make sure your ram is running at full speed. I know the 503+ had a memory divider that let you use your old 66mhz ram on a 100mhz bus.

I have set the RAM to the proper timings in BIOS and I have the jumpers set correctly. I guess 30 fps is playable for a socket 7 running Quake 3, so I'm not going to go too crazy right yet, but I am dissapointed with 3DFX 🙁 .

Try removing the USB card and re-run the benchmarks. Also, at what resolution and color depth were you running Quake3? Performance could also be helped by switching to a PCI sound card with DirectSound acceleration.

Pic of the fuzzy lines?

The ISA card may be holding the system down.
What FSB/Multiplier is your CPU running at?

What kind of memory are you using? If PC-133 + 100Mhz FSB then set your cas latency to cl2 instead of cl3.
Are you using memory modules with the same density? Or are you just using 1 256MB memory module?

Is your V3 AGP or PCI?

Wow, I didn't realize how much info I had left out. I'll be switching to the pci sound card as soon as it arrives (should be any day now). Quake demo was run @1024x768 16bit.
Voodoo 3 is AGP with BIOS and windows configured to use AGP as primary.
I tried it at cl2 but it refused to go to the OS selection screen.
I'm using 2x pc133 128 MB modules and both appear to be matched perfectly.
Next 2 steps will be to remove the usb card and install the pci sound.
Thankyou for the input so far 😀 .

Edit: Tried to take some Photos because the blurry lines don't show up in screen shots but the camera isn't high enough quality to capture the faint blurry lines (I know I'm fussing about something that you can barely see).
Also a new issue has risen, when I boot it cold I have to hold the button in for several seconds and then tap it once for it to power on sometimes... might be the PSU?

Is your motherboard a refurbished? I've had bad luck with FIC refurbished VA-503+ motherboards, even those refurbished by FIC.

I purchased it from ebay and the seller said he got it all new and even sent the original box and manuals, so I'm pretty sure he was telling the truth (but I know that's not a guarantee).
I did some research and found that the fuzzy lines aren't very uncommon with voodoo cards at "high" resolutions (1024x768 and 1280x1024 were the two I benched).

nemesis wrote:

Also a new issue has risen, when I boot it cold I have to hold the button in for several seconds and then tap it once for it to power on sometimes... might be the PSU?

I get that sort of behaviour with my k6/3 after a while with the cheap 400-450w PSUs that come with cheap system cases I bought a few years ago. Moving the psu to a p4 board [it had the extra connector] was entertaining as the system seemed to boot fine but then had all sorts of random symptoms like hard disks failing etc, all of which went away when I got a new psu.

On the other hand a decent psu started doing the same in my main PC...well, maybe not quite, it would come on but not boot fully... but bizarrely that cleared up completely since I went for a week's holiday [which left the pc unplugged for a week]. Maybe not the psu in that instance, could have been a loose cable.

Yup, a good PSU is one of the most important parts in any computer, especially since a problematic PSU can cause all kinds of vague symptoms that are kinda hard to diagnose correctly.

I've understood that the VIA SS7 boards can be problematic for several reasons and I've read on a couple forums that the VA-503+ is somewhat problematic itself.

I ran the computer for several hours (while testing several operating systems) and since then, I have not had an issue with the power switch.
Maybe it had to "burn in"?

nemesis wrote:

I ran the computer for several hours (while testing several operating systems) and since then, I have not had an issue with the power switch.
Maybe it had to "burn in"?

That's the spirit! Always think positive! ;D

And if you can't fix something today, then there's always tomorrow. For 15 year old hardware, one more days won't matter 😉

I reinstalled win98se (dropped 95c), pulled the USB card, reset all clocks to normal and reran the quake benchmark @ 640x480 16bit. It reached an average of 34.0 FPS. I changed the resolution to 1024x768 16bit and it averaged 33.9 FPS... I have a feeling that GXL750 is right about the soundcard holding it back a lot though I do see some improvement.
I decided to max it out at 1280x1024 32bit (max resolution the video card/monitor can handle) and cranked texture detail to the max, and managed to squeeze out a paltry 24.3 FPS average.
On a positive note, it runs very smooth throughout so I at least have something to build on and the fuzzy lines aren't appearing ingame anymore (just on the desktop).

With this motherboard, I've noticed that sometimes things appear to run great, and at other times it has the flu. Maybe mine had cancer. Do some long-term stability tests (1-2 yrs).

What FPS do you get for quake 1.06 timedemo 1?

@nemesis

Do you mind sending me a high resolution top view image of that FIC motherboard? I want to grab the part number off the frequency generator.

Alternately, could you read off the part number from the frequency generator IC? It is difficult to tell from this image, http://www.fic.com.tw/product/motherboard/ima … acy/va-503+.jpg , but it may be on the very bottom right corner. Do you also happen to know the total number of pins on this chip?

Thanks! I'm considering doing some board mods if the specs are agreeable.

Still on the ISA sound card (it's a pain to find working drivers for sb0220), but I did some benchmarks on Quake 1.06:
98SE
14.6 FPS at 640x480 (max I can get it to on 1.06)
78.3 FPS at 320x200 (resolution that it launches in)
MS-DOS Mode
86.6 fps at 320x200

feipoa wrote:

@nemesis […]
Show full quote

@nemesis

Do you mind sending me a high resolution top view image of that FIC motherboard? I want to grab the part number off the frequency generator.

Alternately, could you read off the part number from the frequency generator IC? It is difficult to tell from this image, http://www.fic.com.tw/product/motherboard/ima … acy/va-503+.jpg, but it may be on the very bottom right corner. Do you also happen to know the total number of pins on this chip?

Thanks! I'm considering doing some board mods if the specs are agreeable.

Sorry, I can't take a detailed picture as my camera is very cheap and blurs close pics.
I checked the manual and found a "clock gen" chip on the bottom right hand corner of the picture. If that's what you're looking for the details are:
W127H
B050 1044FK
with 24 pins on each side.
I hope this helps. 😀

Did you look at the photo link I sent? I don't see any chips on the top right of that photo, but there are two on the bottom right, the very bottom right chip is likely the clock gen PLL chip. If you are referring to that chip, then thx for the info. I'll look it up soon, but I think the pin count is too high. I need 32 pins total.

Quake 1 score seems to make sense. Thx.

Did you look at the photo link I sent? I don't see any chips on the top right of that photo, but there are two on the bottom right, the very bottom right chip is likely the clock gen PLL chip. If you are referring to that chip, then thx for the info. I'll look it up soon, but I think the pin count is too high. I need 32 pins total.

No I didn't see the picture, I only get a 404 page.
So, just for the sake of reference, what orientation is the chip in relation to the CPU socket?
Also, just out of curiosity I decided to run quake 1.06 in MS-DOS 6.22 to see if it was any different from WIN98SE DOS mode and found that it matched perfectly at 86.6 FPS.

Oh, I see why; a comma snuck its way into the url. I've added a space to the above link, you can click it now.

The location is kittycorner from the keyboard connector and cpu socket.