Combining Voodoo 3 + Voodoo 2 SLI

[tk421]

I am curious, is there a way to combine the Voodoo 3 (or the Banshee) with the Voodoo 2? This would mean two voodoo cards on the same machine with the goal of improving system performance when playing 3D-accelerated games. If so, is there a possibility of adding Voodoo 2 SLI? This would of course mean 3 Voodoo cards, the Voodoo 3 (or Banshee) with the Voodoo 2 SLI.

I just tried a Voodoo 3 combo with a single Voodoo 2. dxdiag will not read the second card at all. When right-clicking the desktop and checking properties, only the Voodoo 3 is visible. It is as if the V2 was not there. When checking the device manager through the control panel, both cards are visible.

I installed the V3 first, then the V2 and finished by re-installing the Voodoo 3 drivers. Interestingly, the V2 was visible when right-clicking the desktop before I reinstalled the V3. I have no idea why the V2 was not read by dxdiag.

All of this was done with the V3 and a single V2.

I tested this configuration on a Pentium II 350 with Episode 1 Racer. Performance was rock-solid at 100% the whole time while in-game. I have no idea if the V2 improved performance.

EDIT: I have tested this P2 350 with the V3 + V2 SLI. The in-game cutscene videos drop down to about 85%. In-game performance dropped a few times to 98%, but that was rare and did not affect actual performance in-game. Again, I have no idea if the V3 + V2 SLI configuration had an impact.

dxdiag did not read the V2 SLI after I reinstalled the V3 drivers.

Based on these 2 tests, if the V2 was read at all then it would seem that SLI is not the best idea here, but the V3 + single V2 works just fine. While still trying the V2 SLI, I then reduced the P2 CPU speed down to 233 Mhz to see if this resolved this drop in performance. In-game video cutscenes improved to 98%, with no performance drop. In-game performance suffered an initial drop down to 66% before bouncing back to rock-solid 100% performance.

As before, I have no idea if the V2 was used at all in this combined voodoo configuration, but my guess is that it had an impact. Whether this is a positive impact or a negligible one is harder to say.

[SarahWalker]

This won't work, you can't "combine" Voodoo cards in this way. There were switcher utilities to aid in having both V2 and V3/Banshee in the same system, but this was to switch between games running entirely on one or the other.

[leilei]

My real P2 system had a Voodoo3 + Voodoo2 pair. The drivers conflict with each other, and using the Voodoo2 means manually dropping in V2's Glide runtimes into certain game folders. I've used this to compare peformance in super thrashy areas (V3>V2>V2SLI at that, even on a "v2 potential holding" bottlenecking 440LX board), as well as comparing the filters by eye years ago, and looking at their dither subtraction behavior. Their CLUT behavior's different too (V2 loses some darker colors at higher gamma levels and can have the overflow bug that V3 doesn't get). So in theory, if it were technically possible to SLI the V3 with the V2, you'd notice some severe flickering, and some really uneven frame pacing.


(I blame the old V3 hype with the comparisons of being like 2 V2 cards in one, when in reality that only existed on some Obsidian X24 parts)

[tk421]

Thank you for clarifying this matter. I felt the idea was worth investigating, and I am glad both of you clarified this matter as I am sure others would have tried it, or simply asked about it here. PCem was always an exciting program, but v17 has made it much more appealing to Win98 users. Pentium 2 performance is great, and the Voodoo 3 is impressive.

I was really impressed to see Episode 1 Racer working on a P2 350 at 100% performance. This was rock-solid performance. I have yet to test the Voodoo 3 3000, so I might do that next.