3dFX Voodoo 2 SLI cable needed!

**Wood-Duck** · February 5th, 2012, 12:12 AM

Here's one for retro gamers who appreciate(d) good hardware...

I have two 12MB 3dFX Voodoo 2 cards I intend to resurrect in an old system but have lost the SLI cable to link them. I know that I can make one if I have to but thought I would ask if there is anyone out there who might have one hidden away and are prepared to part with it???

Thanks in advance!

**RicheemxX** · February 5th, 2012, 12:41 PM

SLI cable to link them, they didn't have SLI way back when those cards were made.

edit: my bad I guess those were some of the first ones to ever have it. I guess its not the same as SLI as we know it now but it was called sli

**ShyguyXPC** · February 5th, 2012, 10:39 PM

Yeah, 3DFX invented SLI, Scan Line Interleave, when Nvidia bought them out after they went bankrupt, starting with the Geforce 6 series, they reintroduced SLI, as Scalable Link Interface or something like that, same concept, just implemented differently.

the old Voodoo cards required an SLI cable (can't remember if it was external or internal, but was sort of like ATI's Early Crossfire with the X800/850/1800 series cards)

I never had the money for an SLI'd 3DFX setup back then, so have had no experience with it, though I've had a few Voodoo cards over the years, Voodoo 2 Banshee was my first, then years later picked up a Voodoo 3 3500, 3000 (or maybe it was a 2000, I forget), and my little Voodoo 5 5500 AGP gem, Dual GPU card.

**Carld** · February 6th, 2012, 07:54 AM

Did you look through cablestogo? I had to get the 6in VGA extension from them a while ago. I didn't try getting the jumper cable, but I heard of people using a floppy cable and flipping the middle wires?

btw I still have my Voodoo2 black Magic. I use it with a Diamond Stealth 3D 2000 card when I'm bored. I only have a old Micron Millennium with a 233MMX to use it with.

Only thing that sucks is, anything lower than a K6 2 450 really doesn't do too well, like in Halflife, and Deus Ex (first games, and the BEST).

The voodoo 2 is about the size of my GTX 285. I've kept any I aquired "free" mostly. I only sold a voodoo 5 due to it not working right (blue lines on the screen). Still my collection is just a Voodoo 4 AGP, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP, and the voodoo 2.

**Carld** · February 6th, 2012, 07:59 AM

Originally Posted by RicheemxX

SLI cable to link them, they didn't have SLI way back when those cards were made.

edit: my bad I guess those were some of the first ones to ever have it. I guess its not the same as SLI as we know it now but it was called sli

It was Scan- line Interleaving. Something like that. One company made them to be stacked to 4x SLI, but I forget who, and I can't find anything about it on wiki.

**ShyguyXPC** · February 6th, 2012, 12:15 PM

Can't remember the company, but I remember there was besides 3DFX themselves, I think Diamond made some Voodoo cards, as did the old STB brand.

reading up on 3DFX, it could have very well been STB that had that setup: 3dfx Interactive - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

since 3DFX had bought them up.

**Wood-Duck** · February 7th, 2012, 06:11 AM

Originally Posted by Carld

Did you look through cablestogo? I had to get the 6in VGA extension from them a while ago. I didn't try getting the jumper cable, but I heard of people using a floppy cable and flipping the middle wires?

btw I still have my Voodoo2 black Magic. I use it with a Diamond Stealth 3D 2000 card when I'm bored. I only have a old Micron Millennium with a 233MMX to use it with.

Only thing that sucks is, anything lower than a K6 2 450 really doesn't do too well, like in Halflife, and Deus Ex (first games, and the BEST).

The voodoo 2 is about the size of my GTX 285. I've kept any I aquired "free" mostly. I only sold a voodoo 5 due to it not working right (blue lines on the screen). Still my collection is just a Voodoo 4 AGP, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP, and the voodoo 2.

Thanks Carld for the advice, I will check it out. I had a bunch of old cards until recently, including the original Diamond Stealth with a whole 2MB of VRAM, expandable to 4MB! The Voodoo series were game changers (literally!), especially with Jane's Longbow 2 flight sim. It's sad that some don't realize where SLI actually originated! Check out Wikipedia (Google 3dfx Voodoo 2) for photos to prove it! BTW I totally agree with you about Half Life...one of the best ever!

**ShyguyXPC** · February 7th, 2012, 07:01 AM

I had to give up the Voodoo 2 Banshee back in the day, as it only worked with a couple of my games, and most of them were Direct3D based, so after a month and half I traded my 12MB Banshee back in, and moved to a 16MB Nvidia Riva TNT.

That was the end of Voodoo for me, until years later I bought a few cards for an older system, and to collect them.

I did switch back to ATI a few times, in my Gaming rigs, and another Older AMD K6/2 System, but have mainly stuck with nvidia since then.

I would love to see Nvidia Come out with an all new series of cards, and dedicate them to 3DFX or Voodoo name, had it not been for Nvidia's Acquisition of them back then, ATI probably would of sunk Nvidia in a couple Graphics chip generations.

It wasn't until the Geforce 6 or so series that Nvidia started to incorporate some of the tech and ideas that 3DFX had come up with, R&D'd and what not, in their future cards.

I know the Geforce FX series was supposed to usher in Nvidia + 3DFX tech, but for the most part the FX series was a dud, the 6 series was what the FX series was supposed to be (sort of the equivalent of the Nvidia Dark Ages I guess?).

Never did play Longbow (first one) on 3DFX, never did buy the 2nd game either, though we had half of the Jane's Flight sim games though.