sli with mismatched memory/board designs, integrated mobo graphics for 2d?

Started by milkkart, 31 January 2011, 22:05:15

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milkkart

i found an old k6-2 system and decided to make a dos gaming box since dosbox always seems to give me nasty glitchy sound. the pci integrated sound on the mobo is not exactly dos friendly so i hit ebay to look for an SB16 and found one with some assorted pci/isa cards including a mach 64 and 12mb creative voodoo2. so i thought why not make a dualboot freeDOS/98SE gaming system. there was a seemingly indentical ct6670 card up for grabs so i bought that too.

but problem is when it arrived it was only 8mb, damn creative made 8mb and 12mb with the same model number. also the mach64 turned out to be a crappy xpression 1mb version which doesn't look like it can do 1024x768 at anything better than 256colour, not sure if its a driver issue or the amount of memory

so possible solutions could be to just run the 12 and 8mb cards in sli which from what i read should work, the 12mb card will restrict itself to 8mb?
desolder 2 of the dram chips from each of the texture processors of the 12mb card and install them in the spare slots of the 8mb card, i dont know if this would work or if it would require a modified bios or something.
buy another 12mb card off ebay, theres a gainward dragon on there which would be pretty nice, will a non-reference design board work in sli with a reference design one though?

i theory the mach64 card can be upgraded to 2mb ram but i have no idea where to get the edo dram chips to do it, im guessing they would need to be a specific type with the right pinout.

would it be possible to use the onboard graphics to handle 2d while still using the voodoo2s for 3d? its a jetway 531cf (SIS 530 chipset) with SIS 6326 agp graphics chip which is 3d capable, how would i make sure programs use the voodoo2s?

thanks for any help.
 

ms-dos

the mach64 max rez is 1024x768 @ 24-bit color

and yes the  sis card wold do better for the 2d card then the mach64

most old games will ask you witch card you'd like to use th play the game

hope this helps



woot 200th post
 

ps47

8+12 SLI should work (as 8+8),but you will have to use drivers with mismatched SLI support,and there is no guarantee that everything will work without headaches..getting an identical pair is always the best way,go for it,if you can.


the sis card will be perfectly ok,use it-your games will either run on the voodoo2 by default,or they will allow you to select the card you prefer (external config tool or ingame menu option).some games might need a manual install of the 3dfx minigl driver to launch properly (quake,for example).

milkkart

great, thanks for the tips, not having to use the mach64 is good because i can't use all 3 of my PCI slots and my soundblaster at the same time because the idiot who designed my motherboard put the PCI and ISA slots too close together.

got my SLI cable made so i'll try out this setup tomorrow.

are mismatched vendors a problem? i can get a 12mb gainward dragon for a reasonable price.
also its not a reference design card and my 12mb one is a ct6670 which is, does that matter?

does wickedGL do the same thing as miniGL? also do i need mesaFX as well as wickedGL? i assume i need the glide2x/3x files from koolsmokie's kit in my system folder too.

thanks again and sorry for asking so much at once, these are my first 3dfx cards! :D
 

ps47

-mismatched 12 MB cards should not be a problem,but you will have to use glides with mismatched support (the ones from koolsmoky,for example.mismatched support must be activated in the registy).

-watch out,making a fully working sli cable is not as easy as it may look.you better test whether all the traces really link where they supposed to.

-wickedgl is a more advanced version of the minigl.it supports newer games,but sometimes,the older ones run slower.basically,you should use minigl for games that support minigl,and wickedgl for games that support wickedgl (easy,isn't it?).

-mesafx is not necessary for this setup.

SavantStrike

Just to chime in, I also recommend you use the integrated graphics for that setup.The M64 resides on the PCI bus, which you want to save for your V2's and your sound card. The less devices on that bus, the better, although I don't think you'd really see a performance difference between the two.

1024x768 at 256 color sounds wrong for the M64 though. I had one in my first computer and that thing hauled for a 2d card. I seem to recall running at that res in 16 bit color. I think I had a 2MB M64 though. I didn't realize they made a 1MB version.