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Preparation What you have to do before overclock your Voodoo2? If you have a Voodoo2 card and you have used it for as long as 6 months or more and you want to get higher frame rate, you may overclock it. The performance will be get higher, the game will be run smoother and faster. The FPS will increase from 5 to 10 FPS.
For optimum overclocking, it's recommended to use a processor with minimum 266 MHz (Pentium II or Celeron) or above, because less than 266 MHz overclocking the Voodoo2 will not give a best result. The Voodoo2 runs better with 400 MHz, because at resolution 640x480 the V2 not handle all the process like geometry, lighting, and triangle, the V2 runs high with resolution 800x600. The bottleneck problem is come from the processor, because if the processor can't feed all the data to the V2, the V2 can't reach the maximum performance, and overclocking the V2 is nothing you can get, you just make the V2 more heater, for example, the Cyrix (IBM 6x86) and IDT Winchip is not for 3D gaming and 3D application, since it good at business application like, Microsoft Office and etc, because this processor don't have a good FPU (Floating Point Unit), the 3D game is depend from FPU power. The game that can measure the FPU power is Quake 2 and the latest one Quake 3 (with software mode). Before you want to overclock your Voodoo2 make sure that you have a proper cooling, without it, your Voodoo2 will run out to the garbage. Because semiconductor enemy is heat, overheating cause the chip to burnt. This can solved by using a proper cooling. Overclocking Voodoo2 is little different than overclocking other Video card such as, nVidia Riva TNT Ultra, that the core and memory clock is not synchronized. But Voodoo2 the core and memory clock must be synchronized. The most Voodoo2 standard core and memory clock is 90 MHz, but depend on the manufacturer, like, Creative Blaster Voodoo2, the standard core and memory clock is 93 MHz. The Voodoo2 card that I have overclock have 90 MHz standard core and memory clock. Most of Voodoo2 card use memory with access speed 25ns which can run on 100 MHz. The best news, is overclocking higher than 100 MHz is allowed, as long as no lock-ups and hang. How to place a heatsink for Voodoo2? The Voodoo2 have three controllers, one for
handle the geometry, and etc, and two for the texture mapping, the hottest one
is the chipset for handle the geometry, because this is same like processor,
process the instruction. What do you need is, a second heatsink (active cooling,
you can purchase it from computer seller or electronic shop) for 386 and 486
processor, use the flat one, or you can purchase a Voodoo2 cooler, or maybe you
can make it by yourself (you should using active cooling if you want to
overclock your Voodoo2 more than 100 MHz). The heatsink that I use now is
from my own mainboard heatsink added with a fan, the heatsink for mainboard is
usually small, so can fit for the Voodoo2 chipset. The important use the
heatsink for the main V2 processor.
Voodoo2 Layout The application you have to use For overclocking the programmed clock, you have to use an overclocking application like Perftune, from PowerStrip GX (the smallest application for tuning the core and clock memory), or maybe you need the best one, Powerstrip. The recommended setting for most Voodoo2 card :
An overclocking application from Powerstrip GX What program for benchmarking the Voodoo2? A program you have to use, is program for benchmarking the 3D Video card, the popular application for benchmarking the 3D performance like, 3DMark2000 from MadOnion. And also benchmark the V2 from game, like Quake 2 or Quake 3, Forsaken, G-Police and Turok. But for me the way to see the result is from Revolt, that have a frame counter. To get better performance, make sure the driver you're using is up-to-date. A Voodoo2 Glide driver version 2.56 and Direct3D driver version 4.12.01.1151 is recommended, since it's the newest one. If you experiencing problem when running game, you should install the reference driver. You can download it from 3dfx web site (www.3dfx.com)
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