3dfx - Voodoo 2 SLI?

[Mikeyy00]

Hey,

I can use one of my Voodoo 2's without issue. If I try 2 with the SLI cable, I get nothing. Black screen and I usually have to reboot my Mac.

Have tried in a couple of various G4 towers.. same thing. Works under Win98 on a PC though AND if I try each card as separately on MacOS, they work too. 

Was SLI with 2xVoodoo II's even a supported thing on MacOS?

 

[jessenator]

LGR covered this in his mac+voodoo video i believe.

In general, SLI has very limited application even today. Most games don't utilize it and will straight up crash. Afaik, Mac has never supported SLI.

 

[Mikeyy00]

LGR covered this in his mac+voodoo video i believe.

In general, SLI has very limited application even today. Most games don't utilize it and will straight up crash. Afaik, Mac has never supported SLI.

In today's version of SLI, I'd agree 1000%.. but back in the Voodoo 2 days, it allowed you to go from 800x600 maximum to 1024x768. I wasn't aware of any games that didn't really work.. if it supported Glide, it could use two cards. 

Still not discounting what you're saying re mac not supporting SLI.. I just don't recall from that far back.. in the late 90's I was a PC guy only.

 

[Byrd]

Are you using matching cards?  The Windows drivers around are more tolerant using mismatched cards, I can't imagine the basic 3DFX drivers for Mac are as forgiving.  Also try placing the cards in different slots together - ideally the top most PCI slot next to the AGP slot (or top slot if PCI only Mac).  You know SLI works if you can select and run a 1024 x 768 resolution in a game.

On a Mac SLI is supported, but of very little performance benefit in Macs.  A member here for France has a blog which documents the lacklustre performance, but I haven't time to find the translated link today.  A Voodoo 3 provides the same performance roughly as 2 x SLI Voodoo 2s.