before I start I wanted to say "HI"  i've been lurking a while here and finally decided to start posting!  ;D

I've searched all around and from what I can tell, nobody is even trying this, but my idea is this:

Has anybody ever tried multiple sets of voodoo 2 cards to make up a multiple monitor setup?  or voodoo 5's for that matter?

I have a pentium 3 based single board computer that plugs into a back-plane that gives me 4 isa slots and TWENTY pci slots.  I'd use 3 matrox cards for the 2d and 3 sets of voodoo 2's in sli.   I have one set right now and prices seem very reasonable at the moment on ebay for another 2 sets.  But before I did, I wanted to know if it was even possible.

And to continue the thought process, I have a dual p3 tualatin board that has dual channel pc-133 and triple 64/66 pci buses. (intel SDS2) I kinda thought if I got 3 voodoo 5's on pci...

Am I nuts or is it possible?  I'd like to be able to play Quake 2/3 + others.

I don't think Voodoo 2's are built to be used in more than a single set of two...

Maybe with a Mercury rig - which was designed to have loads of them linked together...

...but that's a special case anyhow.

Who knows...give it a try... (don't get your hopes up if it doesn't work though).

I had ever pluged 3 Voodoo2 in 440BX,and in windows XP it recognized 3,but only one can used.2 voodoo2 among them can links with SLI Cable(i didnt connect this cable) ,but more than 2 ....i dont know how to connect each other,in my opinion,it can not work at all,more than 2 voodoo2(even 2 different brand cards may cause black).
SO,I think that:first,Cards must be different chips from different vendor,such as Nvidia,ATI,Matrox etc.second,their bios dosen't conflict with each other,and third,powerful Mainboard that can heavy-Load so many Cards in the meantime.
I had worked in a R&D department who designed the Industral computer mainboard,and we had ever tried to Plug so many cards in a mobo(Intel i915) to test the ability of LOADing,but too disappointed that Powerful Reference Board of i915 can not bear with full-slots pluged,so i think that maybe this point is very important. :P

Cze,

Wouldn't this require a PCB re-work AND a reverse engineering to split the SLI sampling 4 ways (or more), instead of 2?

Isn't this what the chip on the AAlchemy bridge does for the Mercury?

Maybe it could be done through the use of pass-through cables?  I don't know, but I really hope so.  :)

Poz.

luckybob wrote on 02.11.10 at 07:19:31:

before I start I wanted to say "HI"  i've been lurking a while here and finally decided to start posting!  ;D I've searched all around and from what I can tell, nobody is even trying this, but my idea is this: Has anybody ever tried multiple sets of voodoo 2 cards to make up a multiple monitor setup?  or voodoo 5's for that matter? I have a pentium 3 based single board computer that plugs into a back-plane that gives me 4 isa slots and TWENTY pci slots.  I'd use 3 matrox cards for the 2d and 3 sets of voodoo 2's in sli.   I have one set right now and prices seem very reasonable at the moment on ebay for another 2 sets.  But before I did, I wanted to know if it was even possible. And to continue the thought process, I have a dual p3 tualatin board that has dual channel pc-133 and triple 64/66 pci buses. (intel SDS2) I kinda thought if I got 3 voodoo 5's on pci... Am I nuts or is it possible?  I'd like to be able to play Quake 2/3 + others.

So, if I understood you well, you want allow multi-monitor feature using 3dfx chipsets, right?

Well, AFAIK it is already possible using Voodoo and Voodoo2 chipsets, trough the environment variables.

In particular you may be interested in:

Voodoo:

SST_DUALHEAD=1
enable dual-monitor support
SST_BOARDS=1
you can use several Voodoo boards in the same system for multi-monitor purpose (one BIG screen)

Voodoo2:

SST_DUALHEAD=1
enable dual-monitor support
SSTV2_BOARDS=1
you can use several Voodoo2 boards in the same system for multi-monitor purpose (one BIG screen)

...where 0 value stands for OFF, while 1 value stands for ON

I don't know if in case of a Voodoo2 SLI setup, these variables are still working or not.

Note: use these variables at your own risk