Post by Obi-Wan_Kenobi on 25.11.06 at 17:06:44
Hello all :)
As we all know Diamond Multimedia made Voodoo2 cards carrying the name Monster 3D II in 8MB and 12MB configurations :)
While some of us have been collecting 3dfx cards from all different types there were some great discoveries of some particulair SST-2 aka Voodoo2 cards :)
TM30's Voodoo Graphics 2 4MB with onlu one Bruce chip with 2MB of texure memory and 2MB of frame buffer memory which is still one of the greatest Discoveries ever, never seen more of these cards before, TM30 was the only man to give that true evidence of it's exsistance, congrats mate ;) Here a comparrison of the size of this very small 4 meg Voodoo Graphics 2 :)
might of been the missing link between the designs of Voodoo Graphics and Voodoo2.
After that some other ones appeared like the Voodoo2 PCI 6MB PCI cards from 3Dfx which were shown on may 3Dfx OEM boxes like Creative Labs, Diamond Multimedia and other brands, we never knew that these cards exsisted untill Gary S. Donovan showed them us over here.
they are somewhat bigger than the 4 meg V2 from TM30, thier SLI connectors are facine frontward instead of upward like most Voodoo2's and they have like the normal Voodo2's 2 Bruce chips and one Chuck chop, but each Bruce had only 2MB texture memory and the Chuck had 2MB framebuffer memory adding up in a total of 6MB :)
here nice shot's from TM30's Voodoo2 6MB card :)
here a SLI set from Gary's collection of 2 Voodoo 2 6MB cards:
after this one some Voodoo2 12MB prototypes emerged from Gary's collection as well as some Quantum3D cards featuring the Voodoo2 chipset, including the Pinacle systems called the Barracuda cards.
Then there was this discovery of a Diamond Multimedia Voodoo2 set with no VGA's on the slave card!
He showed it on his site and indeed no VGA's he called it Mega Monster 3D II:
Well then I bought a set from him and mine has stock Tenmax Stealth coolers on them then a few months later Eye-Q bought his set from ebay as well, but us 3 remain the only 3 with this odd set.
what I first heard was that the name Mega Monster 3D II was used for these odd sets only, which I later found out with Eye-Q that that makes no sense.
Gary did tell me that it's a Promotion set from Diamond, might be hehe but that doesn't clarify the name right? since the back of the Diamond Monster 3D 2 boxes read the following:
"Not Included:
internal cable for connecting MegaMonster upgrade. Available via internet or from the European Diamond Multimedia Customer Support.
So If it is a Promotion set, here are a few questions that needed to be clarified:
1. Why were a few of these Non-VGA slave cards sold in normal Diamond Monster 3D II boxes and ebay as sets with normal master cards?
Eye-Q's set which he got from ebay:
2. Why does my set of the 3 sets known worldwide have stock Tenmax Steatlh Coolers?
3. Could these cards be prototypes but remodded for production like the Voodoo4-2 4200 story from the IBM deal, a kind of vice versa idea?
4. If these were prototypes and there were so few , where are their E-Tags and NFR decails?
5. If the Non-VGA cards were part of promosets, why are thier PCB dates different from other cards?
My slave card PCB date is year 1999 week 12, Eye-Q's PCB date is year 1998 week 14 dunno what Gary's is though.
Anyways These rare finds are very strange, especially that Diamond Mega Monster 3D II thing.
@ Gary
This isn't an offence mate just trying to find for some extra vital information and hey it's gonna be a great topic, just because I stated your name in some places. ;)
May The Force Be With You All!
As we all know Diamond Multimedia made Voodoo2 cards carrying the name Monster 3D II in 8MB and 12MB configurations :)
While some of us have been collecting 3dfx cards from all different types there were some great discoveries of some particulair SST-2 aka Voodoo2 cards :)
TM30's Voodoo Graphics 2 4MB with onlu one Bruce chip with 2MB of texure memory and 2MB of frame buffer memory which is still one of the greatest Discoveries ever, never seen more of these cards before, TM30 was the only man to give that true evidence of it's exsistance, congrats mate ;) Here a comparrison of the size of this very small 4 meg Voodoo Graphics 2 :)
might of been the missing link between the designs of Voodoo Graphics and Voodoo2.
After that some other ones appeared like the Voodoo2 PCI 6MB PCI cards from 3Dfx which were shown on may 3Dfx OEM boxes like Creative Labs, Diamond Multimedia and other brands, we never knew that these cards exsisted untill Gary S. Donovan showed them us over here.
they are somewhat bigger than the 4 meg V2 from TM30, thier SLI connectors are facine frontward instead of upward like most Voodoo2's and they have like the normal Voodo2's 2 Bruce chips and one Chuck chop, but each Bruce had only 2MB texture memory and the Chuck had 2MB framebuffer memory adding up in a total of 6MB :)
here nice shot's from TM30's Voodoo2 6MB card :)
here a SLI set from Gary's collection of 2 Voodoo 2 6MB cards:
after this one some Voodoo2 12MB prototypes emerged from Gary's collection as well as some Quantum3D cards featuring the Voodoo2 chipset, including the Pinacle systems called the Barracuda cards.
Then there was this discovery of a Diamond Multimedia Voodoo2 set with no VGA's on the slave card!
He showed it on his site and indeed no VGA's he called it Mega Monster 3D II:
Well then I bought a set from him and mine has stock Tenmax Stealth coolers on them then a few months later Eye-Q bought his set from ebay as well, but us 3 remain the only 3 with this odd set.
what I first heard was that the name Mega Monster 3D II was used for these odd sets only, which I later found out with Eye-Q that that makes no sense.
Gary did tell me that it's a Promotion set from Diamond, might be hehe but that doesn't clarify the name right? since the back of the Diamond Monster 3D 2 boxes read the following:
"Not Included:
internal cable for connecting MegaMonster upgrade. Available via internet or from the European Diamond Multimedia Customer Support.
So If it is a Promotion set, here are a few questions that needed to be clarified:
1. Why were a few of these Non-VGA slave cards sold in normal Diamond Monster 3D II boxes and ebay as sets with normal master cards?
Eye-Q's set which he got from ebay:
2. Why does my set of the 3 sets known worldwide have stock Tenmax Steatlh Coolers?
3. Could these cards be prototypes but remodded for production like the Voodoo4-2 4200 story from the IBM deal, a kind of vice versa idea?
4. If these were prototypes and there were so few , where are their E-Tags and NFR decails?
5. If the Non-VGA cards were part of promosets, why are thier PCB dates different from other cards?
My slave card PCB date is year 1999 week 12, Eye-Q's PCB date is year 1998 week 14 dunno what Gary's is though.
Anyways These rare finds are very strange, especially that Diamond Mega Monster 3D II thing.
@ Gary
This isn't an offence mate just trying to find for some extra vital information and hey it's gonna be a great topic, just because I stated your name in some places. ;)
May The Force Be With You All!