PCI Voodoo 3DFX with a Nvidia PCI-E Video card

[proskelley]

Before I go and spend money on old technology I am curious to see if this will work.
I am having poor performance when using any sort of Glide wrapper and would like to know if purchasing a PCI Voodoo 3DFX card will help me avoid using a wrapper because I have the actual hardware?
I would like to know if this would work along side my existing Nvidia GTX460 (I would still like to use the HDMI out as well).

Thanks in advance!

 

[Sunius]

I doubt it will work with windows 7. You'd have to use dual boot for windows XP I suppose.

 

[proskelley]

My main concern is not the OS that I use, but rather will the applications I'm using see the hardware as it should even though I'm still using the Nvidia card for the actual display. Because I want to eliminate the need to use a Glide wrapper.

 

[username-taken]

If you want to use a real Glide app then the 3dfx will work fine.
If what you are doing is playing old games with a glide wrapper then no, it won't work.
You'll still be using the wrapper that translates the glide calls into d3d or opengl calls and if you choose the 3dfx card then it will just feed that one with d3d/OGL calls.

What are you trying to do? If its playing old 3dfx PC games then just dual boot.

 

[proskelley]

The application needs glide3x.dll if I do not have a Voodoo capable video card. If I use a wrapper I get tons of graphical problems, because they are not very accurate.
So I would like to know if having the 3DFX card along side my GTX460 will eliminate the need for the wrapper.

 

[Sunius]

Yes it will, but it will introduce the need of having secondary OS.

 

[proskelley]

Best answer selected by proskelley.

 

[proskelley]

Great that's what I needed to know!
Hopefully this will all pan out in the end and I will no longer have the need to use those darn wrappers that caused these graphical problems.

 

[bucknutty]

There was a guy who tweaked and repacked drivers for the vodoo cards. I had a vodoo 5 550. Bigest waist of money in the world. Any way I think if you search omega driver you will find drivers to get a vodoo card up and running on windows XP. You may be able to force win 7 to use that driver, but I doubt it. It would be fun to try though.

 

[Chainzsaw]

I've used a glide wrapper for my Radeon 7950 for my old game carmageddon 2 - carpocalpyse now.

It worked perfectly fine, I remember reading somewhere that Radeon cards work better with the glide wrappers. I cannot confirm though as it was a while ago when I tried it out.

 

[proskelley]

I've used a glide wrapper for my Radeon 7950 for my old game carmageddon 2 - carpocalpyse now.

It worked perfectly fine, I remember reading somewhere that Radeon cards work better with the glide wrappers. I cannot confirm though as it was a while ago when I tried it out.

If I am able to get the 3DFX card recognized while still using the Nvidia card as my primary display, I will achieve what I want. The wrappers never have provided me with accurate textures.

 

[bucknutty]

I have a PCI vodoo card still. If i can find it, I will try tonight if you like. I can put it next to a 8800gt in my old test system, with windows 7. I think the real challange will be drivers. I have a feeling it will be stuck as compatible vga.

 

[proskelley]

Here are the drivers that are recommended to use on a modern OS. I would appreciate it more than you would even know if you tested that configuration out for me.

http://www.3dfxzone.it/dir/news/3dfx/sfft_1.9_voodoo3_4_5/

 

[bucknutty]

I have one of these on hand... it may be to old to be useful in this test.
http://vgamuseum.ru/gpu/3dfx/hercules-stingray-1283d-3dfx-voodoo-rush/

I also have an agp voodoo3.. I thought i had a PCI one but i cant find it...

 

[proskelley]

I really appreciate you digging through the boneyard for it though. That one is too old to be useful I believe. Needs to be a voodoo2 or greater.

 

[bucknutty]

I can try the voodoo 3 agp with a 8400gs pci. I think I have a p4 with xp on it some where.

 

[nforce4max]

If you are not picky and not using a DVI monitor or willing to use a second monitor with vga you could just get one or two voodoo 2 cards. You keep modern support for current games but also leaves you glide support. Older games are scripted to request which display adapter they use so glide will run straight off the v2 or any other 3dfx card out there. There is 64bit driver support so people are keeping the drivers up to date. I am also a collector and current to what is going on in the 3dfx world. Recently been buying more

If you wanted to pare up lets say a gtx460 or a gtx670 with one or two voodoo 2 cards it will work with using a dvi to vga adapter then using the pass through cable if you wanted to keep to using one monitor. If you were willing to have an extra monitor just for glide use you won't need the pass through cable at all. Just hook it up to the card but there won't be a single or the screen will be black until a game was loaded. So in theory you can still use 3dfx voodoo 2 era cards on modern machines and still keep the latest cards for everyday gaming.

For Dos games the V3 on up is fantastic but highly suggest a dedicated rig due to speed issue and general compatibility such as having opl3 equipped isa sound card while running a pentium 1 era cpu. Can disable the L1 cache to emulate 486 level performance for certain games and disable the L2 to get 386 level performance for the really picky games.

 

[proskelley]

Will a Voodoo 4500 function with the pass through cable?

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey