HElp with setup.

[ManiaC]

Hi everyone.

I have just recently purchased a Voodoo 5 5500 PCI new in sealed packaging from ebay and i want to install it in my PC. I currently have a Geforce FX 5950U which i think i'll take out for now. My question is which are the best all round drivers to use. I don't really want to have to mix and match drivers on a per-game basis.....i just want to install one set which generally work with most games.

By the way i am currently using Server 2003 but i know for a fact any WinXP drivers will work fine so just pretend i'm using WinXP for now

Also when i decide to go back to my trusty Geforce FX what's the best method to revert.....just uninstall the drivers and install the ones for my geforce again or should i run Driver Cleaner Pro?

Finally just for your interst here is my collection:-

Creative Labs Voodoo 2 12MB PCI
Gigabyte Voodoo Banshee 16MB AGP
OEM Voodoo 3 3000 16MB (opened but never used) PCI
Voodoo 5 5500 64MB (soon to be used) PCI
Voodoo TV/FM (New factory sealed) PCI - may install it sometime too

Sorry for such a long post....look forward to some great responces though

ManiaC®

[Voodoo5]

@ManiaC,

As for a driver you could try the SFFT Alpha 36:

https://www.3dfxzone.it/dir/news/3dfx/sfft_alpha36_voodoo3_4_5/

Because your Voodoo 5500 is a pci model, you could use it as a secondary display adapter with your Geforce card as explained here:

http://www.3dfxzone.it/enboard/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1942

[ManiaC]

I had considered doing that, having it running as a secondary display adaptor, but i'm a little concerned that having mu FX5950U(single slot cooling) and my Voodoo 5 and my creative labs X-Fi all in close proximity may be pushing it a bit....i have a 550W PSU (cheapo brand so it's most likely a 350 with an extra rail) so power shouldn't be a problem....i just don't really want to have to switch cables.

My initial thought was SFFT A36 with 3DfxTools.....is this a better setup than AmigaMerlin 3.1 R11?

[Voodoo5]

@ManiaC,

I had considered doing that, having it running as a secondary display adaptor, but i'm a little concerned that having mu FX5950U(single slot cooling) and my Voodoo 5 and my creative labs X-Fi all in close proximity may be pushing it a bit....i have a 550W PSU (cheapo brand so it's most likely a 350 with an extra rail) so power shouldn't be a problem....i just don't really want to have to switch cables.

Your call, but this is my setup in one of my systems with a Radeon X850XT-PE and it takes all of 10 seconds to switch cards

Either driver should serve you well, but I prefer the SFFT driver (more advanced d3d) with V.Control for making tweaks:

http://www.3dfxzone.it/koolsmoky/vctrl.html

[ps47]

3dfx tools wont work when using voodoo3/4/5 as secondary vga card,you will have to use vcontrol..as for drivers,the latest SFFT is recommended.some info.

[ManiaC]

Well my main concern is just not to ruin my current computer setup to the point where i have to format....it seems easiest to me to have just one card in my PC at a time and it will also reduce the load on my PSU.

On a totally seperate matter, probably worthy of a new thread, has anyone thought of petitioning nVidia to produce an updated driver set for the voodoos as it's obvious people don't want to give them up. I would be happy to try so if anyone else is onterested please let me know

[ps47]

oh yeah.I have a pet rock I've been dying to see sing and dance,maybe we can try that first.
seriously,there is no way nv is going to do that.not in bilion years..

I have a radeon9800pro running alongside with voodoo5 mac,two hdds and two dvd drives,only a 350W PSU and never had any power issues.

one way or another,the best choice would be SFFT driver+vcontrol..and maybe original glides and 3dfx icd

[Nightbird]

Originally posted by ManiaC


On a totally seperate matter, probably worthy of a new thread, has anyone thought of petitioning nVidia to produce an updated driver set for the voodoos as it's obvious people don't want to give them up. I would be happy to try so if anyone else is onterested please let me know

Never saw that ?
http://www.petitiononline.com/3dfxsos/petition.html

old now and even some sites are dead since...

Forgot NVidia.
Never they have produced and never they will produce "an updated driver" ; that's (also) their right.

The new D3D core, MesaFx and updated Glide are born here thanks to some people.

[ManiaC]

Your enthusiasm overwhelms me.....seriously, I mean how many people out there drive cars from the 70's and 80's and still get spare parts for them?? I'm talking about drivers for a 6 year old card, It would take Nvidia very little effort compared to the drivers for their Geforce cards, they could even add then to there current UDP with a fairy basic control pannel.

They have all the code, all they would need to do is make the drivers fully compatible with DX9 and then just about any game not requiring HW TnL would work.

I don't know about you but I think it's nVidia's responsibility to provide updates drivers for a product that still has a large user base.....too bad some people just don't care i guess

[Nightbird]

The best would be to open a new topic or we will be off-topic