using a virge with a voodoo 1

[oblivion]

i'm building a pentium based DOS machine. usually I go with the trustly S3 trio64V2 but I wanted to try the Virge cards. i've heard some bad things about the early cards but i was thinking on going with a virge/GX. did they work out most of the issues by this point? and also i know the virge is a 3d card so i'm also planning on having a voodoo1 card for those few DOS voodoo games but will the 3d on the virge conflict?

 

[Crypticalcode0]

I think a S3 Virge and S3 trio64V2 might be a better match up then a voodoo1.

 

[Jorg]

My combo was a Virge/DX and a voodoo 1, worked well.

 

[EverythingIBM]

I think a S3 Virge and S3 trio64V2 might be a better match up then a voodoo1.

Nope. A voodoo 1 will easily oust a virge on a pentium-1 based system due to glide. You have to remember, direct3D and OpenGL are absolutely SLUGS, especially on older hardware.
And a virge already has 2D graphics, so pairing it with a trio64 is impossible as there isn't a pass-through system....

i'm building a pentium based DOS machine. usually I go with the trustly S3 trio64V2 but I wanted to try the Virge cards. i've heard some bad things about the early cards but i was thinking on going with a virge/GX. did they work out most of the issues by this point? and also i know the virge is a 3d card so i'm also planning on having a voodoo1 card for those few DOS voodoo games but will the 3d on the virge conflict?

The virge won't conflict with the Voodoo1 (games that support glide will automatically use the Voodoo).
In fact, games will probably ignore the virge's 3D and only ever use the Voodoo1. At least, that's what happened for me.

 

[animekenji]

Personally, I would use an early Matrox card with the Voodoo 1 in this system. You won't be able to run the Matrox card at anything approaching it's full speed if your Pentium is really slow, but you'll have razor sharp 2D and fast Windows acceleration if you wanted to install that alongside DOS.

 

[oblivion]

Personally, I would use an early Matrox card with the Voodoo 1 in this system. You won't be able to run the Matrox card at anything approaching it's full speed if your Pentium is really slow, but you'll have razor sharp 2D and fast Windows acceleration if you wanted to install that alongside DOS.

I looked at the Matrox cards for some time because everyone said how good the 2d is from them but I also read that alot of DOS games just do not work or look wrong. commander keen for one. seemed that for compatibility it was the S3 cards that worked best. according to this chart anyways http://gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS/

 

[Unknown_K]

I paired my Voodoo 1 with the original Matrox Millenium, worked fine for me. Not sure why you would be using Commander Keen as a benchmark for a Pentium based early 3D gaming rig anyway.

 

[oblivion]

I paired my Voodoo 1 with the original Matrox Millenium, worked fine for me. Not sure why you would be using Commander Keen as a benchmark for a Pentium based early 3D gaming rig anyway.

true, but at least according to the chart the millenium had issues with quake and duke as well. like i said i hear alot of mixed reviews on the matrox as far as DOS compatibility goes that makes me kind of wary.

 

[Krille]

As far as 2D goes, how about a card based on some Cirrus Logic chipset? They were always cheap and thus very common which is great from a compatibility standpoint. They may not be the fastest cards out there but IMHO that's less important.

 

[Unknown_K]

true, but at least according to the chart the millenium had issues with quake and duke as well. like i said i hear alot of mixed reviews on the matrox as far as DOS compatibility goes that makes me kind of wary.

I think you are missing the fact that DOS stretches from early text adventures, CGA/EGA , Tandy video and sound, early VGA , later VGA+ that had acceleration directly from the card chipset for 2D, and finally early 3D that didn't use the 2D section of the card at all (with various flavors of custom programming for different chipsets).

There is no one gaming rig that does it all and does it well with respect to DOS gaming, you also have issues with CPU speed and the correct vintage sound card.

 

[EverythingIBM]

3dfx's 2D engine in the voodoo3 is actually one of the fastest I've seen in DOS (too bad the engine wasn't around during the voodoo1!).
Games always go slow when I use the onboard matrox mystique in my P1. Same situation with an external millennium II though (which I even boosted to 6MB of RAM).

 

[oblivion]

I think you are missing the fact that DOS stretches from early text adventures, CGA/EGA , Tandy video and sound, early VGA , later VGA+ that had acceleration directly from the card chipset for 2D, and finally early 3D that didn't use the 2D section of the card at all (with various flavors of custom programming for different chipsets).

There is no one gaming rig that does it all and does it well with respect to DOS gaming, you also have issues with CPU speed and the correct vintage sound card.

I know, believe me I have PC's for most era's...i actually have a setup specifically for windows 3.1 even though that's mostly pointless. anyways this PC is really for windows 95, more of a period project actually but i suppose for the 2 or 3 games that don't run inder windows 98. I'm probably just going to go with the virge/GX and the voodoo 1 as they were the seemingly the most popular cards for the early windows period plus you still get a very compatible 2d trio64 core.