When it all comes down to it, there are really only a few very important things to getting a good frame rate without playing Quake 2... err, I mean, really really ugly Q3Test. Lightmaps are good, vertex lighting is evil. Dynamic lighting and light flares, while pretty, can still be disabled, and the game doesn't look too bad at all.

Lightmap Lighting	Vertex Lighting

TNT cards on comparable systems are just flat out faster than Voodoo2s. You can get a TNT card to perform almost as well in 32-bit color as a Voodoo2 will in 16-bit color with the same display settings, and a TNT will smoke a Voodoo2 in 16-bit color. The game, even in 16-bit color, also just LOOKS better on the TNT system to me. Yes, I'm biased towards the TNT, but the menus on Dakota's system are fuzzy and blurry, whereas they're sharp and crisp on my system. Colors in the game seem more vibrant, and textures seem to generally be much more clear and detailed. Now, here are my recommendations for each card for a playable frame rate without sacrificing too much in the way of visual quality:

Lightmap Lighting	Vertex Lighting

TNT: 640x480x32-bit color, 16-bit textures, high geometry level, bilinear filtering, texture detail at the ¾ point on the slider, low sound quality, high detail skies off (with keys bound to toggle this off and on if you like to "portal camp" the plasma gun), lightmap lighting, dynamic lighting on, light flares on, ejecting brass on, and marks on walls on. If you're really not happy with your frame rate with those settings, either switch to 16-bit color for about a 20% speedup, or turn off dynamic lighting.

Voodoo2: 640x480x16-bit color (you don't get a choice on color depth!), 16 or 32-bit textures (free!), high geometry level, trilinear filtering (free!), texture detail at the ¾ point on the slider, low sound quality, high detail skies off (about as ugly as an "Ernest" movie festival anyway, but bind those toggle keys), lightmap lighting, dynamic lighting on, light flares on, ejecting brass on, and marks on walls on. If you don't like the way this plays for you, turn off those dynamic lights. Vertex lighting is ugly in general, but it is ESPECIALLY ugly on a Voodoo or Voodoo2 card, so you want to avoid it if at all possible so Smurfs don't start committing suicide to try to end the pain.