Voodoo 2 1000 Uses?

Mortis · 02-04-2002, 08:34 PM

Greetings... I have a Voodoo 2 1000 (12mb) daughter card sitting around collecting dust. I was wondering... what can I do with this card? Can I run it with new video cards and would there be a performance increase to make it worth the while? By new I mean, I was told that you could use it with the G2's... is this true? Could I use with my G3 and would it be worth it? What other advantages does it have if any?

Thanks for your input and ideas...
Mortis

AuraEdge · 02-04-2002, 08:47 PM

You can use it along side any video card, although when using games, you have to specify which card to use...You cant "combine the powers" of the two cards. Now the Geforce pretty much blows away the V2 in everything..I think the TNT2 did too. However, the V2 can do one thing that no Nvidia card can, and thats Glide. There are a few glide only apps, although thier all antiquidated by now. I would say theres no real thing you can do with it. You can use that the V2 and "combine its powers" with another V2, known as SLI, but even then that was slower than the V3 was, which was about as fast as the TNT2

In case you didnt know, TNT2 was the generation of video cards Nvidia made before the first Geforce came out.

cadetstimp · 02-04-2002, 08:48 PM

Any system with maybe an older All in Wonder or Matrox would be able to do better gaming with the V2 installed

Mortis · 02-04-2002, 11:03 PM

Thanks guys... thats what I was wondering about- "combining the powers," as it was put. I pretty much know what the daughter card does and its specs... just didnt know if I could combine it. Strange thing is, I am really attached to this card and want to find a use for it... hehe. It was the first vid card I bought way back when. Since then, I had an ATI 16mb, the mentioned TNT2 (mine was the 64 series) and now a TI 200. I still have the Voodoo in a cel 400 at my g/f's and just got to thinking about it tonight when I was cleaning out my closet of spare parts. I thought maybe I could find a constructive use for it and didnt know if I could somehow combine it with my current set up to get the best of all worlds. Good to know. Thanks all!!!

Mortis

Jarhead · 02-05-2002, 01:38 PM

I still have my old SLI running with my GF3. It's there strictly for Glide support. Some older games do support both Direct3D and Glide, but generally, the Glide renderer is always the best option. I still used it for Descent3 and Diablo II.

Bob The Great · 02-05-2002, 01:51 PM

The V2 is a great card if you have any unreal engine based games. It really works well for them, especilially if you have a SLI going.

AuraEdge · 02-05-2002, 03:23 PM

It would be good for D2, since 3D speed isnt really an issue for it and I heard glide looks alot better on that.

Unreal though...I think any GF2 GTS or higher would blow a V2 SLI out of the water (Plz correct me if Im wrong). It might look somewhat better in Glide, but itll be smother in D3D on the Geforce than in Glide on the V2.

Jarhead · 02-06-2002, 08:26 AM

Well, a GeForce card is definitely better than a V2 SLI in Unreal based games, but I wouldn't necessarily say it would "blow it out of the water" either. The V2 still holds up pretty well against the current cards. It's biggest Archille's heel is the limited amount of texture memory. A 12mb SLI setup still only has 8mb of memory for texture storage since they can't be combined in SLI configuration. The issue of "smoothness" goes away when you use lower textures (either low or med). This is from an old post I made a while back comparing my SLI rig to my GF3.

Quote:

Only 'cause I'm bored. Decided to pit my 3+ year old CLV2 12mb SLI against my GeForce3 just to see how well it can stand up against it. It actually did fairly well to be honest.
Anyway, using both the "wicked400" and "utbench" demos....

CLV2 12mb SLI
1024x768x16 (Glide 'natch)
wicked400 = 31.02fps
utbench = 38.96

Visiontek GeForce3 (220/500)
1024x768x32 (Direct3D)
wicked400 = 36.94
utbench = 45.31

Mind you, this is with textures set to high, detail textures enabled, 3d audio enabled at 44100hz (big performance hit with this game), etc. etc.,.....all running under WinXP. Scores would probably be a bit higher under Win9x since the Unreal engine has always run better under that environment, but I'm not about to reinstall Win9x (I'm not that bored).

Not bad considering I've had this SLI rig since Feb 98'. Image quality was pretty good also despite being only 16bit color.

test rig was my main box:

Box #1:
WinXP Professional
Antec pp352x
1.4ghz T-bird (AYHJA Y)/Epox 8K7A+ Raid
Vantec CCK-6035 (w/Delta)
512mb PC2100 Crucial
Visiontek GeForce3
CLV2 12mb SLI
SB Audigy X-Gamer/CL Inspire 5.1 5300
USRobotics 56k FAXmodem PCI
WD 7200rpm ATA100 30g (P.Master/IDE3-HPT370)
WD 7200rpm ATA100 40g (P.Slave/IDE3-HPT370)
Toshiba DVD-ROM M1212 (S.Master/IDE2)
Philips PCRW1208 12x8x36x (S.Slave/IDE2)
USB devices:
UMAX 2100u scanner
MSIntellimouse Optical
MS Sidewinder game pad
Sony 19" 420GS

Mortis · 02-06-2002, 01:23 PM

Very interesting and cool info... Thanks for the updates. Maybe I should play around with the card a little more and see what I can come up with... The two games I play consistently are DII and Multiplayer HL or CS. I could have some fun with this... hehe.

Mortis