Hello!

I remember reading computer magazines when I was a kid. Reading about the amazing thing that was Voodoo2 SLI and how you could combine two of the beasts for even more performance!

As this was a long time ago, I never had the money to buy myself one of those setups.

Recently I have been thinking of actually building one of those dream setups out of curiousity and a little nostalgia. While searching the web for second hand cards and information of 3dfx I found this forum with all kinds of information and to my suprise it looks to be quite active still! :)


I just found out there actually is a card built with features that lets you use your V2 SLI setup without compromizing 2d quality. The Canopus Spectra 2500.

Now a couple of questions:

How rare is the Spectra 2500? Is this kind of setup even something to consider or would it be close to impossible to find this card?

How much would I gain in 2d quality? I guess I will most likely play 3d games on this computer anyway, so would it even matter?

If I do find a Spectra 2500, what would I have to pay for it?



Thanks a lot!

/nisse

I have a set of Canopus SLI cards and a spectra 2500.

First of all: The internal loopthrough is called Whichdoctor and it needs it's own drivers. As far as I can remember they are just available for Win9x and NT (<-not entirely sure about that).

There are two ways of using the Spectra together with an V1/V2 board: You can loop any signal coming from an 3d only accelerator through the spectra using the external connector. This is like the normal loop, but just the other way around (3D->2D->Screen, instead of 2D->3D->Screen).
I had that setup up and running smoothly using Win98SE, 2D quality was visibly improved on a TFT (no CRT to test). 3D was a little more blury than 2D, but still ok (in my opinion a little better than the ordinary solution).

The second way is the internal connector of the Spectra, which only fits with Canopus V1 and V2 boards. Sadly sometimes you do find a Spectra but without the cable neccessary. I only once tried to use that, but sadly there seems to be a mismatch with the motherboard or the driver, cause the system crashes when trying the internal connection using 3D acclereration  :(

To be honest, I don't really have an idea how rare the cards and items are, I found one a long time ago for quite some money.
If you interested, I'm actually selling the cards  ;)
http://www.falconfly.de/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1298208353