What a strange problem.
Maybe the issue only occurs in the menus of some games because for those games/menus the frame rate shoots up? Perhaps enabling vsync might help in that case? But that wouldn't explain why it only crashes after 2 minutes.

If you're using a 440bx board try reducing the fsb to 100MHz.

Doornkaat wrote on 2020-08-13, 16:52:

If you're using a 440bx board try reducing the fsb to 100MHz.

Was about to leave the same comment. 😀
Indeed, this is my assumption also. Voodoo cards are known to have issues with out-of-spec AGP frequencies. If you are on 440BX, since your CPU is on 133 MHz FSB, your current AGP frequency is running at 89 MHz instead of 66 MHz (which would only be possible with a 1/2 AGP divider that the 440BX does not support, unfortunately).

So, yeah, switching to FSB 100, would have two consequences:
1. Your CPU frequency would drop down to 700 MHz (a 15% performance hit at most, even if we consider the fact that RAM speed will also drop to 100 MHz - and this is only for CPU bound scenarios).
2. The AGP bus would again run at the default 66 MHz, which Voodoo cards will really appreciate 😀

Oetker wrote on 2020-08-13, 13:26:

What a strange problem.
Maybe the issue only occurs in the menus of some games because for those games/menus the frame rate shoots up? Perhaps enabling vsync might help in that case? But that wouldn't explain why it only crashes after 2 minutes.

Thanks. Did not help. However, I installed a custom patch for Porsche unleashed which allows me to run the game windowed, and I let it run in the menus for 15 minutes, without any freeze.

bloodem wrote on 2020-08-13, 17:02:

Was about to leave the same comment. :) Indeed, this is my assumption also. Voodoo cards are known to have issues with out-of-sp […]
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Doornkaat wrote on 2020-08-13, 16:52:

If you're using a 440bx board try reducing the fsb to 100MHz.

Was about to leave the same comment. 😀
Indeed, this is my assumption also. Voodoo cards are known to have issues with out-of-spec AGP frequencies. If you are on 440BX, since your CPU is on 133 MHz FSB, your current AGP frequency is running at 89 MHz instead of 66 MHz (which would only be possible with a 1/2 AGP divider that the 440BX does not support, unfortunately).

So, yeah, switching to FSB 100, would have two consequences:
1. Your CPU frequency would drop down to 700 MHz (a 15% performance hit at most, even if we consider the fact that RAM speed will also drop to 100 MHz - and this is only for CPU bound scenarios).
2. The AGP bus would again run at the default 66 MHz, which Voodoo cards will really appreciate 😀

Cheers you (and Doornkaat). I don't have an Intel board, but I do have a VIA board, and I don't much like this chipset because it has its issues. I had to replace the bios chip once with a brand new one, and the onboard sound chip is not working. I also found a special driver for the Voodoo 4500 for VIA chipsets, and will give that one a try. It is funny though that Porsche Unleashed works fine in windowed mode after a user patch. But I will try to set the FSB back to 100 and see what it does. My hardware is overkill for the games I play anyway, so it will be fine.

I see. Well, if you have a VIA chipset, you could still have the same problem as with 440BX. For example, VIA Apollo Pro+, just like 440BX, only has 1/1 and 2/3 AGP bus dividers. So when overclocking the FSB to 133 MHz, the AGP will run at 89 MHz.
However, if you are on Apollo Pro 133, this one supports 133 MHz FSB natively, so it has the 1/2 AGP divider, in which case your problem has a different cause. If that's the case, I would try different VIA 4in1 drivers, disabling AGP 2X, installing the AGP driver in normal mode instead of turbo mode, etc.

bloodem wrote on 2020-08-14, 14:54:

I see. Well, if you have a VIA chipset, you could still have the same problem as with 440BX. For example, VIA Apollo Pro+, just like 440BX, only has 1/1 and 2/3 AGP bus dividers. So when overclocking the FSB to 133 MHz, the AGP will run at 89 MHz.
However, if you are on Apollo Pro 133, this one supports 133 MHz FSB natively, so it has the 1/2 AGP divider, in which case your problem has a different cause. If that's the case, I would try different VIA 4in1 drivers, disabling AGP 2X, installing the AGP driver in normal mode instead of turbo mode, etc.

I checked the manual of my board, it is the MS-6309 with the Apollo Pro 133A, so turning down the FSB won't make a difference you think?

I also noticed that it says it supports UDMA 100 and 133, but my harddisk is only running in mode 4 (66) and benchmarks confirm this. However, nowhere in the BIOS can I choose the UDMA mode, I can only turn it on or off. I think this mainboard is not in a good shape 🙁

I also really don't get why the freeze isn't happening while racing in game, so not in the menus, as if it has problems in the 2D DirectX rendering part, or why no freeze at all happens while in menus in windowed mode 🤣. Very confusing.

Ah well, I will do a new clean install with different VIA drivers, see if that helps. (My Ghost images are all with the drivers installed ). I will also test this Voodoo card in a Pentium 4 423 system I have laying around, to see if the combination with the motherboard is the issue. Thanks a lot, at least I have new things to try now.

bloodem wrote on 2020-08-14, 14:54:

I see. Well, if you have a VIA chipset, you could still have the same problem as with 440BX. For example, VIA Apollo Pro+, just like 440BX, only has 1/1 and 2/3 AGP bus dividers. So when overclocking the FSB to 133 MHz, the AGP will run at 89 MHz.
However, if you are on Apollo Pro 133, this one supports 133 MHz FSB natively, so it has the 1/2 AGP divider, in which case your problem has a different cause. If that's the case, I would try different VIA 4in1 drivers, disabling AGP 2X, installing the AGP driver in normal mode instead of turbo mode, etc.

EDIT:
Ok I tried a few things, but nothing helped. I did a reinstall and used very old VIA drivers (4.26), did AGP on normal mode instead of turbo in the installer, and out AGP on 1x in the bios and in the 3DFX driver, but the same problem persists. I will try the card in my 423 socket machine, see what it does there, but I guess there is a hardware fault or something with my card?