voodoo2 SLI question

[7718]

I'm building my young childrens a computer out of some spare parts i had lying around and a couple components i picked up at a yard sale. for video rendering its going to have an onboard 3d rage agp pro , which seems to have some sdram on the board for it, and my old creative labs blaster voodoo2 12 meg i had sitting in my old voodoo3 box (which i traded in on a tnt2 ultra back in the day) . I've been collecting 3dfx drivers for win2k/xp and have found several but have a couple questions.

A freind of mine has an v2 12meg (creative labs) but we only have 1 vga passthru cable, he says all you need is the ribbon to bridge them for sli, but i thought you needed 2 vga passthrus too. neither of us had access to 2 voodoo2's back in the day so we aren't sure. Do I need another vga passthru cable?

I've read theirs alot of stability issues for these custom 3dfx drivers , which one should i be using? I'll detail my hardware config. Presuming my kids will be playing mostly counter-strike , half-life DM, and maybe some random kids games, educational stuff on it.

Hardware for system :
Unknown bx chipset mb (slot 1 , onboard rage3d, 4pci , 2isa, onboard svideoout..)
celeron 300A (gonna oc that biatch)
2x128pc100 1x64pc100
9gb hd
56x cdrom
promise ata66card
sb live value
generic 10/100card
creative labs voodoo2

I might drop the ata66 card for the other voodoo if i can make it work.

 

[Wixard]

From memory, Youll need 1 ribbon cable, and 2 pass thru cables. One pass through will go from your onboard to voodoo2 #1, the next will go to voodoo2 #2 to monitor.

Thats from memory, but those things are what, 7-8 years old? hehe.

Theres a few drivers out there. Im sure most should be ok.

 

[Zuht]

I don't recall needing 2 pass-thru cables. I seem to remember losing one and having a friend ticked off when he asked for his card back (it was an extra and he loaned it to me to do SLI). Then again, my memory has failed me on a few occasions. I say try it with one and see what happens. No advice on the drivers though, 3dfx was still in business when I ditched the line.

 

[Dan_D]

You do need two passthrough cables which are nothing more than standard VGA extention cables or switchbox cables. One of the two.

 

[Glyndur]

In direct controdiction to the previous post, I say you dont need two pass through cables because the box I am typing on right now (not sig. box) has 2 12mb V2's in SLI with one cable. The pass through goes from the 2D card (Matrox G200) to the first V2 and the monitor comes out of the same card. The second V2 is only connected with the SLI cable which I made by slightly altering and shortening a floppy cable. System specs for reference:

Abit BE6 rev2
Pentium II 300 @ 450
256MB PC100
Matrox G200 8mb
(2) Creative Voodoo2 12mb in SLI
Creative SB AWE 64 Gold
Seagate 6GB IDE HDD
24x CD-ROM
win98SE with last official 3dfx drivers

 

[Zuht]

The second V2 is only connected with the SLI cable which I made by slightly altering and shortening a floppy cable.

haha, I thought I was the only one who had to resort to that! Worked like a champ, though...

 

[kneht]

I only used 1 pass through and 1 ribbon cable too.

Never used the floppy cable though.

 

[Lazn_Work]

Yes, you only hook the pass through up to the 1st Voodoo2.

If you go on to the 2nd all you do is degrade the quality of the picture.

==>Lazn

 

[V0ltage]

while we are on the subject of voodoo2's, i have one in my celeron 600 machine and i cant find any good winXP drivers, what are the best?

 

[2Fresh]

wow, brings me back..$700 for those damn cards. I thought I was the shit...and with my 300a at 464...wOOt!!

 

[Devnull]

You need 1 ribbon cable and 1 vga cable, that's all.

good luck getting them working in 2k/xp. I love my voodoo2s but never used them in other than 95/98.

 

[jacuzz1]

You need 1 ribbon cable and 1 vga cable, that's all.

good luck getting them working in 2k/xp. I love my voodoo2s but never used them in other than 95/98.

man i will never forget when i fired them up and played quake two , no dominated quake 2

The Voodoo2 is what started me on this "digital crack:

 

[Dan_D]

I used both cables on my Voodoo2 12MB SLI cards and I remember trying to use one and it didn't work or something like that.

Man I haven't even seen one of those things in a LONG time.

 

[B1zz]

all i have to say is

PICS!


when ya get it all setup and stuff....im not quite as old school as some around here therefore ive never seen a Voodoo2 SLI setup....the oldest card ive used was a voodoo4 =p

 

[Devnull]

man i will never forget when i fired them up and played quake two , no dominated quake 2

The Voodoo2 is what started me on this "digital crack:

Yeah the first time I played Quakeworld TF on my voodoo2 card I was like "HOLY SHIEEET!!!!" Huge jump from software mode it was awsome. And Quake2 ofcourse was also cool.

 

[NIGHTMARE2]

1 pass thrue 1 ribbon

Canopus Pure 3D II SLI REPRESENT

 

[Arseface]

In direct controdiction to the previous post, I say you dont need two pass through cables because the box I am typing on right now (not sig. box) has 2 12mb V2's in SLI with one cable. The pass through goes from the 2D card (Matrox G200) to the first V2 and the monitor comes out of the same card. The second V2 is only connected with the SLI cable which I made by slightly altering and shortening a floppy cable.

My old V2 SLI rig was like this also.

 

[2Fresh]

Yeah the first time I played Quakeworld TF on my voodoo2 card I was like "HOLY SHIEEET!!!!" Huge jump from software mode it was awsome. And Quake2 ofcourse was also cool.

Q2 and Mech in high res mode....wow! lol, so funny to think back about that shit.

 

[Lazn_Work]

You must have done something wrong if you needed both.


The passthrough game was fun, my videosignal was well used

Diamond FireGL 1000 pro (Permedia 2, 8MB) --> pass through --> Creative DXR3 (mpeg2 card) --> pass through --> Diamond Monster 3D2 12MB in SLI --> monitor

All powered by a c300a@450

Quake 2 in 1024x768 was flowing smooth like water...

Sounds like my rig, only I used Wicked3d cards, and also had the H3D glasses, so the output went to H3D's signaling box before the monitor.

==>Lazn

 

[Shane]

Hey skip the pizza one night and go buy a tnt2 ultra or geforce at your local used computer store for 10 bucks seriously you would have a much better game system with current drivers.

 

[Glyndur]

Hey skip the pizza one night and go buy a tnt2 ultra or geforce at your local used computer store for 10 bucks seriously you would have a much better game system with current drivers.

I kinda have to agree with that one, I have my 2 old V2 SLI systems around for nostalgia, but you can get a Geforce2 GTS for like $20 on ebay right now and it would be a whole lot faster and a whole lot more stable. I'll post pics for whoever it was that requested them when I get home tonight.

 

[vortec4800]

Having 2 pass-through cables for an SLI woulnd't really make sense, as the only way that would work would be to physically break the screen in 2 parts and have each card render half of the screen. The VGA pass-through is for overlay setups, which just switches from 2d to 3d output on the voodoo cards, and overlay on dvd decoders for example.

The moral of the story is just use the 1 pass-through and you should be in business.

 

[B1zz]

I kinda have to agree with that one, I have my 2 old V2 SLI systems around for nostalgia, but you can get a Geforce2 GTS for like $20 on ebay right now and it would be a whole lot faster and a whole lot more stable. I'll post pics for whoever it was that requested them when I get home tonight.

swt thx man ^^

this should prove to be interesting...as i get the general idea of how the SLI setup is supposed to work and all but ive never actually SEEN one setup and running =p

 

[jacuzz1]

I kinda have to agree with that one, I have my 2 old V2 SLI systems around for nostalgia, but you can get a Geforce2 GTS for like $20 on ebay right now and it would be a whole lot faster and a whole lot more stable. I'll post pics for whoever it was that requested them when I get home tonight.

Yeh your right but you wouold not get that 3d glasses effect in Q2 like the sli/voodo would give.By the way you can overcloock the voodoo 2's