how does a newbie deside wich driv. to use.mabe there could be some sort of a post to explain what drivers work best with what? how do i go about desiding on a driver? im using win98 ,does it matter what ver. ? se i think. is it dependent apon you proccesser ? i have a 233mmx,32meg edo ram,voodoo3 2000,300mx sound card.or is it more depending on the games you play?.my old system wont play many nwer games.i play quake.sin,heretic/age of empires,& half life,most. ;Di see alot of people use the 107,&the amagamerlin is one better or does it depend? ;Dwhat direct x should i use  ;D

Hi :)

Well, with a Pentium MMX 233 and 32MB EDO, the only real difference would be the Visual Quality...

Tweak Options inherent to many 3rd party Drivers, that increase the Voodoo3's performance won't do alot, since it is probably not being pushed alot by the slow CPU/RAM Combo.

The only Tweak that probably helps your machine (performance wise), is possibly the Guardband Clipping Option available in some 3rd party Drivers.

Other than that, I would recommend setting up your Voodoo3 2000 for maximum Visual Quality (Filter Quality : High, Alpha Blending : Sharper, MipMap Bias -0.25 or even -0.5).

Some releases also have the old Edge Antialiasing Option, although this is done in Software (and might cause undue Slowdowns on a P233MMX).

Proven Drivers are of course the 3dfx Reference (1.07.00 and 1.07.00beta), and mostly x3dfx and AmigaMerlin Releases...
(those are the ones I had the best personal experiences with)

Since you play mostly older Games, I would stick to what works, and never change a running system ;)
...because with the P233MMX and older Games, I don't imagine you'd profit anything from DirectX9, for example.

The Voodoo3-2000 usually can scale upto P3/Athlon Class CPU levels, so performance wise, any setting you make (to the Card) should not affect performance alot.

While not really meant for "Newbie's", some of the standalone Driver components might help the most, being the Updated Glide dll's. Also, check out the GlideXP Project, that is running parallel. Presently not in the Archive (coming soon), I've heard the latest GlideXP has been vastly optimized for MMX, which might give the best performance Boost for your CPU under both Glide and (partly) OpenGL :)

Link :
http://www.users.on.net/triforce/glidexp/

The Instructions are easy to follow, so it shouldn't be difficult to install these Files.

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Note that for all Win9x Voodoo Drivers, it should not make any difference if you run Win95A,B,C, Win98, Win98SE or WinME...

The only difference between those is, that 98SE and ME also support the WDM Driver Model, while 95 and 98 rely solely on the older .vxd Driver Model.
(by all practical means, this is of no relevance for Voodoo Users)

thanks for your reply .i love your web site. 8) what direct x should i use ? 8)  

I'd recommend using the latest known, stable Version...

DirectX7 and DirectX 8/8.1b have proven to be quite reliable, and DX9 is still relatively new.

If everything works, there should be no reason to upgrade for you from whatever you have presently installed, until you have to (e.g. if a Game/Program, or Driver) actually requires it.

thanks again. ;D its nice to know there are helpfull ,knoledgeable people like your self available 8)

The info/readme for the w98 V3  x3dfx 1.08 driver refers to V4&5 but not V3. I want to be sure before i try & use it  that it is for the V3 3k.  Can a moderator verify?

I've checked the only x3dfx Driver for Voodoo3 / Win9x :

Voodoo3 Windows® 9x/ ME Voodoo Community Driver Kit 1.08.03

Say's right on top of the ReadMe File (?)...