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Good build for a Voodoo2 SLI setup? (Read 216 times)
RaptorZX3
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Good build for a Voodoo2 SLI setup?
23.05.14 at 06:10:37
 
So i recently took down my Pentium 3 PCs to only keep my Pentium 200MMX and Pentium4 as 3DFX PCs.

But lately i was able to find a few old PCs for free, one of them is a fairly small computer, an IBM Aptiva E140, with an AMD K6-2 333Mhz in it, and 256mb SDRAM, built-in video and audio, and i had to put in a 20gb HDD, replace the optical drive for a DVD/CD Drive and a floppy drive that i can place the faceplate back on, and i had to replace the super noisy barely-spinning CPU fan on it.

This PC's only expansion is a riser card with 2x PCI and 1x ISA, (1 slot you have to choose either ISA or PCI). So...i wondered if you could fit a Voodoo2 SLI setup in there. While you COULD, it WOULD only be possible if you have either:
1- 2x Canopus 3D II in SLI
2- 1x Canopus 3D II on top slot and 1x regular-length Voodoo2 card
3- MAYBE (untested) 2x regular Voodoo2 cards, but you would probably need to remove the floppy disk drive to make room.

The setup i used is the number 2, the Canopus card is only good for a 2nd SLI card as i don't have the cable to use it as a single 3D card. Though it's TIGHT inside, but it's a nice small desktop easy to carry around...

So is that system ideal for that Voodoo2 SLI setup? I know faster is better...but at some point, even if you go faster, it won't change the 3D benchmark performance
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Re: Good build for a Voodoo2 SLI setup?
Reply #1 - 23.05.14 at 07:50:17
 
while a small case is ofcourse preferred, it sounds like this is a really tight fit and voodoo cards also need some airflow, which it sounds like is not there at all.

I would opt for a somewhat bigger desktop case where you can actually create some airflow, to keep them from overheating.

Due to the slower cpu, that won't happen all that fast, but.....
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RaptorZX3
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Re: Good build for a Voodoo2 SLI setup?
Reply #2 - 23.05.14 at 14:39:37
 
well there is some kind of airflow, and the full-length Voodoo2 i use at the bottom have 1 small heatsink on the frame buffer chip (it's a Guillemot Maxi Gamer 3D II), and where they are placed, the CPU fan-sink is nearby and blow air in the direction of the cards too. But there is only that CPU fan, and the small power supply fan in the back, that make airflow.

I still need to update Win98SE, DirectX, install all the drivers necessary to make it work properly.

here's a picture of the board itself:
http://sishardware.com/imgs/a/a/c/i/u/vintage_rare_ibm_2156_aptiva_pro860a_mothe...
The large brown slot is for the riser card

http://support.lenovo.com/ContentResources/Migrated%20Assets/ja/pc/support/site_...

And this is a sketchy diagram, to show how it is inside, the CPU located under the floppy disk drive and some bit of it under the PCI card slots. It was a little tricky to let some space between the below V2 card and both CPU fan and floppy drive. I wonder if i would be better to use a V3 3000 PCI instead of the V2 SLI setup, though i'm sure there would be some kind of GPU waste (CPU would probably be the bottleneck here), and i want to use this PC for Voodoo1/Voodoo2-generation games, so some might run into problems (i know NFS4 seem to have lag/hang problems with Voodoo3-4-5 and 3rd-party custom drivers, while the game just run fine with V2SLI setup with FastVoodoo 4.6 drivers)
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Re: Good build for a Voodoo2 SLI setup?
Reply #3 - 23.05.14 at 18:31:36
 
oh crap...nevermind, it suck big time! The CPU, while faster than a Pentium 200 MMX, just have the cache of a Pentium 1, which is 32kb L1 cache + 32kb of something else (instructions i think), i tried Quake 2 with it, and it's laggy, i also tried Need for Speed 4, and it's laggy as hell, unplayable!

Such a shame this Aptiva 2156 use Socket 7 AMD CPUs (even the K6-2 337Mhz on it is OEM non-standard)...i wonder if i could put a K6-III on it, which do have much more cache!
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Re: Good build for a Voodoo2 SLI setup?
Reply #4 - 24.05.14 at 22:23:15
 
Well seeing as it is a pre-built system, I seriously doubt you'll be able to put much of a cpu upgrade in there.

Board is probably not capable of running 100Mhz fsb, which hampers it quite a lot.

I would try and get another mobo/ cpu combo, or if you already have that K6-3, just another mobo, like the P5a-b, ya can put a pci riser on it, and use the 2 voodoo cards.

Or better yet, get a full height desktop case so cards can stand vertical.....can still be a small case.
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3DFX Playrig:

Aerocool Strike-X Air
SuperMicro H8DAE
Dual Opteron 280 @ 2.4Ghz (4 cores)
4 x 1GB PC3200
3DFX Voodoo5 5500MAC PCI
WD 160GB ATA100/133
Diamond MonsterSound MX300
Windows2000 SP4
 
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RaptorZX3
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Re: Good build for a Voodoo2 SLI setup?
Reply #5 - 24.05.14 at 23:03:21
 
thing is this Aptiva 2156 system is quite compact for a desktop PC, so i wanted to test if it could be used for a Voodoo2SLI setup, but in the end it suck big time.

Though i do have a K6-2 350Mhz, not that 337Mhz OEM processor in that Aptiva, but it have the same voltages too. But even there, i think it still have the same cache size. So i guess this PC could be good for Voodoo1-generation games?
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RaptorZX3
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Re: Good build for a Voodoo2 SLI setup?
Reply #6 - 25.05.14 at 00:26:43
 
and now i tried with a Voodoo1, and it just doesn't work.

Shame, it's such a nice small vintage PC...
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