid, as there aren't any Windows 3.1 drivers for any past that. But, if I replace my MB or hack this one to support it, it's getting rather tempting to trade my V2 SLI rig for a V3 AGP card. Anyone interested in trading a GA-6BXC rev2.0+ board with a V3-3500 AGP card for a GA-6BXC rev1.9 board and 2 12M V2 cards?? 😈 OK, not completely serious there. Mainly because I got this working for me now, and would rather not risk breaking things.

My main question now is.... Anyone know anything about the Obsidian boards? Considering my V2's work for all but the 3 games (Blood, Dreams to Reality, & Prost Grand Prix 1998,) do I really need a V1 with more than 4MB? I'm basing the need on this thread. Though I wonder if anyone has done such a nice chart for the V3. Though, considering the games I intend to play on this system, I also don't see a need to go beyond a V1, V2-SLI, & TNT2 M64 card. V1 for 3 games (but at $5, not that big a deal,) V2 for all the other DOS 3DFx games I like, and some of the Glide/Direct3D games it supports that actually look better/run better with it, and the TNT2 for the rest (and for the 2D stuff.)

Even in SLI with 24MB (8M/8M+8M), it's still limited to 800x600 mode like the 6MB (2M/4M) cards. But it would still have performance improvements, I would think, in SLI mode. Don't really want to take up 2 PCI slots, so I would have to use the 100SB model for that, which might require getting a new case as well 🙁 The 100SB cards are very long (about the same as an AWE32 from a rough guess,) and my HDDs are currently in the way of installing a card that long in any of my PCI slots. Thinking it might be worthwhile to aim for the 50SB-4440 card (4M/4M+4M).

Any thoughts, opinions, advice, or just random ramblings about trying to get a V1 card with 6M+?

Feeding Dragon

Reply 1 of 5, by Putas

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FeedingDragon wrote:

do I really need a V1 with more than 4MB?

Bigger framebuffer can be useful only if those game allow you to run at higher resolution than the usual 640x480. Texture memory is no issue for games so old.

Reply 2 of 5, by lazibayer

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Here is the list of many cards with 3dfx chips:
http://www.falconfly.de/identify-3dfx.htm
Quantum3D has surely made a lot of exotic and sexy cards, such as this:
http://www.falconfly.de/identify/Quantum3D_Obsidian2_AGP.jpg

I am not sure if canopus and quantum3d use the same pass through cable; it was quite popular for professional cards to use 15pin d-sub to 9pin din pass through cable back in the days. Might not be proprietary.

Reply 3 of 5, by meljor

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Same thread, page 2, vetz also made a matrix for the voodoo3 compatible dos games.

In most games there is no performance difference between 4 and 6mb voodoo1 cards. Just take the basic version for best compatibility.

Voodoo 3 3000 and 3500 are faster than v2 sli, voodoo3 2000 is about equal (agp, pci is a little slower)

Voodoo 3 wins hands down in image quality and does higher resolutions. 3500 beats a 4500 when pared with a fast cpu and in 1024x768 in most tests i did on my tualatin 1400. (emulated 4500 by disabling sli on voodoo 5 5500, still looking for a real voodoo 4).

asus tx97-e, 233mmx, voodoo1, s3 virge ,sb16
asus p5a, k6-3+ @ 550mhz, voodoo2 12mb sli, gf2 gts, awe32
asus p3b-f, p3-700, voodoo3 3500TV agp, awe64
asus tusl2-c, p3-S 1,4ghz, voodoo5 5500, live!
asus a7n8x DL, barton cpu, 6800ultra, Voodoo3 pci, audigy1

Reply 4 of 5, by Thandor

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A Voodoo 1 with more than 4MB (excuse me, 6MB!) will allow you to run games in 800x600 but games like Half-Life, Unreal and Quake 3 will run too slow in 800x600 mode. Games like Unreal will run slightly faster on 6MB (and 8MB) cards but it's only a matter of 2FPS in Unreal, 0.40FPS in Quake 3 and 3FPS with Half-Life in 640x480 on a Pentium II 450. So practically the versions with more MB won't give you anything extra in a time-frame correct system. If you're going for a faster system (i.e. Pentium II 450) you'd be better of with a Voodoo2 or a Voodoo3. I did benchmarks with these kind of cards which you can read here on the Skywell Magic 3D Plus (Voodoo 1 8MB) page.

However, if you're running a Voodoo 1 in SLI it would be nice to have 6MB or 8MB models because two cards would be fast enough to handle the 800x600 resolution. The only problem is that Voodoo 1 in SLI is very difficult to find. The engineering sample Quantum3D 100DB-4440 which Gary owns (click!) is a really interesting piece of hardware because it delivers exceptional performance for it's time frame (May 1996!).

meljor wrote:

Voodoo 3 wins hands down in image quality and does higher resolutions. 3500 beats a 4500 when pared with a fast cpu and in 1024x768 in most tests i did on my tualatin 1400. (emulated 4500 by disabling sli on voodoo 5 5500, still looking for a real voodoo 4).

If I'm not mistaken a real Voodoo4 4500 will be slightly (but only slightly) faster than a Voodoo5 5500 in single-chip mode. Probably a few latency differences between the two cards, as the Voodoo5 5500 is a bit more complex with 2 VSA-100 chips.

Last edited by Thandor on 2015-02-12, 19:53. Edited 2 times in total.

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Reply 5 of 5, by FeedingDragon

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meljor wrote:
Same thread, page 2, vetz also made a matrix for the voodoo3 compatible dos games. […]
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Same thread, page 2, vetz also made a matrix for the voodoo3 compatible dos games.

In most games there is no performance difference between 4 and 6mb voodoo1 cards. Just take the basic version for best compatibility.

Voodoo 3 3000 and 3500 are faster than v2 sli, voodoo3 2000 is about equal (agp, pci is a little slower)

Voodoo 3 wins hands down in image quality and does higher resolutions. 3500 beats a 4500 when pared with a fast cpu and in 1024x768 in most tests i did on my tualatin 1400. (emulated 4500 by disabling sli on voodoo 5 5500, still looking for a real voodoo 4).

Thanks for that 😀 Didn't think of checking for V3 stats in the V2 thread. But it did show me that I don't really want to dump the V2-SLI for a V3. since I'm setting this up for many of the DOS games that are marked as failures on the V3, a V3 is no longer an option. Was actually looking at the Quantum3D Voodoo 2 cards. The idea of having my SLI setup only take up a single PCI slot was interesting. But the benchmarks I found for them left me doubtful about doing it. Not to mention the price would probably be prohibitive.

So, all I'm looking for now really is if it's worth it to try and upgrade my 4MB Voodoo 1 (got it at $5 + shipping.) Since I'll only be using it for those 3 games (Blood, Dreams to Reality, & Prost Grand Prix 1998 ,) how do they fare with the different cards in different resolutions. Going to look up the game options for Blood at least (as I do own that one.) The other 2 aren't as much of an issue, as I don't actually own those at this time - though it is possible I will in the future. They are both games that I would enjoy. Sorry fans of Tie Break Tennis 98, I'm not a fan of tennis games, and I also don't speak anything except English (says it's Es/Pt/It only.)

Though if Prost Grand Prix will run on a V3 (Blood & Dreams to Reality are reported to work on it,) then I might consider installing a V3 AGP card later down the line. Then I could use the V2 for those that don't work on the V3 and the V3 for those that don't work on the V2 😀. Which will give me a free PCI/ISA slot back, as I would no longer need the V1. Barring that, it's looking like my current setup is probably going to be the best for my DOS games. With maybe swapping the 4M V1 out for a 6M+ one later.

Feeding Dragon

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