Smack2k
Veteran Member
What would you say best to pair a Voodoo1 PCI card with on a board with AGP and PCI available running a Pentium MMX 200.....for best overall compatibility and video quality in DOS and Windows?
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Voodoo1 PCI - Pair with AGP or PCI?
- Thread starter Smack2k
- Start date
VERAULT
Veteran Member
Geeze did pentium 1 boards have AGP? I dont remember it that way, but who knows.
In a nutshell; Doesn't matter! voodoo 1 and 2 piggyback on your 2d card and do thier own 3d Thang... you could piggy back them onto a Cirrus logic 2MB ISA SVGA card and they would still do what they are supposed to.
Just curious, which voodoo 1 card do you have? I only owned (own) the voodoo 2, but a friend of mine had the monster 3d by diamond.
In a nutshell; Doesn't matter! voodoo 1 and 2 piggyback on your 2d card and do thier own 3d Thang... you could piggy back them onto a Cirrus logic 2MB ISA SVGA card and they would still do what they are supposed to.
Just curious, which voodoo 1 card do you have? I only owned (own) the voodoo 2, but a friend of mine had the monster 3d by diamond.
GiGaBiTe
Veteran Member
Some of the very last Socket 7 boards before SS7 had AGP available. I had a Gateway 2000, which was Socket 7 and had an AGP 1x slot.
I would recommend using an AGP card if possible because it will increase the amount of available PCI bandwidth to the Voodoo1.
Remember that just because the Voodoo1 takes over 3D rendering, doesn't mean that the 2D card is disabled; The Voodoo1 just switches off the output. If you attach another monitor to the 2D card while in 3D mode, you'll still be getting output on it. In Windows, you'll generally see the desktop. In DOS you'll usually see the command prompt, but sometimes the display is blank.
Smack2k
Veteran Member
Any recommendations on card make? Matrox AGP? S3 PCI? I see the STB Velocity above, which I have. But curious of the AGP options / recommendations
GiGaBiTe
Veteran Member
Matrox is a big no no if you plan on gaming or using DOS, as those cards don't have proper VESA support, OpenGL or Direct3D support.
I remember trying to play Duke3D on my Millennium II and G200 and it was horrible. Transparent sprites/walls caused the game to slow down to single digit frame rates the closer you got, and would eventually crash with screen corruption if you got too close.
OpenGL was usually a glitchy mess, and Direct3D wasn't much better.
I'd recommend an S3 card, as they usually had pretty decent drivers. Here's an auction for two Number Nine S3 Savage4 AGP cards:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/222809739709
I think the Savage4 can run the ill fated S3 MeTaL API, only a handful of games supported it; UT99 being one of them.
The Nvidia TNT2 also wasn't a bad card:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/222902553590
This one is probably the cheaper M64 variant, but still a decent card.
I remember trying to play Duke3D on my Millennium II and G200 and it was horrible. Transparent sprites/walls caused the game to slow down to single digit frame rates the closer you got, and would eventually crash with screen corruption if you got too close.
OpenGL was usually a glitchy mess, and Direct3D wasn't much better.
I'd recommend an S3 card, as they usually had pretty decent drivers. Here's an auction for two Number Nine S3 Savage4 AGP cards:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/222809739709
I think the Savage4 can run the ill fated S3 MeTaL API, only a handful of games supported it; UT99 being one of them.
The Nvidia TNT2 also wasn't a bad card:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/222902553590
This one is probably the cheaper M64 variant, but still a decent card.
The Voodoo 1 came out around the end of 1996, so go look up video cards that came around that time to about 2 years after.
The original TNT1 didn't come out until 1998 so a TNT2 would be way overkill for any glide games that are limited to 640x480 because of the Voodoo 1.
Duke3d wasn't even a 3d accelerated game (all done in software).
The original TNT1 didn't come out until 1998 so a TNT2 would be way overkill for any glide games that are limited to 640x480 because of the Voodoo 1.
Duke3d wasn't even a 3d accelerated game (all done in software).
Smack2k
Veteran Member
I have a TNT1 as well as several S3 Virge DX cards (but they are PCI).
Looking at the Savage AGP Card from S3 as well...thanks for the link.
Also trying to lookup video cards that came out 1997-98ish. The TNT1 fits in there, as does the RIVA 128, and either of those would give me 3D support (if needed) for non glide games.....
Looking at the Savage AGP Card from S3 as well...thanks for the link.
Also trying to lookup video cards that came out 1997-98ish. The TNT1 fits in there, as does the RIVA 128, and either of those would give me 3D support (if needed) for non glide games.....
GiGaBiTe
Veteran Member
Unless you're a purist, the age of the card doesn't matter. A TNT is going to be more expensive and less available than a TNT2. You also get much better performance with a TNT2 card.
The primary video card would be irrelevant to Glide games because they'd be using the Voodoo1. That is unless you're using a Glide wrapper, in which case there's no point in having a discrete 3dfx card.
Just because Duke 3D is a DOS game using software rendering, doesn't mean you can use any video card. Many video cards don't properly support VESA properly, and later VESA modes, especially the VBE 2.0 modes Duke 3D uses for high resolutions (640x480 and higher) properly. Matrox is notorious for this.
The OP was mentioning a Pentium 200MMX, so even if you have a video card that can do VESA modes the CPU will not be able to handle them anyway.
Sure you can get an AGP board if you go P2/P3 or SS7 but then why bother with a Voodoo 1 at all in that configuration.
I was under the impression the OP just want to play DOS games and some early Glide titles which is why I recommended the RIVA card to go with the Voodoo 1. The riva card will do OK in early D3D games on Win95.
Maybe the OP should be more specific in what they want.
Sure you can get an AGP board if you go P2/P3 or SS7 but then why bother with a Voodoo 1 at all in that configuration.
I was under the impression the OP just want to play DOS games and some early Glide titles which is why I recommended the RIVA card to go with the Voodoo 1. The riva card will do OK in early D3D games on Win95.
Maybe the OP should be more specific in what they want.
Smack2k
Veteran Member
I want this particular machine to be able to play games from 95 through 97-98 basically. I could go with a P2-233, but I dont want this machine being much faster than that.
If I went P2-233, I could still go with the Voodoo1 or I could use a Voodoo2 I have and pair it with a RIVA 128, TNT, or TNT2 Card in the system. Just want to be able to get that range of games playable in the best way on this machine.
If I went P2-233, I could still go with the Voodoo1 or I could use a Voodoo2 I have and pair it with a RIVA 128, TNT, or TNT2 Card in the system. Just want to be able to get that range of games playable in the best way on this machine.
If your games support OpenGL/Direct3d the TNT2 will easily outperform a Voodoo 1. If the games only support 3dfx then you will obviously need the Voodoo 1.
Personally I would go with a Voodoo 2 - they are a much better performer plus you can pick up two and run them in SLI configuration. In my PII system I found that using Voodoo II's in SLI gave me about the same performance as the TNT2 card I also had installed. I only used it for a while though; at the end of the day the TNT2 with 32 MB of RAM was just as good so I put the Voodoo's back into a P200 system without an AGP slot (running a S3 2d card of some description).
Only problem these days is that Voodoo 2 cards are getting expensive.
Personally I would go with a Voodoo 2 - they are a much better performer plus you can pick up two and run them in SLI configuration. In my PII system I found that using Voodoo II's in SLI gave me about the same performance as the TNT2 card I also had installed. I only used it for a while though; at the end of the day the TNT2 with 32 MB of RAM was just as good so I put the Voodoo's back into a P200 system without an AGP slot (running a S3 2d card of some description).
Only problem these days is that Voodoo 2 cards are getting expensive.
Sometimes you end up needing more then 1 machine.
I have a P3-500 TNT2 + Voodoo2 SLI for some games, and a P233MMX Riva 128 + Voodoo 1, plus a dozen other systems that go back to a 5150 + CGA up to a FX-8350 + RX580.
Yes some of these cards are getting harder to find and cost a few dollars, but that is just going to get worse not better so pick what you want and use it.
GiGaBiTe
Veteran Member
The Voodoo1 is really only good for the older DOS Glide titles and early Windows 95 titles because it has such a low maximum resolution. At best you'll get 512x384, or 640x480 if the game doesn't use a Z buffer due to the limited frame buffer memory. There were some rare 6 and 8 MB variants that allowed normal 640x480 operation, but you'll be hard pressed to find one these days.
A Voodoo2 would be a better choice since it offers a maximum resolution of 800x600 or 1024x768 in SLi.
Smack2k
Veteran Member
I have multiple machines setup. I had at one time 15 of them setup in my retro garage and running various setups...but I toned it down to 7 now, 3 of which are newer builds (2008 and forward), but of the four retro machines I have running, I have a Voodoo2 SLI setup with a ti4600 in a PIII Tualitin for end of 90's, early 2K stuff (not really relevant for this forum) but that is my Voodoo2 setup. For this particular machine, I currently have a Voodoo1 in there with a Quadro 256. I know the Quadro is way overkill for it, so wanted to back it down somewhat but leave the Voodoo1 running in it. I may upgrade the Diamond Voodoo1 I have in it to a Canopus Voodoo1 if I can get the pass-through cable for the Canopus working, but other than that, had planned to leave the Voodoo1 in it. I have another Voodoo2 single card I could toss in it, but really wanting to leave the Voodoo1 for that era.....but now reading this thinking I may toss the Voodoo2 in it and pair it with a TNT or TNT2 which should cover that era of gaming....
1ST1
Veteran Member
Pentium 200 MMX was just before AGP came to fashion. You can combine the Voodoo 1 or Voodoo 2 (even dual Voodoo 2) with Pentium 200 MMX on a No-AGP PCI board, BabyAT mainboard with any PCI graphics card of that era, for example ATI Mach 64 or Rage XL, or Matrox Millenium or some kind of S3 cards. I was running my Voodoo 1 with a graphics card with an graphic controller from IBM, maybe I still have that card still somewhere...? That IBM card had good resolution and driver in Windows 3.11 and 95. Later I combined two pieces of Voodoo 2 with RIVA 128 AGP card, swapped to Riva TNT and TNT2, upgrading also CPU from AMD K6-2-300 to 450 (both on MSI MS-5269 Ali Aladdin Chipset) and then Athlon 500 and then 750 (MSI MS-6167 with AMD 740 chipset (AMD "fester" reference design). That last described machine, MS-6167, with 2x Voodoo 2, Riva TNT2 and Athlon 750 is still in my storage.
GiGaBiTe
Veteran Member
Both AGP and the Pentium MMX were released the same year. However, it wasn't until a year later that Intel released a chipset (i440LX) that actually supported it. 3rd party chipset vendors, however, did have AGP chipsets before Intel released theirs.
I wouldn't recommend dual Voodoo2s on a Pentium MMX, the CPU isn't fast enough to drive both cards at the same time.