Voodoo 2 SLI Setup Questions

Discussion in 'Videocards - 3dfx' started by rotunda, Feb 3, 2014.

  1. rotunda

    rotunda Guest

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    Hi all,

    I've recently been restoring an old pentium 1 MMX PC

    It came with a Diamond Voodoo 1 card but this was a tiny bit weak for UT 1 so... I've ordered a pair of 12mb STB Blackmagic Voodoo 2's + SLI cable.

    The reason for my post is... I'm curious if my CPU, a Pentium 1 MMX 200Mhz @ 233Mhz will hold these cards back or not? Also which would be the best driver to use with these cards?

    Any other addition information i may want to know of or anything would be great :)

    Thanks in advance! :banana:
     
  2. Veteran

    Veteran Ancient Guru

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    I was running a 350 mhz pentium 2 back with my Voodoo's in around 1996/7 i think. I dont know wether it would bottleneck them, i wouldn't have thought so and even if it does you aint gonna gain that much from eliminating the bottleneck as 2 of those in sli will pretty much destroy anything released back in those days.

    Go here for all the old drivers including Hercules, Matrox, Savage etc etc.
    http://files.aoaforums.com/D328-TRU nVidia Drivers.html
     
  3. rotunda

    rotunda Guest

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    Thanks for the info, I got the cards today and fitted them etc..

    I fitted them and installed the "latest" official 3DFX driver (24/2/2000!).

    Got it all running and then ran UT 1... I'm getting rather poor performance. i'd say 20? FPS surely these cards although old should murder UT 1?!!

    QuakeGL also runs INCREDABLY slow... like... 1 frame every 2 seconds...

    What am i missing here??? :3eyes:
     
  4. Veteran

    Veteran Ancient Guru

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    Could be driver issues, its been alongtime since i used 3dfx hardware and i dont really have the time now to delve into this subject. I suggest you go post on a dedicated 3dfx forum were people are still using this hardware every single day.

    They will know all the best drivers to use and they will also know all the best tweaks.

    Good luck.
     

  5. rotunda

    rotunda Guest

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    thanks

    :banana::banana::banana::banana::banana:
     
    Last edited: Feb 4, 2014
  6. scrapser

    scrapser Master Guru

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    I built a retro Win98 box in the fall of 2012. I installed a GeForce 4600 Ti and two 3DFX Voodoo 2 (12 meg) cards in SLI. The mobo is a brand new Intel board from a company that specializes in having (new) old hardware in stock. I can't remember the board model right now (I'm at work).

    Anyway, I had a heck of time finding a 3DFX driver that would work in SLI and had to fiddle with the setup and even reinstalled the OS several times before I got the steps right. But I now have it installed and everything is stable. If you need any information, just ask and I will see what I can supply.

    I built the Win98 computer mainly to run my old MicroProse games using 3DFX (M1 Tank Platoon 2 and European Air War look fantastic). I also have games like EarthSiege, StarSiege, Emperor: Battle for Dune, and many others. It's all good.
     
  7. PieEyedPiper

    PieEyedPiper Master Guru

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    A pentium mmx 233 will not have an easy time with UT1.

    Back in the days of UT1 we all had overclocked celeron's to 450mhz, at the least, paired to sli'd voodoo2's.

    Essentially, the CPU you have is the base requirement for the game to operate, however, UT1 is very configurable. Maybe with some tweaking around you can get that framerate over 30.
     
  8. Mannerheim

    Mannerheim Ancient Guru

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    U need fast Pentium 2 or slow P3 (minimum) to run single Voodoo2 full speed. I have Pentium 200MMX machine with voodoo2 and it runs carmageddon1 barely 20fps. Other machine i also have, Pentium 3 500MHz,voodoo2 runs smooth as a silk =)
     
  9. scrapser

    scrapser Master Guru

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    The board I mentioned above is an Intel D850G with 512 RAM and a Pentium 4 3.0 GHz CPU. I picked these up from eSaitech.com last spring. The Mobo uses RDRAM which is an odd type of RAM but it all works just fine. If you want to upgrade your computer you can usually find what you need between a site like eSaitech and eBay. My computer is brand new except for the video card which I picked up off eBay for $25.
     
  10. Gromuhl'Djun

    Gromuhl'Djun Ancient Guru

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    A pentium1 mmx will really hold the cards back (as you've noticed).

    Back in the day on my P2-300mhz and 1xVoodoo2-12mb, UT1 ran at about 20-30fps @800x600. Unreal vanilla ran at about 40-50fps @800x600

    For UT1 I'd say you need some more cpu power to run it well @max.

    If QuakeGL runs that bad, there's something else going on. I'd say some driver issue there maybe.
     

  11. Shadowdane

    Shadowdane Maha Guru

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    Yup I had a P2-400Mhz back in the day with a Voodoo2 card, I usually ran most stuff at 640x480 to get a higher framerate. I can't really remember but only ran a few games at 800x600.
     
  12. Surfy

    Surfy Guest

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    Windows 98SE seemed to fair the best for me when running my Voodoo2's in SLi. I used the Voodoo2 drivers from 3dfx and I was running a Pentium 3 500Mhz (Katmai core). It did fine. Try a faster processor and make sure you've got at least 384MB of SDRAM.
     
  13. SplashDown

    SplashDown Maha Guru

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    The RD [Rambus Dynamic] ram was fast stuff back then compared to other, but was also very expensive.
     
  14. scrapser

    scrapser Master Guru

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    Yes it was. It is also weird. If you use only two memory slots you need to install dummy sticks in the slots that are not being used. I'm lucky with the build I have. I use 4x128 meg sticks for 512 RAM which is the max Win98 can handle.

    Incidently, with the two 3DFX cards in SLI I can run games at 1032x768 without any problems. But the software has to have that as an option and it's not always there. 1032x768 may seem crude by today's standards but on a good CRT monitor it's not bad.

    European Air War even has a mod where you can increase the padlock view to be more peripheral. Great for dogfighting.
     
  15. mmx23

    mmx23 Guest

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    Hello averybody, this is my first post on this forum.

    Sorry for not my perfect english.

    As my ante speakers told, the Pentium processor even with MMx technology is good only for Voodoo 1, with Voodoo 2, you will only get extra resolutions, but almost the same performance.
    For single Voodoo 2 setup, at least Pentium II 300 is recomended, and in Sli setup, a Pentium !!! over 500, I recommended a Copermine one.

    I have a Pentium 2 350 MHz and with Voodoo 2 in Sli, I obtained the same results in 640x480 compared with single V2.
    Very true that in 800 and 1024, the performance remain almost the same, while single V2 in 800 and 1024 decreased in performance, but, after upgrading to Pentium !!! at 650 MHz, the 3D performance raised with 250%.

    After years, I recently buy a V5 5500 AGP and the same problem, only a little bit more performance than V2 in Sli.

    After upgrading to AMD Athlon xp 1600+, the performance raised with at least 200%.

    So, for Voodoo 1 config, at least a Pentium at 133, recomended a Pentium II; for Voodoo 2 single and Banshee at least a Pentium II at 300, recommended a Pentium II 450, or Pentium !!! and for Voodoo 3 or Voodoo 2 in sli, a Pentium !!! as fast as possible, recommended Coppermine core.

    For Voodoo 5, if you are Intel fan, an Pentium !!! 1000 or Tualatin core as fast as possible, while an AMD Athlon XP will be the best platform for this card.

    Windows 98 SE is the best OS for 3Dfx cards, and at least 256 MB, while 512 MB will give you the best experience.

    Regardind UT, it's known the fact that is verry cpu intensive, even the video card must enter in wait states to wait the cpu.

    Compared with nVidia cards, vodoo cards had the advantege of obtaining a higher performance on weaker systems, but Nvidia cards slaced a little bit better on very performance sistems.
    This was true until GeForce cards arrived, where a Celeron 433, with the Voododo 5 will give you worse performence than with V3 card, in time GeForce performed much better on this entry level system.

    3Dfx gone but never forgotten!
     

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