plussken wrote:

So dear guys, do I need this hardware?

How are we supposed to know?

I meant efficiency/price ratio for late glide

Your argumentation is messed up:

You want a Voodoo that is fast while AA/AF is enabled -> Voodoo 5 5500.
You want to have a GF as primary card.

Options are:
- Get a V5 5500 PCI preferably with DVI.

- Get a V5 5500 AGP and use a PCI GF card. You can also use a PCI card as primary.

- If you do not want to spend the money, skip AA/AF and get Voodoo2 SLI, which is PCI and intrinsic secondary.

- If you do not want to spend the money for V2 SLI, skip AA/AF and get Voodoo3 PCI.

- Other PCI Voodoos as Voodoo 1, Rush and Banshee PCI are likely no option as they are likely too slow for the games you run on the P III.

I don't see the point where the targeting for a V4 4500 PCI originates.

elianda wrote:

Get a V5 5500 AGP and use a PCI GF card. You can also use a PCI card as primary.

Hmm, I never thought about such option, thank you!

Or use GeForce card with Zeckensack Glide wrapper. GeForce FX or newer is best for that but all GeForce cards will work. Ironically this seems to work better than Voodoo5 with some Glide games. Wheel of Time is somewhat glitchy and fugly with Voodoo 5 at times for example.

Use UTGLR for Unreal, UT, Deus Ex, Rune. Works with any GeForce. Supports anisotropic filtering and MSAA. S3TC. Etc.

BTW GeForce 4 is first with fixed DXT1/S3TC quality.

Having 2 primary cards is not ideal, you might have to switch them in bios (and cable also if you do not have a switch for it) at startup. I would go for a voodoo2 or sli setup if you really want to keep a geforce in there.

Voodoo4 is not a bad card and is as fast or a tiny bit faster as a voodoo3 3500 with the added benefit of AA and 32bit color support. With 2xAA enabled (is max setting with v4) it will be performing around a single voodoo2 (I guess) so it is still usable with older glide games. PCI versions are fairly rare and expensive for v4 and v5.

Is there really any reason for the added features of the V4-V5 at all? Any games that require Glide aren't going to support higher than 256x256 textures or 32-bit color. If a game DOES support larger texture sizes and 32-bit color then it will also support OpenGL or Direct3D. In fact, can a V5 even properly do glide-only games? I know you can get, for instance, Redguard, to work with a V3... but a 5?

infiniteclouds wrote:

Is there really any reason for the added features of the V4-V5 at all? Any games that require Glide aren't going to support higher than 256x256 textures or 32-bit color. If a game DOES support larger texture sizes and 32-bit color then it will also support OpenGL or Direct3D. In fact, can a V5 even properly do glide-only games? I know you can get, for instance, Redguard, to work with a V3... but a 5?

In short: yes you can when it comes to the later (windows) glide games, dos can be a challenge. But any game that works with a v3 can work with a voodoo4/5.

These were graphics accelerators, not just ''glide cards''. They had to do a good job at direct3d games and features as well because of the firm competition. It's not like people only bought 3dfx cards for glide (like we do today). Voodoo4 and 5 were supposed to compete against Geforce256 and Geforce2, they pretty much lost that battle but to me they are still amazing cards.

True -- but there isn't really much of a reason to use a Voodoo card for D3D games or OpenGL over a Geforce.

But any game that works with a v3 can work with a voodoo4/5.

I would love to see someone pull of Redguard on a Voodoo 5 -- I wasn't able to do it.

infiniteclouds wrote:

True -- but there isn't really much of a reason to use a Voodoo card for D3D games or OpenGL over a Geforce.

Why not? It can still do that. There isn't really much of a reason to use a Geforce if you also want glide... (well, not completely right. I guess that's another reason why the voodoo2's are so popular 🤣 )

I got DOS Carmageddon working with Voodoo5 and even FSAA. The key was the Voodoo2 patch and I think to let it first boot Windows then restart back to DOS. Seems that initializes the card in some way. And then there's a DOS environment variable for FSAA.

Voodoo5 can definitely work better than GeForce in D3D in some cases from a compatibility standpoint. For example those games with font rendering issues. Like Shadows of the Empire and Xwing Alliance. The days when D3D meant "built for Voodoo, but sorta supports those flaky competing cards too".

I think GeForce 3 is when Voodoo5 is finally really outclassed. GF3 has appealing features and is much faster.

..but a Geforce 3 or even newer won't work better for those older D3D games? I didn't realize that they had flaky support for early D3D.

Getting DOS games working with a V5 and AA is impressive. I'd like to see videos of that -- or Tomb Raider, since that can be made to work with a V3.

I was in your same situation, P3B-F with P3, Nvidia in the AGP port, and wanted the cherry on top with a Voodoo PCI.

I bought a Voodoo 5 PCI and ended up putting a Voodoo 2 instead. Why? Voodoo 2 is perfect for those games made for Glide, or early Direct X, but for something a bit more modern (DirectX 6-8, OpenGL) the Nvidia card will just eat everything, with good VGA signal, 32-bit colour, full OpenGL support, and no issues at all.

Also Voodoo 2 will have much better compatibility with most Glide-only games (even DOS games with some tweaks), something that Voodoo 5 could not achieve in my experience. And the Ti4200 is a beast compared to the Voodoo 5, and despite what some say, it has better support for DOS games (SVGA/VESA/exotic resolutions, etc. not talking about 3D acceleration).

Having 2 graphics cards in Windows 98 SE is possible and you can even choose the card by selecting the priority AGP/PCI on BIOS, but it's such a pain to use, compared to the seamless VGA switching of a Voodoo 2.

If you have a fast Pentium 3 with a Voodoo 2, I recommend you to use the V3.03.00b drivers, those are the only ones that work in my machine due to fast CPU. Also, DOS games with driver built-in will have issues, not because the game doesn't like fast CPUs, but because the DOS driver will break.

I have several retro gaming machines, and I've never found a place for the Voodoo 5. A card that not many people buy is a card that not many games will support properly.

Schyz wrote:

I have several retro gaming machines, and I've never found a place for the Voodoo 5. A card that not many people buy is a card that not many games will support properly.

I sort of agree with most of your points, but I found that the V5 is great for a small period from around 99-2001. There are late-era Glide games like Half Life, Unreal Tournament, etc and play wonderfully well on the Voodoo5. I am playing Clive Barkers Undying on there now and it is great. On top of Glide games it does D3D/OpenGl games well enough as well, with a real OpenGl ICD.

Now I know a Ti4200 would smash it for D3D/OpenGl, but the Ti4200 came out in 2002 which is a bit after this era...the V5 came out in 2000 so it's a tough comparison.

For me...the retro value of 3dfx's final released product, great support for late-era Glide games and good support for D3D/OpenGl...what's not to love?

(ok the cost and the fact the die easily but apart from that...)

doaks80 wrote:

Now I know a Ti4200 would smash it for D3D/OpenGl, but the Ti4200 came out in 2002 which is a bit after this era...the V5 came out in 2000 so it's a tough comparison.

The comment about the Ti4200 is becasue he already has one. A Nvidia card from the period would still give great performance, especially with 32-bit colour, but nowadays it's very hard to get one of those for a good price and no leaking capacitors. Much easier to go for GeForce 4, more reliable hardware and still great Win98 support. I personally use a GeForce FX 5950 Ultra but even with a Pentium III 1400 MHz that card is overkill.

Late Glide games rarely support glide-only exclusively and can benefit from the hassle-free Nvidia drivers, no miniGL, no WickedGL, stable OpenGL, better 32-bit colour performance, better performance, plenty of anti-aliasing and anisotropic options.

In short, in my humble opinion, the best combo for Win9X games is Nvidia for late, standard API games, and Voodoo 2 for early DirectX and GLide games.

try a wrapper possibly an older one

Schyz wrote:

I personally use a GeForce FX 5950 Ultra but even with a Pentium III 1400 MHz that card is overkill.

Unless you're going for max resolutions and max AA on Homeworld, Dungeon Keeper 2 or Black and White.