Need help for VOODOO2 12mb gendac card

[liberta]

haaalp!
I am experiencing a strange problem , I have an ancient VIA 5SVA chipset motherboard , the Apollo VPX series. Anyways, i wanted to play a cpl of classic games in glide so i put in an old voodoo2 12 mb gendac card procured from my friend. The card is about 4 years old . My existing card was a voodoo rush macronix 6 mb card which was working perfecting fine until...
i put in the new card(after removing the existing one of course), all cords were in place and i restarted, when i restarted i heard 4 beeps! one longish beep and then 3 beeps one after the other like 'tuuuut tut tut tut' , my monitor light was green, did not turn amber, but no image on the screen. Hard disk activity was usual, windows was loading as usual. When i put in my other card it worked fine. What could be the problem? faulty card? bios setting? please help

 

[Tagrineth]

Simple. Your old card was a Voodoo Rush, which is 2D + 3D.

You REPLACED Voodoo Rush 2D/3D with a Voodoo2... which is 3D-only.

Voodoo2 is incapable of running on its own... you have to have some sort of crappy (or otherwise) primary video card.

 

[liberta]

Hey thanks for the info, i was aware that rush is 3d chip on 2d board, but what i wanted to ask is that do i have to connect the two cards together? speaking of which, is that the same as SLI? i did get an external connector for the cards. Do i have to use that or i just put the card in and install the drivers regularly?

Thanks a lot

 

[London Geezer]

just dump it.
god how old is that? u cant even sell it to anyone, it's so old YOU would have to pay someone in order to sell it

 

[Tagrineth]

Hey thanks for the info, i was aware that rush is 3d chip on 2d board, but what i wanted to ask is that do i have to connect the two cards together? speaking of which, is that the same as SLI? i did get an external connector for the cards. Do i have to use that or i just put the card in and install the drivers regularly?

Thanks a lot

SLI is for two identical cards only.

Using a Voodoo2 with a 2D card is called pass-through. If you want it to work in this case, though, I'd suggest getting an El Cheapo primary card to replace the Rush (a Matrox G200-based card would be your best bet), because there will be compatibility problems if you try to use a Rush and a V2 at the same time.

The way it works is simple enough, the thick short black cable supplied with the Voodoo2 goes from the VGA-out of the primary card to the VGA-in of the V2, and then your monitor plugs into the VGA-out of your V2.

 

[horvendile]

there will be compatibility problems if you try to use a Rush and a V2 at the same time.

What if you use the Alliance drivers for the Rush card? (Whether they are possible to find is another matter...)

If there are two inputs on the monitor, it's possible to connect 2D card and V2 separately and switch manually. That would alleviate the degradation of 2D quality which arises from the pass-through arrangement. Not sure though how noticeable it is.

 

[Tagrineth]

Horvendle: I wasn't aware that Voodoo Rush drivers were separated into 2D and 3D components? You can install them separately? That's neat. ^_^ I thought it was one single package..

 

[horvendile]

You can install them separately? That's neat. ^_^ I thought it was one single package..

They were a single package, if you used the 3dfx drivers. As you no doubt know however, Alliance Semiconductors made the 2D part of the board, and it was possible to download drivers from them. Apparently, this made it possible to try the quite limited but existing 3D capabilities of the Alliance part.

When 3dfx had their exchange campaign for dual planar boards (they offered to exchange the 3dfx part of the dual boards for a Diamond Monster 3D, due to widespread discontent with the Rush), this was indeed (IIRC) their recipe for getting the 2D-part of the board to work with the Monster 3D. I say it should be worth a try with the Rush and V2 - given that the Alliance drivers are still to be found, of course. (I probably had them, but since then they have taken a stroll down the washout lane*.)

Bonus remembrance: There were reports of people getting electrical interference problems from their naked connectors when the daughterboard had been removed. I believe the general response of the internet community to those reports were the equivalent of a tired sigh.

*(As in "Starship Troopers")

 

[Sage]

a lot of people these days are getting a Quantum3d Obsidian X24 and putting it in their main comp. It's two V2's in SLI on one card, and is still a 3d-only card that can be used for Glide-only games.