Recently, I installed a 3DFx Voodoo 2 1000 3D accelerator add-in card (PCI) in my COMPAQ Presario 4505. This was the ideal upgrade for this PC to allow good, economical 3D acceleration for an older (P166MMX) PC.
The way this works is that you run a VGA loopback cable from the existing integrated video to the Voodoo card's VGA input, and then run your monitor off of the 3D card. It passes thru for 2D, and accelerates the 3D.
Both DirectX and OPENGL are supported with fairly good drivers.

The only issue I ran into is that the integrated video VGA connector on the COMPAQ is mounted > halfway up the mini-tower, and the Voodoo card is mounted in THE PCI slot near the bottom. The supplied VGA loopback connector reaches, but is as tight as a clothesline. I expect it to eventually fail.

I wrote 3DFx support (e-mail 9 to describe the problem and to ask if they could give any help at all, and got no reply whatsoever.

Anyway, just an upgrade (and vendor support) experience to share, and if anyone has a hint as to where another low-cost VGA loopback cable of about 18 inches could be found, I'd appreciate it.

                         PCBUILD's List Owner's:
                      Bob Wright<[log in to unmask]>
                       Drew Dunn<[log in to unmask]>