Voodoo blast from the past at work

[Avalon]

We were digging through an old skid full of random crap when we came across 6 OEM brown boxes marked "Voodoo". I opened them up and inside were static sealed pairs of brand new Voodoo 2 cards, connected with a ribbon cable.

Being a gamer, I thought it was one of the most badass things I'd found at work yet. Now I'm curious...I've got one box open. What do I need in addition to a 2D card (found some Matrox PCI's) to get Voodoo2 SLI going on in a Win98 rig?

*Edit*
Not so sure if the package is new, since after going through one, the drivers CD has been opened, but the cards themselves still appear wrapped and sealed.

 

[Arkaign]

(1)- Load OS
(2)- Install Drivers
(3)- Install GL Quake
(4)- ...
(5)- PROFIT!

 

[Brian48]

I think 3dfxfiles.com (if they're still supporting the site) still host the last set of reference drivers. I've got an old school box put together for nostalgia reasons that's still running with a pair of 12mb V2's. Still runs Quake2 great. The V2 is still my favorite all time card (purchased on 20 Feb '98).

===== OLD SCHOOL GAMING BOX! =====

Box #10
Windows 98se
Crappy ATX
Austin 300w PSU
DFI CB60-v3 vIA motherboard
Celeron 466a (retail HSF)
768mb generic PC133
Diamond Speedstar 8mb AGP
Creative 12mb Voodoo2 SLI
Hercules Muse XL
Seagate U10 Model ST310212A 10.2GB
Lite-On LTC-4816H DVD/CDRW
Dell 21" P1130 CRT (shares w/box #4)
MS IntelliMouse

 

[Keysplayr]

You need the external dongle cable that runs the 2d card through the first voodoo2 card.

Are they the 8 or 12mb models? Very nostalgic find bud. Congrats!!

P.S.

Send me a pair

 

[NamelessMC]

Those cards saved my PC gaming life! For my sake, you must SLI a pair and run Quake 3 Arena on them so YOU can be surprised at how well they run Quake 3 Arena, like I was!!!

I had an old HP. My mom gave me the, "You're not getting a gaming computer, it's for school" speech. Quake III Arena was coming out soon and I really wanted to play it, but I couldn't play the demo on my computer. (I was able to play Half Life on my computer because of software rendering) So I saved up from a paper route to hopefully buy a gaming computer, but I only saved like $70. Some guy my friend knew, was all stoked his rich suburban parents bought his snobby spoiled butt a new gaming computer, so being the "charitable" jerk he was, he sold me his Voodoo 2's for $30 each. They worked with my HP's onboard 2D IGP!!! I installed drivers and I could play Quake 3 Arena at max settings. I was so stoked. (This was in like, 1999 or something)

That's awesome!! Oh, and sorry to hear about your problem with rich folks.

 

[Arkaign]

Hmm, Voodoo2s in '99 were totally worth $30. Especially a matched SLI set!

 

[Avalon]

I think they were 12MB models. I'll have to check when I get back into work tomorrow. And by check I mean covertly build a Win98 rig. And play Q3.

 

[JackBurton]

Hey, I still have my Voodoo5 5500.

 

[lavaheadache]

I want 2 of these cards.... I would love to try them out. I don't know if you heard about my thread. gf2 or voodoo5500. Let me know if I can get 2 of those cards!!

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: JackBurton
Hey, I still have my Voodoo5 5500.

same

 

[spdfreak]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh

Originally posted by: JackBurton
Hey, I still have my Voodoo5 5500.

same

Me too... But I have a GF Ti4200 in my Win98 game box mostly for old flight sims that will only run on 98. They run really good with that card too!

 

[secretanchitman]

i have my voodoo3 2000 16MB pci! runs final fantasy 8 like a dream.

 

[Thor86]

Hehe nice find. But when the Nvidia TNT cards came out, it killed/obsoleted the Voodoos.

 

[*kjm]

For some games... the two main games I played at the time did better with glide.... Tribes and Diablo 2.

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: Thor86
Hehe nice find. But when the Nvidia TNT cards came out, it killed/obsoleted the Voodoos.

No.

TNT didn't have Glide, which made a big IQ/speed difference in most of the games that supported it.

And performance-wise, Nvidia and 3dfx traded blows pretty evenly on up to the eventual final product of Voodoo5. 3dfx also DOMINATED the PCI performance market, offering a much better experience to those without the option of using an AGP slot.

 

[Midnight Rambler]

Hehe nice find. But when the Nvidia TNT cards came out, it killed/obsoleted the Voodoos.

More like nVidia's FUD campaign helped kill 3Dfx. They sold a bazillion suckers on the supposed need at the time for hardware-based T&L, which nVidia had chosen to support, versus 3Dfx who had decided image quality, specifically hardware-based AA, was of more overall benefit to the gamer. When it came down to it, hardware T&L helped you in one or two games because that was all there was. Meanwhile, 3Dfx' AA (and overall IQ) was superb and worked for every game independent of software.

To this day I fail to see how so many people were suckered in to believing the nVidia hype. Alas, this was in the early years of 3D and the web was primitive, so a lot of the info/misinfo came via the newsgroups, esp. comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video, making it even harder to combat.

 

[WT]

I still have a Voodoo2 12mb card with passthru in a box ... got it from Creative for $50 about 8+ years ago. Worst part is .. I don't recall using it in any of my PCs !!