a Voodoo2 driver version question

Hey all

What driver is the best performing for Voodoo2's Single as well as SLI mode for Win98SE?
The one I am using now is Fast Voodoo2.4.6 i s there a better one like Razeil64's drivers or so from AmigaMerlin, Quantum3D or even 3dfx it's elf?

I seen many versions and I just wondered if there are any major differences, thanks in advance.

Quote from Kaitou

FastVoodoo is fast because it overclocks your card

oh it does that automatically or is that a manual thing? sorry I used to know these things, I just don't remember much of it, hence I asked.

hmm my Gainwards have 110Mhz 25ns EDO's on them which should be fine in my situation I guess:

Also I'm making anew Midi music compilation as well, more to come for that as well.
if you advise something else, feel free to let me know

Does anyone know where to find the Excellent Driver package for Voodoo II's as talked about in this thread at Vogons:
3Dfx Voodoo II Alternate Drivers - Win9x \ VOGONS

They seem to be pretty solid and they don't auto OC your cards plus many fixes were also applied.
Unless there is a better driver you guys would recommend, please let me know.

Many thanks for your reply, this is interesting.

There is a latest reference driver with DX 7 support that is newer than the Beta, hence why I am questioned:
Voodoo2 Drivers

So yea, I'll try that latest one, it was just an idea though, yet a god friend at x-3dfx told me that the Fast V2 v 4.6 can also get a reg edit so the speeds can be set and manually saved at 90Mhz as well, the wrote the following:
Also strange that the 3.03.00 Beta is older than the 3.02.00 as well.
------------------
"Please check the following paths in regedit on the computer where you have the FastVoodoo2 4.6 installed:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\3Dfx Interactive\Voodoo2\Glide

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\3Dfx Interactive\Voodoo2\D3D

inside both of them you should have a key called SSTV2_GRXCLK that has a value of the current MHz of the card. 93, 95, 100, etc

If you want i can make you a .reg file that reverts those values to default (90 Mhz) so you won't have to go to the registry every time to set them manually. Just double click the reg file and add it into the registry."
-----------------

Unless that would make it too complicated for myself, I am not really ideal when it comes to software and reg edits, even though many years ago I would of known what to do, in the end I am probably making it all too complicated for myself.

oh damn I see now, since most of my old games are glide based the 3.03.00b would be the better one to use for Direct3D and OpenGL the other one, oh gosh why didn't anyone make a driver that has best of both worlds, unless there is something like that?

Or did that give unwanted conflicts so as reason it was never done?

You are very right though, it is a mess indeed, maybe Phil was high when he made that haha

This good news is that I got confirmation from Backfire that he is recapping my second Gaiwnard Dragon V2 PCI 12MB this week with yellow colored KEMET Aluminum Capacitors, they look like yellow Polymers really.
Gainward V2 SLI as a matched pair, the V2 setup of my dreams is becoming an actual reality, just fantastic.

Yesterday I met up with an old Computer Club friend of mine he had an Intel Pentium !!!/E 700 Slot1 build with an ASUS P3B-F and a Viper V770 Ultra and Dual Gainward V2 12MB's in SLI, this was the system he used in October of 1999, he still misses it, I told him that if he ever wanted to that he could rebuild that dream system even today, even it may be somewhat expensive, nothing is truly impossible, right

So he plans to come to my place once the V2 SLI setup is up and running, so to make a good presentation a stable driver is also what I am seeking, hence this topic but also for the quality of life of my V2's as well. my main 2D/3D card is a Matrox G400 DH MAX, I am sure everyone here heard of those things

Hey many thanks it feels great to be back again, back in 2007 I used to have like 87 3dfx graphics cards, now it's just four of them haha sadness...
Here my Voodoo Table from 2007 during my better 3dfx days:

Some epic relics in those shots, you probably can recognize some of them

Due to a high amount of regret I am trying to rebuild some of that back and it's not easy at all, never make the mistake I made by selling it all off all thinking it will do you better, because that really didn't do me well at all, it's the one mistake I am trying to prevent others from making, the regrets are unbearable.

So now I am doing fully equipped retro computer builds instead of just graphics cards, making safe homes to use these cards in, making them a little more useful in that sense, these y systems give me the access I'll need to explore them more.

Yea GAT is coming over next year, well that is the plan, I also seek a 40GB to 80GB ATA HDD for my K7 build I was about to post that in the search area, the ebay prices for these old HDD's are crazy rofl, when GAT is here I'll have a K7 700 with a V3 3500 and a P3/E with a G400 MAX and Gainward V2 SLI for the LAN both running 98SE + Unofficcial SP 3.2 ideal for NTFS file support and better networking, as I have done for years, stepping away from Win2K for the K7 is also something new for me.

here the K7 currently:

And here the P3 without the PSU so it doesn't block the view of the lovely parts:

Just waiting on the second V2 for the P3 build,a lot of time and money I put in to these mainly for recaps and renovations but it's all worth the hard work and effort in the end, I can't stand emulators so I did this as this is the real deal in the end.Vintage dream builds take a ton of time to get right though, it's like art it's never done 100% lmao

Quote from Voodoogoetze

You really had an extraordinary collection of graphics cards and beautiful original packaging, and the best thing about them was that they weren't covered in stickers. I would really like to have an original Voodoo 5 6000 and a Rampage today if I had more time to use them.
I'm also planning to build a V3 3500 computer with a K7 700, but it has to be the first Argon CPU core. It's hard to find one.

Argon 700's yea I remember those the one I am looking for is an AMD K7 Athlon 850 T-Bird for Slot A also fun to find as in not easy lmao but I know they do exist and will go far to try and find at least one, the Coppermine 850 for Slot 1 wasn't t easy either, 850Mhz was always my favorite speed for these Sot A/ Slot 1 builds it's the ideal speed for anything V2 SLI or V3 3500 based setups. nothing too under powered and nothing too fast either.

But when you look on ebay it's always the random 500, 550, 600 650 Slot A CPU's the Argon I did see as the 850 model I also seen a TBird 850 for Slot A but the moment I had money for it yea it was already gone... now I do have money for something like a T-Bird 850 fopr Slot A just as long the seller isn't a greedy one, these are also often an issue, especially if it is ebay related.

Yea the search goes on same as your quest for an Argo 700, also not something you see every day, the T-bird 700's are a tad faster thanks to the ull speed L2 cache, similar to how the Coppermines have this advantage over the Katmai's for example.

As for my collection I miss that everyday I am just happy I kept all the photo's more in my gallery here:
My Previous VGA cards

And helping out those for Voodoo5 6000 builds is also something I kept at bay, I may not have a card anymore myself but I remember everything what is of need CPU + mainboard wise as well as drivers etc, always here to help those in need, fun times that were alright.

As for Rampage yea that is an interesting beast all together, sadly I never was able to experience Daytona or Rampage 2000, but all the Napalm cards I had gave me a ton of unseen experience especially the VOodooo5 5000 AGP & PCI alongside the Voodoo5 6000 these three very very interesting to see running games like Descent 1 &2 with DXX Rebirth 0.58.1, Descent 3 +_ Mercenary ver 1.5 beta as well as Quake III Arena, Unreal Tournament as well as C&C Red Alert 2 as 2D went, 2D wise the Voodoo3 3500 gave the best image quality even that V4 & V5 weren't too far off, however if having a V4 PCI Mac or a V5 PCI Mac the DVI-D surely cleared the image quality thing tho, some AGP variants had traces for DVI-D , and Backfire could always mod that to the cards if ever wanted, it's nice we have so much more resources these days and not always need to rely on Hank Semenec for hard to reach support.

We all have come a very long way in that regard.

Ohh okay many thanks for explaining, I really didn't know that, either way I did use the Fast Voodoo2 4.6 No OC Modded drivers these keep the clocks safely at 90Mhz, thanks go to ciacara72from x-3dfx for that one

Fast Voodoo 2 4.6 No OverClock MOD : www.3dfxzone.it : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

FastVoodoo2 4.6 No-OverClock MODIn recent years/months, I have received many 3dfx Voodoo2 cards to repair that were declared ‘defective’, but after careful...

archive.org

And these are things I really didn't know as the ns of the ram went on how that was comparable to the clock speeds of the ram it's self, thanks for passing that on, were there any V2's that has 121Mhz EDO ram, like a few Skywell Magic 3D II's or would this be Quantum3D territory?

Quote from Voodoogoetze

You really had an extraordinary collection of graphics cards and beautiful original packaging, and the best thing about them was that they weren't covered in stickers. I would really like to have an original Voodoo 5 6000 and a Rampage today if I had more time to use them.
I'm also planning to build a V3 3500 computer with a K7 700, but it has to be the first Argon CPU core. It's hard to find one.

Here that same table as of now, photo taken on October 06, 2025, which was yesterday from this post's time stamp.

It's nice to have things in there again, but it has seen better days, many of which is just hard to rebuild, all because of greedy arse sellers and their fraudulent Collectors BS values, which has ruined the fun for the most of us.
The Sapphire Nitro+ RX Vega 64, Sapphire Nitro+ RX 6800 XT Special Edition. Sapphire AMD Reference R9 290X, Sapphire Vapor-X OC Edition HD5870 and Supermicro H8DG6-F are just gap fillers for now, I am hoping to get more 3dfx cards in that table, even if they are just production models.
The two EVGA NVIDIA Reference GTX 480's are for my EVGA Tribute Rebuild, in the end there is always things to do and to improve.