i tried installed UT99 Game of the Year Edition, on 3 different computers (1 with 2x Voodoo2 SLI, 1 with Voodoo 3 3000 AGP, and 1 with Voodoo 5 5500 AGP) and they all behave the same way: Sometimes when you play, the game will stop/freeze for a short moment, and this can happen from 1 to 3 times one after the other. I don't remember this happening back in the days though.

I tried increasing the cache amount in the .ini file, i tried updating to patch 436, and nothing seem to do it.

Anyone else have this problem?

what is your hardware setup, aside from the videocard?

-Voodoo2 12mb SLI setup: Pentium 3 550Mhz, 512mb SDRAM, AWE64 sound card, Radeon 7000 64mb AGP main video card, Win98SE with latest custom patches and latest DirectX9 installed, FastVoodoo2 drivers. Cards are Guillemot and Canopus brand, with custom SLI cable because the Canopus card don't have the SLI connector on the side, so need to be slightly longer.

-Voodoo3 3000 AGP setup: Pentium 3 800Mhz, 768mb SDRAM, SB Live sound card, Win98SE with latest custom patches and latest DirectX9 installed, AmigaMerlin v2.9 drivers.

-Voodoo5 5500 AGP setup: Pentium 4 1.7Ghz (256kb L2 cache, yeah i know, but i can only use this for now), 512mb DDR266 (i think), SB Live sound card, Win98SE with latest custom patches and latest DirectX9 installed, AmigaMerlin v2.9 drivers.

edit: i tried another Assault map on my V2SLI setup, and it doesn't do those strange temporary freezes. Maybe it's just the HiSpeed assault map having a problem?

what I would try, as I found out a while ago, is to go very basic in installation.

My setup = dual XP-M, 512MB DDR333, 5500 MAC2PC, 40GB ATA100 disk, MX300 soundcard.

I Installed windows98SE, unofficial SP, latest Amigamerlin drivers, mx300 drivers etc etc, I never got it running without problems.
Last night I reinstalled the rig, win98se, no SP, drivers that came with my 5500AGP, DX7a and motherboard drivers without drivers for agp etc (that crashed the system when installed)

I have run Carmageddon 2, Diablo2, Final Fantasy 7, UT99, Quake3 and so on and so on without 1 single hickup or screwup.
I also ran 3DMark99MAX, 3DMark2000 and will be running more of that tonight.

So my advice is, 1st do a basic install, no flashy updates or whatever, just stick to the drivers that came with the cards and use the dx versions that were common at that time and see if all works well then. If so, then you have a baseline from where you can start tinkering.

my favorite mode is UT is Assault, so...i tried different Assault maps, and no hiccup/freeze happened, only in the HiSpeed map so far.

Well, one of my problems was that with FF7 all the ingame movies would show upside down, the rest of the game was fine. Carmageddon 2 I would only be able to use th mouse on half the screen, the right half I would have to use the keyboard....so it's the little things that make the difference.

I'm still amazed how much better FF7 looks running on a voodoo5 then it does on any other card.

when running it on my main machine, 16AA + some AF it looks nice, but the colors on the voodoo5 are so much warmer for some reason

yeah, well...the V5500 MAC version with DVI connector is stupidly hard to find, and when someone sell it, it's like 200$+, and you have to flash the card yourself...

and it's a real hassle to find a 100% working 19" CRT monitor, and a real hassle to move as well, when you're used to lightweight LCD monitors.

Seriously, 100% working CRTs without any problem is getting hard to find here, at least i got a decent Viewsonic G70mb here with no screen problem, just very slight bleeding on corners but i think this is normal for CRTs to have that.

I actually found my 5500MAC for 100 euros, with box in near mint condition, tho I could care less about the box :)

my 3dfx rig is connected to a 17" LCD screen, really crappy one at that, but even so, it still makes FF7 look better then on my main rig, which has a Radeon 6950 and a Samsung 27" LED edge lit Syncmaster. LOL

if LCD monitors didn't had noise problems with VGA connectors...

And btw,  the lcd is connected to the voodoo5 via vga, haven't gotten the right dvi cable yet.

I'll make pics for comparison, the difference is quite obvious

i have many DVI cables here, quality and cheaper ones...most of them came with LCD monitors or found for really cheap in thrift stores or garage sales.

formatted my Voodoo5 setup and installed Windows 2000 SP4, installed AmigaMerlin's Win2k drivers v3.1 R11.

Where can i find the latest DirectX full redistributable for Win2k?

Google is your friend, I found mine via www.oldapps.com or something like that

ack...tried 3 games and they all gave me an error when trying to play or install them, in Windows 2000. I guess Win98SE is the best one for 3DFX-related games...

What games are that?? For carmageddon2 there is a win2k patch most games have that. For FF7 there is the Ultima Edition (lol), runs just fine on win2k, but 98SE doesn' t need patchew mostly, so it is easier. And with the unofficial SP you can make it look like win2k anways. :)

games i tried are Metal Gear Solid, Need for Speed High Stakes...when i see both of those not working at all, i just formatted again and installed Win98SE, DX9, unofficial SP and then i installed the Final official drivers of the V5500 instead of the 3rd-party ones. It seem to work a bit better so far.