3dfx Voodoo 1 SLI setup 20mb, Stoned Shaman boxed

That's interesting.. never seen it before. I was looking and said.. those look actually new. Then I read on a little further and found they are newly manufactured. Pretty cool project.
 
I had a Diamond 3D Monster Voodoo 1 4 MB (wish i still had it) and had no idea that Voodoo 1 could be ran in SLI true Scan Link err doh LINE Interleave. Thanks auntjemima
 
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So... (purported) cloned 3dfx Voodoo1s from a Russian seller?

Eh...

Also, SLI didn't show up until the Voodoo2. At least, I'm not aware of any post-Voodoo2 launch implementations of the Voodoo1 using SLI.

AFAIK, the Voodoo1 could only address 4MB of VRAM for textures. Even the Canopus Pure3D, probably the best implementation of the Voodoo1, which had 6MB total VRAM, could only utilize 4MB for textures with the remaining 2MB dedicated to framebuffer.
 
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I wouldn't say they are cloned.

They are only based on Voodoo 1. They have 2 TMUs instead of the single TMU that a Voodoo 1 card has, thus the ability to support the extra 4MB.

And if you look at the cards, one is master ( has a GAL chip), and one is slave.

This is a really customized setup and looks to be a really cool project.
 
Absalom said:
Also, SLI didn't show up until the Voodoo2. At least, I'm not aware of any post-Voodoo2 launch implementations of the Voodoo1 using SLI.
Click to expand...

Voodoo Graphics did SLI out of the box.

The set on Ebay is new, Russian guy who designs his own PCBs.


closeup_100db_sli.jpg
closeup_100SB4400V.jpg
 
Absalom said:
So... (purported) cloned 3dfx Voodoo1s from a Russian seller?

Eh...

Also, SLI didn't show up until the Voodoo2. At least, I'm not aware of any post-Voodoo2 launch implementations of the Voodoo1 using SLI.

AFAIK, the Voodoo1 could only address 4MB of VRAM for textures. Even the Canopus Pure3D, probably the best implementation of the Voodoo1, which had 6MB total VRAM, could only utilize 4MB for textures with the remaining 2MB dedicated to framebuffer.
Click to expand...

SLI worked on voodoo1 most certainly. I had Diamond Monster 3D cards in SLI. I also had a set of M3D VooDoo2 cards in SLI after that.
 
catogtp said:
SLI worked on voodoo1 most certainly. I had Diamond Monster 3D cards in SLI. I also had a set of M3D VooDoo2 cards in SLI after that.
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Sorry, Diamond never sold Voodoo Graphics in SLI, just Voodoo II. The only ones who sold VG in SLI was Quantum3D and they rapidly went to the single board design.

And it was VERY expensive.
 
catogtp said:
SLI worked on voodoo1 most certainly. I had Diamond Monster 3D cards in SLI. I also had a set of M3D VooDoo2 cards in SLI after that.
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I also had the Diamond Monster 3D (not SLI) and the II (SLI).

You're remembering it wrong. No mainstream Voodoo1 based card went to market with SLI support. The images above are models that support such a configuration, but are so rare they didn't register on anyone's radar back when they came out. I certainly didn't know they existed back then.

But I stand corrected, technically, as such a configuration did exist through Quantum3D's 4400 series. I get the impression these things started just shy of 2 grand (in 1997 dollars), so yeah, they were anything but mainstream.
 
So, if these are new Voodoo cards, where did they get the 3DFX chips? Did they have new ones made? Or is there a pile of old stock Voodoo chips somewhere?

Regardless, I can't see spending $750 on that, but it's wicked cool nonetheless.
 
RazorWind said:
So, if these are new Voodoo cards, where did they get the 3DFX chips? Did they have new ones made? Or is there a pile of old stock Voodoo chips somewhere?

Regardless, I can't see spending $750 on that, but it's wicked cool nonetheless.
Click to expand...

The listing said they were new chips. They would have been New Old Stock.

Not sure where they got them from but I have seen a bunch of 3dfx VSA100 chips on eBay lately... and what do you know.. there are some regular Voodoo chips on there as well.

VSA 100 - single:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/1-PC-355-0026-220-3dfx-VOODOO-VSA-100-BGA/323658511158

VSA 100 - tray of 24:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/TRAY-OF-24-355-0026-220-3dfx-VOODOO-VSA-100-BGA/223335246340

Voodoo - single:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/3DFX-VOODOO-Vintage-Video-Card-Gaming/362648486100
 
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gdonovan said:
Sorry, Diamond never sold Voodoo Graphics in SLI, just Voodoo II. The only ones who sold VG in SLI was Quantum3D and they rapidly went to the single board design.

And it was VERY expensive.
Click to expand...

Absalom said:
I also had the Diamond Monster 3D (not SLI) and the II (SLI).

You're remembering it wrong. No mainstream Voodoo1 based card went to market with SLI support. The images above are models that support such a configuration, but are so rare they didn't register on anyone's radar back when they came out. I certainly didn't know they existed back then.

But I stand corrected, technically, as such a configuration did exist through Quantum3D's 4400 series. I get the impression these things started just shy of 2 grand (in 1997 dollars), so yeah, they were anything but mainstream.
Click to expand...

Well what he heck then. I could have sworn I had two of the VooDoo 1 version because I sold them both to a fellow serviceman so he could play some nascar game and so I could upgrade to the VooDoo2 cards. Red, white and green box if I remember correctly. I could very well be remembering it wrong though. I still have one of the voodoo 2 cards along with the sli ribbon cable and the vga passthrough cable. Wish I would have kept both and the boxes.
 
I still have 2x Voodoo 2's that I wasn't able to get rid of last time I tried.

I wasn't into 3DFX hardware back in the day. My first gaming card was a TNT2 Ultra.
 
acascianelli said:
I still have 2x Voodoo 2's that I wasn't able to get rid of last time I tried.

I wasn't into 3DFX hardware back in the day. My first gaming card was a TNT2 Ultra.
Click to expand...

I'll take 'em.. OR if you want to make some money, stick them up on eBay.
 
acascianelli said:
I still have 2x Voodoo 2's that I wasn't able to get rid of last time I tried.

I wasn't into 3DFX hardware back in the day. My first gaming card was a TNT2 Ultra.
Click to expand...
A little history lesson always puts things into perspective...

The TNT2 came out a good year after the Voodoo2 (1999 vs 1998). In fact, by the time the TNT2 launched, 3dfx had just refreshed the Voodoo2 with the short-lived Banshee which finally added 2D support of all things. The Voodoo3, a quality improvement on this, would come later. That's just how fast things were moving back then.

The TNT2 and Matrox G400 were significant in 1999 because they set a high benchmark on image quality, particularly 32-bit color accuracy. Because most Vooodo1/2 implementations did not have 2D capability onboard, you have to rely on passthrough, which horribly degraded the original (2D) signal quality. Keep in mind, this was pre-digital output, so everything between the video card and monitor was analog via VGA. This was one of the major drawbacks of those early 3dfx cards, but gamers were too caught up in the whole 3D accelerated revolution at the time, they just didn't care about the image quality sacrifice.

In fact, I was so bothered by it, that between gaming sessions, I manually swapped the cable between my Matrox G200 and Voodoo2 output because the passthrough was so bad.

So shortly after the TNT2 launched, 3dfx responded with the Voodoo3 that addressed the 2D quality issues. However, it was still based on the Voodoo2 which internally rendered everything at 16-bit. Their competitors used this to leverage their products as being superior with 32-bit color accuracy (and in most cases they were right), although 3dfx did use dithering on its 16-bit to 32-conversion to get what they claimed as close to 22-bit color equivalency.

But the point is, this was one of those rare moments where marketing and competition were improving the overall gaming experience. Because of the TNT2 and G400, we got fast tracked onto 32-bit color as being the standard, which, believe me, did make a difference.

The Voodoo3 was one of those cards I wished I had owned. I was so caught up in the image quality wars, I pretty much missed on the point that the Voodoo3 was just as good as their competitors.
 
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Yeah I had several Voodoo cards, a Voodoo Banshee, A Voodoo 3 3500TV, and a Voodoo 5 5500. Miss those cards a lot. I really loved the 3dfx stuff back in the day.
 
I got it backwards. Bad memory on my part. The Voodoo3 internally rendered at 32-bit (a huge upgrade from Voodoo2), but the final output was reduced to 16 bit due to their framebuffer limitation. The dithering claims, at the time, seemed like they were trying to save face.

Anyway, by the time the VSA100 arrived, they caught up but I guess it was too late.
 
w1retap said:
That's interesting.. never seen it before. I was looking and said.. those look actually new. Then I read on a little further and found they are newly manufactured. Pretty cool project.
Click to expand...
 
Hahah before your time. SLI voodoo. Probably still have the cards laying around.
 
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