Question About Voodoo 1 in Windows 98 \ VOGONS

Question About Voodoo 1 in Windows 98

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First post, by Agent of the BSoD

Posted on 2015-07-22, 02:14

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This has been something that has been bothering me, and I'm not sure if this is normal, since this is the original Voodoo card (Diamond, in particular), or if my system is being weird about it.

The first thing I noticed after I installed it was that dxdiag no longer seems to work, instead, it just gives me a blue screen with something about fxmemmap. However, I can't even see this message until I switch the VGA cables as the Voodoo takes over and displays a solid color, usually blue, was magenta once. I also tried using the Glide2 and Glide3 diagnostic kit in Windows, using Glide2 obviously, and the same thing happens there.

The amusing thing to me is what Windows does after I install the drivers, using the latest reference ones. It says that "No driver files are required or have been loaded for this device." Now, if I ask Windows to find updated drivers for this device, it finds some, and using those, I can access dxdiag just fine, though the Voodoo doesn't show up. The diagnostic kit still fails as before. Using Windows' version of the drivers also seems to remove mm3dfx.drv, mm3dfx16.dll, and mm3dfx32.dll, since these aren't the latest drivers despite what it says. So I've gone back and forced it to use the reference drivers, at the cost of not being able to use dxdiag.

I have tested the Voodoo with Tomb Raider and it runs flawlessly there in Windows. (for some reason, Tomb Raider in real mode DOS crashes when it loads level 3, with both 3D patches and software mode, says that the game version doesn't match the file, but it will load level 3 if I disable sound completely)

My question is, is this normal for a Voodoo 1? I'm much more used to Voodoo 2s, as I have a couple of those. Maybe it's just because it's a much more limited device? It's not a big deal if it doesn't work in Windows like a D3D device, as I have other options for Windows 3D gaming, I'd just like it better if these issues were solvable so these blue screens stop bothering me.

Oh, and I'm using the built-in DirectX 6.1, as my Matrox Mystique 220 complains if anything higher is used.

Reply 1 of 5, by oerk

Posted on 2015-07-22, 08:37

oerk Offline

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I had to fiddle around to get my Voodoo 1 correctly installed. Reference drivers didn't work, what finally did work were the oldest Diamond drivers from falconfly.de - for an A-Trend card... go figure. So I suggest you start with Diamond drivers.

Weird thing is, you can usually install any other driver once you have a working one installed.

There's no Windows version of Tomb Raider 1, or is there? The DOS version doesn't need Windows drivers, no surprise that it's working.

Reply 2 of 5, by dr.zeissler

Posted on 2015-07-22, 09:01

dr.zeissler Offline

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use the m3d instead of the voodoo1 ?

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 3 of 5, by bjt

Posted on 2015-07-22, 09:27

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There is a compatibility problem between fxmemmap in the latest drivers and 3DNow.
Replace fxmemmap.vxd with the one that comes in the Quake2 3DNow patch.

Reply 4 of 5, by meljor

Posted on 2015-07-22, 15:19

meljor Offline

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same here: if a voodoo1 does not work install the oldest diamond driver. after that i install the latest without overwriting a file when asked (don't remember what it was). Then install dx7 and everything works perfectly, including de dxdiag.

asus tx97-e, 233mmx, voodoo1, s3 virge ,sb16
asus p5a, k6-3+ @ 550mhz, voodoo2 12mb sli, gf2 gts, awe32
asus p3b-f, p3-700, voodoo3 3500TV agp, awe64
asus tusl2-c, p3-S 1,4ghz, voodoo5 5500, live!
asus a7n8x DL, barton cpu, 6800ultra, Voodoo3 pci, audigy1

Reply 5 of 5, by Agent of the BSoD

Posted on 2015-07-22, 21:26

Agent of the BSoD Offline

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Alright, got it working. I tried removing the drivers I had for it as much as I could (deleting things in system and inf since the appropriate uninstaller on falconfly does absolutely nothing) and installed the oldest Diamond drivers. It was fine with those, so I decided to install the latest Diamond drivers next, and it was still fine. Then I installed the latest reference and it broke again. So I found a download for that Quake patch and replaced fxmemmap.vxd with that one, and it worked.

Now, one thing I noticed, was that downloading the Quake 2 patch was completely unnecessary for me. I checked the versions of fxmemmap using the control panel (and deleting the text file each time that lists the versions of the Voodoo's files so it will refresh, it's located in the temp folder) and I noticed that the version that's shipped with the Quake 2 patch is the exact same version shipped with the latest Diamond drivers. To note, the fxmemmap.vxd version on the latest Diamond drivers and Quake 2 3DNow patch is 4.10.01.0015, and this one works just fine. The one in the latest reference drivers is version 4.11.01.0015, and this one is broken.

So it looks like one could install the latest Diamond drivers first (don't think the original Diamond drivers are necessary, but could be), copy the fxmemmap.vxd from the C:\Windows\System directory to some other location, install the latest reference drivers, reboot, and then replace fxmemmap with the one you backed up. The cool thing is that it doesn't look like you need to reboot if you change that file out for the older version, it just works the next time you launch something.

oerk wrote:
There's no Windows version of Tomb Raider 1, or is there? The DOS version doesn't need Windows drivers, no surprise that it's working.

Well, what's going on here is the opposite. Tomb Raider works fine when I run it in Windows. When I run it in real mode DOS, level 3 causes the game to quit with an error that the file doesn't match the game code version. This is what it spits out.

Level 3 (D:\data\level3a.phd) is version -4783578 (this game code is version 32)

dr.zeissler wrote:
use the m3d instead of the voodoo1 ?

Unfortunately, Windows doesn't recognize the m3D as a D3D device at all, as in, it doesn't show up in dxdiag. It works just fine with Tomb Raider though, so no real complaints there.

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