First available: Late November1996*

*The first 3Dfx cards arrived in October 1996 and included a mail-in coupon in the box.

Format: Win95 PC

Minimum System Requirements: Pentium 120MHz Processor, 16mb RAM, 256 color SVGA, PCI video, 58mb of uncompessed hard disk drive space, 2x CD-ROM, mouse, Win95, & a 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics 3D accelerator.

3D API: 3Dfx Glide

Video cards the 3Dfx Voodoo edition was bundled with:

1) Diamond Multimedia Monster 3D 3400XL
     Manufacturer: Diamond Multimedia (Bought by S3/SonicBlue in mid-1999)
     was: www.diamondmm.com
     Chipset: 3Dfx's Voodoo Graphics (hp was: www.3dfx.com)
     Type: 3D only PCI
     Memory: 4mb EDO DRAM (2mb frame buffer/2mb texture)

2) Orchid Righteous 3D
     Manufacturer: Orchid Technology (Bought by DiamondMM in mid-1998)
     was: www.orchid.com
     Chipset: 3Dfx's Voodoo Graphics (hp was: www.3dfx.com)
     Type: 3D only PCI
     Memory: 4mb EDO DRAM (2mb frame buffer/2mb texture)

Desktop systems the 3Dfx Voodoo edition was bundled with:

1) Hewlett-Packard Pavilion 7370V (P200MMX w/ an Orchid Righteous 3D).
    (http://www.hp.com/)

2) Micron Millenia MME w/ Fusion 3D bundle (P233MMX w/ a Diamond Monster 3D).
    (http://www.micronpc.com/)

Labeled as: "Enhanced for the Diamond Monster 3D," "Enhanced for the 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics Accelerator" (Orchid Righteous 3D), & "Enhanced 3Dfx Edition" (HP/Micron PC's)

Full Installation Size: 151 mb

Resolutions: 640x480 & 800x600. To change to 800x600, you need to start the sim, hit the ESCAPE key to access the "Game Options" menu, then choose "Graphics." The third choice you will see listed is for the 800x600 resolution. You must fully exit the sim and the game and restart before it takes effect. (MW2 3Dfx is able to do 800x600 w/ the original Voodoo cards, because [unlike GLQuake for instance] it is not z-buffered, thus leaving the 2mb frame buffer free to handle the higher resolution. MW2 is also a game that is based on interger math, not floating point.)

In-Game Graphics Options: For some reason the 3Dfx version Tech file says that it has the same in-game graphics options as the PowerVR (fog & smooth shading), but instead the game includes the following options:

1. Textured Sky: Turns on/off the texture mapped graphics of the sky.

2. Textured Ground: Turns on/off the texture mapped ground.

3. 800x600 Resolution: This option toggles the resolution from 640x480 to 800x600.

Performance/Appearance: Well, love them or hate them, 3Dfx had name recognition for a reason. Back in the day, Voodoo Graphics accelerators simply destroyed all the competition. As a result, the 3Dfx Voodoo version runs and looks great. It even got decent framerates on my old Cyrix PR150+/S3 ViRGE 325 + Monster 3D and that's really saying something, considering how Cyrix systems typically performed in 3D games. The 800x600 also helps the games longevity by making it more pleasant to play on a 19" or larger monitors.

Videocard Compatibility:

• 3DFx Voodoo Graphics: Any original 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics based card should work fine as long as the drivers include a GLIDE.DLL file. Some later drivers (~1998 timeframe) did not include this file. The Canopus Pure3D and Miromedia Hiscore 3D 6mb Voodoo cards work great as well and fortunately do not have any "crossing the 2mb texture boundry" errors like some other early Glide games had when run on cards with 4mb of texture memory (X-Car comes to mind). I never had a chance to test the Pure3D online to see if the extra 2mb of texture memory helps the framerate in areas with many objects/structures, but my understanding is that Glide games must be patched to take advantage of the extra texture memory, unlike those written for D3D or OpenGL.

• 3Dfx Voodoo Rush: I haven't tested the Voodoo Rush chipset firsthand, but from what other have told me, it does not work. Like the Voodoo Banshee and V2, the Rush often has problems with early Glide games and usually requires the developers to patch the game before it will work.

• 3Dfx Voodoo 2: The Voodoo 2 will *usually* work by using the old batch file mod, though some V2 cards can be flakey and/or the driver version can cause problems. You can find the Voodoo 2 modification info here. I highly recommend Moody's Voodoo 2 Game FAQ, which was/is/will be *the* guide for Voodoo 2 compatibility.

• Voodoo Banshee, Voodoo 3 and Voodoo 4/5: I've had several people email me about the Voodoo Banshee and Voodoo 3 cards over the past several months and I would have to say [at this point] these will not work. I finally had a chance to mess with a 3Dfx Voodoo Banshee Reference Board firsthand and unfortunately I wasn't able to get MW2 running on it, even with trying various hacks. After adding the GLIDE.DLL, SST1INIT.DLL, & FXMEMMAP.VXD + various combos of V2 and Banshee set commands in batch files, it came close but still crashed. I ended up back to the desktop with a "MechWarrior Fatal Error" box displaying the message: "MW2.EXE - Fatal Error #50: SYSERROR_VFXDRIVER: Error occured finding or loading VFX driver (DLL): Error profiling video modes." and the "mw2err.log" file in the Mech2 directory shows a "grQueryHardware failed" message repeated 10 times. If you still don't want to give up, you can always check out Bill's Workshop - The Unofficial Banshee FAQ for additional more Banshee information.

  The reality is that MW2 was one of the first games ported to Glide and therefore uses a very early version of that API (1.x). Games written for early versions of Glide seem usually have problems running on a Banshee and [especially] the V3, unless they are patched by the software developer and no patch was ever released. Your only hope would be to [properly] lobby Activision to release the source code so the mod community could come up with a fix. I don't think ranting at them in an email willl help the cause much.

  It couldn't hurt to try a Glide wrapper, though I haven't had ANY luck with them personally. there's just too many variables (glide versions, cards/chipsets/games) to cause problems, unless someone who knows what they're doing, creates a Glide Wrapper specifically for this game. You can find several Glide wrappers at Glide Underground. Just go to the downloads section and look for Clide, MGlide, or OpenGlide. I have tried all these and more on TNT, TNT2 Ultra and Rage Fury Maxx cards without any success.

• nVidia Geforce 3 Series: Since nVidia'a "acquisition" of 3Dfx and the arrival of the Geforce 3, we have [apparently] seen the release of an Nvidia product that can run Glide API games out of the box. I'm not sure of the full extent of the GF3's Glide compatibility, but if this is of any interest to you, then I would look at Dracman's 3Dfx Tomb Raider Page which has good information on the subject.

  First of One has informed me that he attempted to run MW2 3Dfx on his LeadTek Geforce3 Ti200 using info from the TR 3Dfx page, but was unable to get it to run using the GF3's limited Glide abilities.

OS Compatibility: All the MW2 Win95 based versions only seem to install and run correctly (or run period) on Win9x based systems. Additionally Voodoo Graphics drivers are not available for Win2k/XP, unless someone has made them on their own. I've heard that there are unofficial V2 drivers available for Win2k and WinXP that support OpenGL and Glide (no D3D).

Tweaking: [Talking about original Voodoo Graphics based cards here] First, switch to 800x600 resolution [if your system can handle it at an acceptable rate] and it will look a hell of a lot better, especially on larger screen monitors. Next, you would want to adjust the good old SST variables. It is amazing what a huge performance difference you can between and untweaked and properly tweaked Voodoo card! If want the variables to be global and effect all games, add them to your system's AUTOEXEC.BAT. If you only want to change the refresh rate specifically for the MW2 without effecting your other glide games, I would just make a simple local *.BAT file to start MW2 and add the lines of SST variables you want to use (like below) and finish it off with an additional "mech2.exe" line, save it, then click on the batch file to start the game. Below is the setup I personally used in the past for 3Dfx MW2 and several other Glide games. Everything from SST_FASTMEM=1 and below should be fine for you as is. The variables above that control the GAMMA, refresh rate and core/memory clock and should be adjusted depending on your system components, personal preferences and cooling (for SET SST_GRXCLK).

You can find an 3Dfx SST/FX variable definition guide here.

If you have "OUT OF ENVIRONMENT SPACE" errors appearing in the batch file window under the SST entries, you can add the following line(s) in your CONFIG.SYS file to increase the amount of DOS environment space:

• For WIN95: shell=c:\command.com /e:512 /p

• For WIN98: Shell=Command.com /p /e:4096

Once added, save the config.sys file and reboot. If you still have errors in Win95, try increasing the 512 value to 1024. Thanks to 3Fingers and his Quake II Tweak Guide for this fix.

If you'd rather find a utility for your Voodoo card, then check out the two links below this under "3Dfx support sites," both which should have several available for download. Also check out Entech's Powerstrip or Performance Tuner, which allows you to overclock and adjust several other display variables.

3Dfx support sites: Getting harder to find. VoodooFiles.com or FlaconFly 3Dfx Archive

NetMech: Yamarovka has a minor problem with shadowing on the "rolling hills" that makes the hill features very hard to see. The effect is similar basically the same problem that the PowerVR version has with shadowing in the ice cavern. Strangely, the 3Dfx version looks fine on Graus and the PowerVR version shadows Yamarovka fine. Also, the numbers on the buildings of Tinaca look like the textured surfaces are applied on top of them and it makes them somewhat hard to read. (the PowerVR version suffers from this too, but much less so.) Of course, you could use the wireframe view which does work with the 3Dfx version, but personally I'm not a big fan of wireframe and have had my fill of it, playing Battlezone, Tempest and Black Widow in the early-mid 1980's. You can see 3Dfx NetMech screens by clicking on the NetMech section on the menu above.

Cheats: The Cheat codes are the same as the regular Win95/Pentium version, though I don't believe the "bounding spheres" works on these versions.

Bugs: The music track resets when you go into the Game Options menu and then reenter into the SIM. Apparently the torso twist is not a full 180 degrees. After some testing we did on Kali, it appears that when all but behind hit from the very back, side and rear diagonal hits seem to allocate damage to your frontal armor.

Misc. Notes: The 3Dfx version is generally considered to be the best of the enhanced MW2's, through the combination of the chipset's /port's blazing speed, the quality of the texture rendering and high resolution offerings (800x600 was pretty impressive in 1996 and it does make it more enjoyable on larger monitors).

Trivia: The back of the retail Righteous 3D box shows a "before and after" comparison of MW2 screenshots. Strangely, the after/3Dfx screenshotshown was taken using a Matrox Mystique + Mystique Edition!.

3Dfx Voodoo Screenshot Gallery:
(using Snap3Dfx v1.1)

(Running a Diamond Monster 3D/3Dfx Vodoo Graphics 4mb PCI card)

** See the NetMech section for more screens **