I have an ATi All-in-Wonder 9700 Pro as my main video card. With all the recent 3Dfx stuff happening I'd really like to get my 5500 PCI back up and running again. :D

I will probably use Amigamerlin 3.0 XP drivers for the 5500 (in WinXP). Do I have to do anything special with the driver install? What I want to do is just use my Voodoo 5 for Glide, and have the AiW 9700 for D3D and OpenGL.

Hmm...I'm not sure it's possible... ???

It's supposed to be a PRIMARY card like your Radeon...this may lead to them 'competing' for the system and an almighty screw-up occurring... :o

I 'could' be wrong, but if I'm not...go for the twin Voodoo 2 approach! ;)

PEACE! 8)

I agree, paulpsomiadis is right.

You risk too many problems trying to run the two cards together as they are both primary intent graphics cards.  If you even managed it (which is probably highly impossible) you would have to specifically set up your .dll library files from your ATI drivers and the 3dfx drivers, as you would not want to overwrite old Direct3D and OpenGL .dll's from the V5 drivers with the more up-to-date ones from your ATI drivers.

If you're looking to add a card that will run the Glide API on your machine (for apps, games, whatever), choose an accelerator.  The Voodoo2 SLI would be the best option as they can cope with the latest and last games that supported the Glide API.

Wrong answers!

Almost any AGP primary card and almost any PCI secondary card (or even PCI terciary card, quaternary card, etc) can work together without problems in Windows 98 or higher OS. This is the reason why Voodoo5 PCI is such a demanded card: you can have both an excellent oldskool hardware to run your favourite Glide games, and a contemporary AGP card, powered by plenty of VRAM, pipelines, Transformations & Lights and pixel shader engines, for all those power-hungry modern games. You must be careful to avoid IRQ sharing between both cards if possible, and remember that only primary card's OpenGL ICD will be available, but thanks to 3dfx's standalone driver or Daniel Borca's MesaFX, OpenGL games can be forced to use Voodoo5 instead of primary card. DirectX games never were a problem in multidisplay systems because this API supports multiple Direct3D devices.

And you can't overwrite ATI .DLLs with Voodoo5 .DLLs or vice versa, guys. Do you really think that completely different cards could be using the same filenames for its drivers? Only DirectX core .DLLs and Microsoft's OpenGL32.dll have the same filenames from one installation to another, and this is MANDATORY for obvious compatibility reasons.

First, I said it was probably highly impossible, NOT definetely!!!

Second, for all the hassle and manual configuration entailed to make a V5 5500 PCI and a modern AGP card, its not worth it!
It's not worth the hassle for using it with Glide API supported applications, as around the end of Glide API apps being developed, the Voodoo2's could keep up with everything that was Glide based.
So for less hassle and more or less the same performance in Glide apps between 2x V2's and a V5 (including the hassle spent on configuring), I'd pick a V2 SLI!  ;D


Quote:

Only DirectX core .DLLs and Microsoft's OpenGL32.dll have the same filenames from one installation to another, and this is MANDATORY for obvious compatibility reasons.

They ARE the .dll files I was talking about!  :P

Batracio may have a point...it's TRUE that it would be impossible to overwrite each of the driver files with the other one... :P

Since BOTH of them act as PRIMARY cards, they occupy the same 'display registry entries' for selecting the D3D and OGL drivers that the system uses by DEFAULT for games. :P

Meaning that whichever card you install SECOND will overtake these values and become DOMINANT... :P

However, since the Voodoo 5 also uses the GLiDE API, the registry entries for this 'should' remain unchanged...meaning that the Radeon is used for D3D and OGL, whilst the Voodoo is used for GLiDE. :)

(of course, it's all just speculation with TWO PRIMARY cards, it might STILL not work?) ::)

Ah whatever! :o

Hmm...

The way I see it :

Both cards (Radeon/Voodoo5) will install without Problems, and there are no conflicts in Driver .dll's or the name convention.

Opengl32.dll is a System .dll, which no Driver will overwrite.
The 3dfx Driver will install the 3dfx* and glide2x/3x Core Files, and will register as a 3D Adapter to DirectX, as well as make the Registry entry to its 3dfxogl.dll, qualifiying it as a OpenGL capable device.

The Radeon will install its ATI* .dll's, and will take the same steps to DirectX and add an additional OpenGL Registry entry towards its own OpenGL Driver .dll .

None will overwrite the other in any place, since the Driver .dll names are different.

One card will be the Primary Adapter, and the other simply the Secondary. That's how DirectX will recognize and operate them. OpenGL can be controlled by all Games, that allow the Adapter No. to be modified within their Settings (most that I know of, work fine that way).

The only Problem (not yet mentioned) might actually come from the All-in-Wonder itself :
In case it has Multi-Monitor Support, it might very well register as 2 Display Devices for Windows overlay surfaces all by itself already (my R9700pro does, for example).

With the Voodoo5 being the third player in such a case, I have no clue how this will work, unless one disables the present, 2nd Adapter on the Radeon in the Device Manager (if present and Problems occur).
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Once that is set, however, I see no Problems that should arise from it (unless there's something in the Drivers, that inherently conflicts), and one needs a Monitor switch of course. With a nifty Auto-Switch that exist on the Market, that should be painless, though.

The one thing to take care of, is that the Card scheduled to run OpenGL Applications by default should be installed first, as (I believe) the first OpenGL Registry entry defines the AdapterNo. 0 (default primary), and the 2nd entry AdapterNo. 1 (secondary).
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I tested a Voodoo2 running besides a R9700pro that way, Direct3D allowed for the Adapter to be selected, as well as OpenGL (in my example, from within the UT.ini of UnrealTournament). Glide of course was automatically handled by the Voodoo2.

Basically, I then had 2 Direct3D Devices, 2 OpenGL Devices and 1 Glide Devices in the System, and all selections worked as expected, no conflicts :)

DirectX nowaday's is smart enough to allow for multiple Devices (the times of conflicts, forcing one to disable DirectX support for one card, are dated back to Matrox G100/Mystique & Voodoo1 times). OpenGL had this intelligence built-in since a long time.

In case of Problems, one can still disable DirectX Functions on either of the Cards from within the DXdiag Applet.
---- edit ----
Thinking about it, I believe I've heard something, that Direct3D Hardware Acceleration on a true Secondary Display adapter might be impossible. Having never run 2 full Video Cards besides each other, I can't confirm this, but at least that's what I read about it... Someone would need to test it.

Well, since I have no desire to run D3D stuff on the 5500, it looks like it should work. Thanks.

Do you have a link to the Auto-Switch thing you mentioned? It sounds like it would be better suited for this purpose than a KVM switch.

Unfortunately, no, but I ran by one of these Auto-Switches (auto-sense) in a local shop just yesterday (didn't remember the name though).

You'll have to search around a bit.

AH I tried this and I just could not get it to work. I ran inti IRQ problems that I could not resolve. Thats a radeon 9200Se with a voodoo 5500 64mb PCI. I now am trying the V2 with a pass through cable to get glide or 3dfx for my older games?

is that radeon 9200se really useful for you?
it's a crippled radeon with 64bits.. so it has half the memory bandwith of the V5 ;D

isn't the V5 faster?

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is that radeon 9200se really useful for you? it's a crippled radeon with 64bits.. so it has half the memory bandwith of the V5 ;D isn't the V5 faster?

I wouldn't put down the Radeon 9200SE, even with 64bit it still has quite alot of power (much more bandwidth than the Voodoo5).