3dfx Voodoo5 5500 vs nv geforce 2 GTS

[Magic Carpet]

Yes, Nvidia did 3DFX proper homage with the superior Geforce FX architecture :whiste:

FX was such a failure though. Some of the ex-3dfx engineers still working there, though.

I really need to find a Socket A mobo with 2x/4x AGP and Barton 2800+ compatibility so I can resurrect my Voodoo 5 5500 for a Win98 Gaming Box.

You can assemble one on the cheap (eBay). I build retro boxes for fun. Message me if you need help.

 

[sandorski]

FX was such a failure though. Some of the ex-3dfx engineers still working there, though.


You can assemble one on the cheap (eBay). I build retro boxes for fun. Message me if you need help.

The problem is finding a Socket A mobo that has both 2x/4x AGP and Barton 2800 compatibility. Surprisingly, my above post turns up in the first Google page of results of a search, lol. At first I was all, "Oh sweet that's exactly what I wa...." then I concluded, "..oh, that's what I typed."

:biggrin:

 

[DaveSimmons]

A Pentium 3 at 933 MHz or a Tualatin Celeron 1.0 or higher system with 512 MB RAM would also be perfect for W98 SE. I'd give you one of mine but I threw the last one away ~6 months ago after no one wanted it even at $19 + shipping. I can't think of any W98 games that needed more CPU power than that.

Another option might be socket 754, if the MB has 98/ME drivers. You could probably get a combo for not much more than shipping in FS/FT.

 

[sandorski]

A Pentium 3 at 933 MHz or a Tualatin Celeron 1.0 or higher system with 512 MB RAM would also be perfect for W98 SE. I'd give you one of mine but I threw the last one away ~6 months ago after no one wanted it even at $19 + shipping. I can't think of any W98 games that needed more CPU power than that.

Another option might be socket 754, if the MB has 98/ME drivers. You could probably get a combo for not much more than shipping in FS/FT.

Already have the 2800 and ram, Motherboard too, but it won't run the Voodoo 5 5500. Wish I bought the PCI version.

 

[Magic Carpet]

The problem is finding a Socket A mobo that has both 2x/4x AGP and Barton 2800 compatibility. Surprisingly, my above post turns up in the first Google page of results of a search, lol. At first I was all, "Oh sweet that's exactly what I wa...." then I concluded, "..oh, that's what I typed."

:biggrin:

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Asus-A7V400-MX-Socket-Board-/170738276917?pt=Motherboards&hash=item27c0cb5a35

but in the "AGP configuration" settings, in the BIOS i can set the wire speed
only to x1, x2, x4.

Easy.

 

[sandorski]

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Asus-A7V400-MX-Socket-Board-/170738276917?pt=Motherboards&hash=item27c0cb5a35


Easy.

Nope, that's a 4x/8x AGP slot. That said, looks like a KT333 chipset based motherboard will work.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Sorry, wrong link.

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/ECS-K7VTA3-V...709835961?pt=Motherboards&hash=item35b760b8b9

This will work 100%. If you don't mind the pink

 

[Magic Carpet]

A Pentium 3 at 933 MHz or a Tualatin Celeron 1.0 or higher system with 512 MB RAM would also be perfect for W98 SE. I'd give you one of mine but I threw the last one away ~6 months ago after no one wanted it even at $19 + shipping. I can't think of any W98 games that needed more CPU power than that.

Another option might be socket 754, if the MB has 98/ME drivers. You could probably get a combo for not much more than shipping in FS/FT.

A VIA C3 should work fine for Tomb Raider. For heavier games V5 scales nicely with added CPU power. P3 is good if you have it. If you build from scratch it's best to go with AMD/DDR combo.

My personal box has 1.4 Ghz Tualatin though. I just love that mobo, hehe. You can use this as a guide

 

[severus]

Being that there are still win7 drivers being produced, couldn't I put my pci voodoo 3 in my rig and just switch between that and the gtx 260 for glide games? I'm a novice about how that stuff works.

 

[Soulkeeper]

I owned both these cards
The gf2 gts was an upgrade from the voodoo5 for me at the time, and generally outperformed it in most things.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Being that there are still win7 drivers being produced, couldn't I put my pci voodoo 3 in my rig and just switch between that and the gtx 260 for glide games? I'm a novice about how that stuff works.

I do that with my V5 PCI card. Pretty handy

Heck, you can even use an AGP > PCI-X > PCI-E converter and run like that on ANY modern system ;-p

I have yet to custom cool my V5 though, stock fans are a bit on the loud side.

 

[BFG10K]

Voodoo 5 6000 benchmarks: http://www.x86-secret.com/articles/divers/v5-6000/v56kgb-5.htm

 

[Magic Carpet]

Thanks for the link.

I was a bit upset with their conclusion on DooM 3:

Doom 3 isn't really playable on the Voodoo 5 6000 because its lack of T&L support (remember that it's a 5 years old card), the best that we can do with all options set to the minimum is something like 5-10fps in 640x480 and thus is unplayable. Because we are a bit vicious, we tried to set the maximal quality to see what we could get, at this point we had around 0.5fps Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Jesus... they didn't know how to make it run properly.

These guys made it run @ 30 FPS on Voodoo2 SLI, which is an order of magnitude slower than V56K. Oh well, graphics has suffered real bad though.

*** ----------------------------------------------------------------
*** Athlon XP 2070mhz (11.5x180)
*** 256MB RAM
*** Voodoo 2 12MB and Voodoo 2 12MB SLI
*** Windows 98SE
*** FastVoodoo 2 4.5 beta2 MM
*** Wicked GL 3.02
***
*** Doom3 Full Version
*** Res: 800x600
*** Low Details
*** Difficulty : Veteran
***
*** Doom3_Voodoo2_Patch_V1_0:
*** 50% texture size
*** 32x32 minimal size
*** AntidetectMode ON
*** SupportW98 ON

 

[sandorski]

Thanks for the link.

I was a bit upset with their conclusion on DooM 3:
Jesus... they didn't know how to make it run properly.

These guys made it run @ 30 FPS on Voodoo2 SLI, which is an order of magnitude slower than V56K. Oh well, graphics has suffered real bad though.

Way back then, there was a Utility you could run that ran T&L through Software. I don't recall what it was called, but I would think it would work quite handily with modern Multi-Core CPU's. When I used it I was running an XP 1700+ and I don't recall the affect on performance, but it allowed the Voodoo 5 5500 to run games that required Hardware T&L. That said, I'm not entirely sure if it did T&L or just flagged HW T&L as available so Software would run.

 

[Magic Carpet]

I think, you ought to setup a retro box and put that dusty Vee5 to some use!!!!!111 :biggrin:

 

[Martimus]

I actually had both of these cards. The Voodoo 5500 had MUCH better image quality to the GF2, but it was also slower while playing games. The GF2 also had better external AV capabilities so I could watch movies on a TV rather than the monitor.

If you prefer Image Quality, then the 5500 is better. Really at this point, both are going to be dog slow at most games, so I would go for the 5500. The GF2 had some pretty bad color reproduction.

EDIT: I should say that I still own the Voodoo 5500. It is gathering dust in my closet. It is an AGP card though, so I can't even plug it into my comp as a backup if my VC ever dies.

 

[sandorski]

I think, you ought to setup a retro box and put that dusty Vee5 to some use!!!!!111 :biggrin:

Yup, that's it.

 

[Magic Carpet]

I actually had both of these cards. The Voodoo 5500 had MUCH better image quality to the GF2, but it was also slower while playing games. The GF2 also had better external AV capabilities so I could watch movies on a TV rather than the monitor.

If you prefer Image Quality, then the 5500 is better. Really at this point, both are going to be dog slow at most games, so I would go for the 5500. The GF2 had some pretty bad color reproduction.

I didn't realize how bad Geforce 2's IQ was until I plugged it into a high-res monitor. Really bad.

EDIT: I should say that I still own the Voodoo 5500. It is gathering dust in my closet. It is an AGP card though, so I can't even plug it into my comp as a backup if my VC ever dies.

There are plenty of good AGP mobo's on eBay you can pick up cheaply or use an adapter to hook it up to one of your PCI-E slots instead. Bottom line. If you're not interested in the card, there are lots of people that are. Hardware Glide "decoding" is something else

 

[Magic Carpet]

http://www.rashly3dfx.com/products/rampage.html

These pics are of Quake III Arena running in debug mode on the Rampage. Jeff White got OpenGL working on November 30, 2000, and the day after he gave this demo. DirectX 8 was also functional on the card. It sucks because only 14 days later, the company would declare bankruptcy, and this beautiful, working card would go to waste. So close, and yet so far. (above).

This can be flashed to work in regular PCs as well, if anyone is interested. The DVI output is limited to 1600x1200 though. VGA output has no probs displaying 'HD' resolutions.

 

[jmarti445]

Number 9 anyone?

 

[nenforcer]

Number 9 anyone?

Ticket 2 Ride.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Ticket 2 Ride.

Sadly, I didn't have the experience messing with these cards.

Number Nine was founded in 1982 by Andrew Najda and Stan Bialek as Number Nine Computer Corporation in Lexington, Massachusetts. The company was renamed Number Nine Visual Technology Corporation in the early 1990s. Number Nine initially made an Apple II accelerator board, then later moved into the design and manufacture of high end PC graphics cards in 1983. In the mid to late 1990s, Number Nine lost market share due to price and performance competition from other video card makers, particularly Matrox, 3dfx, Diamond, and ATI. Number Nine had been slow to respond to the boom in 3D graphics, and had continued to emphasize high quality, fast 2D graphics. On December 20, 1999, Number Nine filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and announced a "letter-of-intent" for S3 Inc. (later S3 Graphics Co.) to buy substantially all assets and intellectual property of Number Nine. By mid 2000, Number Nine had ceased operations entirely and S3 had completed acquisition of Number Nine's assets. In 2002, two former Number Nine engineers, James Macleod and Francis Bruno, formed Silicon Spectrum, Inc., and licensed Number Nine's graphics technology from S3 to implement in FPGA devices.[2][3][4][5]
For five years after Number Nine closed its doors, a former employee kept Number Nine's website up and running, with driver downloads and a forum available for self-help. A volunteer and #9 enthusiast provided regular, impromptu technical support on the forum for the last two and a half years the site was active. Several former employees checked in to help occasionally. The website finally went off the air for good in March 2005, and the URL name was taken over by an on-line gambling company.

 

[PingSpike]

I do that with my V5 PCI card. Pretty handy

Heck, you can even use an AGP > PCI-X > PCI-E converter and run like that on ANY modern system ;-p

I have yet to custom cool my V5 though, stock fans are a bit on the loud side.

Bizarre...I take it you could not find a AGP -> PCI-E adapter and were forced to double up on them. I don't know a lot about PCI-X...is there a bandwidth loss going from AGP?

 

[Rubycon]

LOL @ Number Nine...

Matrox was the best 2D back in the day. Too bad they could not keep up, liked their cards...

3DFX fell behind without REAL AGP, lack of textures >512x512, TNL, etc.
Glide ran smooth but if they could not render something correctly they just blurred it, and blurred it! :biggrin:

In 1998 24MB SLI Voodoo2 was THE thing to top though. I cannot count the hours I wasted playing Ultim@te Race Pro on that. Ironically a copy of that was given to me with the purchase of a Matrox M3D PCI add on card. :biggrin: