3dfx Voodoo 5 5500 (my first 3dfx card)

PCI in the mid 90s didn't mean guaranteed compatibility due to the many different implementations by board manufacturers. Many early boards cascaded the PCI clock off of the FSB using a 1/2 divider, which caused problems if you didn't have a CPU with a 66 MHz bus speed. Early Pentiums from Intel sometimes had a 50 MHz bus speed, and Cyrix had the weird 75 and 83 MHz bus speeds which ran PCI alarmingly out of spec. Early AGP boards had the same problem, but this time ran AGP 1:1 with the FSB, so you could end up with an 83 MHz AGP slot.

I tried my Monster 3d in my core 2 quad a few years ago to try things (tried an original SB Live in there too for the "gaming" port to use old joystick for Earthsiege 1/2) , as far as I can tell besides resolution it works fine.
 
  • Like
Reactions: erek
like this
Core 2 doesn't run it's PCI bus out of spec. The question is but why? A first or second generation P6 platform will work optimally if you are looking to wring every last tenth of a frame per second out of the card. A Pentium MMX will get you 80-90% of the way there.
 
  • Like
Reactions: erek
like this
Good news fellas, I called up my moms yesterday afternoon and she found my rubbermaid tub of gaming mags!

We're talking '96-99 CGW, PC Gamer, and a bunch of other obscure stuff that no longer exists.

I'll def take a buttload of pics when I pick it all up, but I'm not in a super-rush. (I can't just stop by after work, grab a box and leave.... That's not how it works with mom visits)
 
  • Like
Reactions: erek
like this
The Voodoo 1 boots !!! Methos


I remember owning one back in the day. What a game-changer that card was. Perhaps I should pick one up (before they become too rare and expensive) to go with my Pure3D?

If prices are low I might put what I've heard about my motherboard having Tillamook L2 support to the test. :D
 
  • Like
Reactions: erek
like this
I'd pick one up for sure, but I can FEEL IN MY BONES that retro hardware collecting would be my downfall....

Retro Dream Machine -

1.0Ghz Pentium III
512mb SDRAM
Geforce 2 Ultra 64mb
(2) Voodoo 2 12mb
(2) 60GB in SCSI Raid 0
Creative AWE64
Lian Li case
19" NEC Diamondtron
Win98 SE


Yeahhhhhh that'd be schweet.

(and yes, I looked it up. V2's will work fine with a P3 1Ghz)
 
Last edited:
Retro Dream Machine -

1.0Ghz Pentium III
512mb SDRAM
Geforce 2 Ultra 64mb
(2) Voodoo 2 12mb
(2) 60GB in SCSI Raid 0
Creative AWE64
Lian Li case
19" NEC Diamondtron
Win98 SE


Yeahhhhhh that'd be schweet.

(and yes, I looked it up. V2's will work fine with a P3 1Ghz)

i just got a 1.4 GHz Pentium III-S Tualatin, but only 256MB SDRAM, no sound board yet

(ASUS TULS2-C mobo)
 
An original Voodoo deserves to be in a Pentium 233 MMX, period.

Or in a Pentium 200 MMX IBM Aptiva. I have all of my original Voodoo cards from 1, 2, and the Voodoo 3 3500. My neighbor at the time even had an HP Pavilion that came with a Voodoo 1 integrated into the motherboard. Very sad that the company that revolutionized desktop gaming went out so quick. Everyone was so amazed the day I installed the original Voodoo and just seeing the graphics possible in Tomb Raider, POD Racer, and another game I cannot think of. Then came Need for Speed 2 with its Glide support. Hard to think that they came with just 4mb of VRAM.

These days, I guess I am now an ATI enthusiast. Of course I have no time to game anymore either.
 
what are the proper games to test a Voodoo 1? i don't even have a spare IDE CDRom or HDD yet. Also am i pretty much forced into Windows 98 for a proper result?
 
Yes, Win 98 SE for best results.

Alien vs Predator
Forsaken
Mechwarrior II: Mercenaries
Need for Speed II:SE
Quake 1/2
Rainbow Six
Shogo
Tomb Raider 1/2
Unreal

All those games should push it pretty good ;)
 
  • Like
Reactions: erek
like this
The Voodoo 1 boots !!! Methos



Fuck yeah! Haha sorry I couldn’t find the pass through cable, I don’t know where it went to. I think I’ve got lots of IDE shit around if you need anything, though it’s probably not worth shipping it to you from Canada.
 
Yes, Win 98 SE for best results.

Alien vs Predator
Forsaken
Mechwarrior II: Mercenaries
Need for Speed II:SE
Quake 1/2
Rainbow Six
Shogo
Tomb Raider 1/2
Unreal

All those games should push it pretty good ;)

what are the proper games to test a Voodoo 1? i don't even have a spare IDE CDRom or HDD yet. Also am i pretty much forced into Windows 98 for a proper result?

I have had excellent results with Windows 95 OSR2 with USB support, you just have to install drivers in the right order with your tongue at the right angle! ;) I find Windows 98 SE a little too heavy an OS for a Classic Pentium or MMX machine, but on a Pentium II or later it's fine.

If you need IDE drives (both HDD and CD-ROM), erek, I have a shit-ton. Send me a PM about it.

Or in a Pentium 200 MMX IBM Aptiva. I have all of my original Voodoo cards from 1, 2, and the Voodoo 3 3500. My neighbor at the time even had an HP Pavilion that came with a Voodoo 1 integrated into the motherboard. Very sad that the company that revolutionized desktop gaming went out so quick. Everyone was so amazed the day I installed the original Voodoo and just seeing the graphics possible in Tomb Raider, POD Racer, and another game I cannot think of. Then came Need for Speed 2 with its Glide support. Hard to think that they came with just 4mb of VRAM.

These days, I guess I am now an ATI enthusiast. Of course I have no time to game anymore either.

After originally using a 200MHz PMMX for years back in the day, I can vouch for the fact that, the extra 33MHz and having a board with 512KB of L2 cache does make a difference. I remember said HP Pavilion. 3dfx could get away with it with it's 3:1 texture compression. Nobody else in the consumer space had a tech to compete. 50 megapixels per second of fill rate might seem quaint today, but back then it enabled full 640x480 visuals at 16-bit color and playable framerates. Even the Voodoo Graphics closest compeditor, the Rendition Verite V1000E only was capable of a peak of 25Mpix/sec. You couldn't do 480p30 in complex 3D on a CPU until the Pentium II 300 or 333 - which wasn't available for purchase until after the Voodoo Graphics chipset was obsolete - putting how revolutionary this card was into perspective.
 
Last edited:
i just got a 1.4 GHz Pentium III-S Tualatin, but only 256MB SDRAM, no sound board yet

(ASUS TULS2-C mobo)

I have a Supermicro P3TDDE with 2 x PIII-S 1400 and 2 GB of PC-133. I had my V5 5500 in it before the fans failed on it, now I think it has a Rage 128 pro.

what are the proper games to test a Voodoo 1? i don't even have a spare IDE CDRom or HDD yet. Also am i pretty much forced into Windows 98 for a proper result?

The Voodoo1 is a Windows 95 and DOS card, not Windows 98. It came out almost three years before Windows 98 was released.

You'll need to stick with games from 1996 and early 1997 because of the limited video memory. Due to the 2mb/2mb split of memory on the card between the TMU and FBI, the maximum resolution the card can handle is 512x384 or 640x480 if a depth buffer isn't used. Most games late '97 and onward started using a depth buffer and increased texture usage, making the card obsolete. The PC industry at the time was leapfrogging itself every 6 months or so, bleeding edge hardware wasn't guaranteed to last you a year, especially if you made the wrong buying choices.

There were 6 MB versions of the card, but the extra memory went to the texture memory. There were very rare 8 MB versions, which allowed up to 800x600 at the cost of speed. You can mod a 4 MB card to a 6 MB (in either a 2/4 or 4/2 configuration) or to 8 MB with a 4/4 configuration. Someone over on falconfly.de forums did it a number of years ago, but it's only available on archive.org now:

https://web.archive.org/web/2014090...onfly.de/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1366485713

It doesn't look like the mod is hard to perform, but the problem would be finding the memory chips.
 
I have a Supermicro P3TDDE with 2 x PIII-S 1400 and 2 GB of PC-133. I had my V5 5500 in it before the fans failed on it, now I think it has a Rage 128 pro.



The Voodoo1 is a Windows 95 and DOS card, not Windows 98. It came out almost three years before Windows 98 was released.

You'll need to stick with games from 1996 and early 1997 because of the limited video memory. Due to the 2mb/2mb split of memory on the card between the TMU and FBI, the maximum resolution the card can handle is 512x384 or 640x480 if a depth buffer isn't used. Most games late '97 and onward started using a depth buffer and increased texture usage, making the card obsolete. The PC industry at the time was leapfrogging itself every 6 months or so, bleeding edge hardware wasn't guaranteed to last you a year, especially if you made the wrong buying choices.

There were 6 MB versions of the card, but the extra memory went to the texture memory. There were very rare 8 MB versions, which allowed up to 800x600 at the cost of speed. You can mod a 4 MB card to a 6 MB (in either a 2/4 or 4/2 configuration) or to 8 MB with a 4/4 configuration. Someone over on falconfly.de forums did it a number of years ago, but it's only available on archive.org now:

https://web.archive.org/web/2014090...onfly.de/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1366485713

It doesn't look like the mod is hard to perform, but the problem would be finding the memory chips.
A very comprehensive and informative post. You said it better than I could.
 
  • Like
Reactions: erek
like this
Back
Top