Test on another board . It should be obvious step.

Does (1) happen with both the 3dfx and the Guillemot drivers? 32-bit only adds an 8-bit alpha channel, which kind of explains why you get that issue with highlighted text. The alpha channel is used in that case. Probably the drivers are buggy, which also is in line with it working when reducing hardware acceleration. In rare cases, this can also be due to AGP incompatibilities.

(2) is normal when the device/vendor ID is changed by the manufacturer. The 3dfx drivers will no longer find a card then. Install the Guillemot drivers and re-install DirectX after that, it should fix the issue with Direct3D. Make sure you install the version of DirectX that is compatible with the driver, not a newer one.

derSammler wrote on 2020-02-24, 12:40:

Does (1) happen with both the 3dfx and the Guillemot drivers? 32-bit only adds an 8-bit alpha channel, which kind of explains why you get that issue with highlighted text. The alpha channel is used in that case. Probably the drivers are buggy, which also is in line with it working when reducing hardware acceleration. In rare cases, this can also be due to AGP incompatibilities.

It happens with both drivers. The motherboard is a PA-2013 Rev2.0 MVP3 board with meh AGP - maybe I should just disable AGP 2x support in BIOS, as I doubt Voodoo Banshee uses this at all? Or maybe it has to do with VIA GART drivers? I was using 4-in-1 4.35, maybe I should try a newer version like 4.43?

derSammler wrote on 2020-02-24, 12:40:

(2) is normal when the device/vendor ID is changed by the manufacturer. The 3dfx drivers will no longer find a card then. Install the Guillemot drivers and re-install DirectX after that, it should fix the issue with Direct3D. Make sure you install the version of DirectX that is compatible with the driver, not a newer one.

Ah, I see. I never installed Guillemot drivers after a clean install, I removed 3dfx drivers and installed Guillemot drivers, then got "No Direct3D Acceleration" errors. So maybe I should just wipe it all clean and start over with Guillemot drivers first?

yea i had similar issues with some of the later drivers (it could have been a 3rd party driver), but changing to a directx 7 set of drivers fixed the 3d accelleration issue. i think it was after a complete w98 reinstall too, and i only put directx7 onto the machine - then heaps of games started working like motocross madness. but as expected glide games still worked no matter what version tho.

appiah4 wrote on 2020-02-24, 13:00:

It happens with both drivers. The motherboard is a PA-2013 Rev2.0 MVP3 board with meh AGP - maybe I should just disable AGP 2x […]
Show full quote

derSammler wrote on 2020-02-24, 12:40:

Does (1) happen with both the 3dfx and the Guillemot drivers? 32-bit only adds an 8-bit alpha channel, which kind of explains why you get that issue with highlighted text. The alpha channel is used in that case. Probably the drivers are buggy, which also is in line with it working when reducing hardware acceleration. In rare cases, this can also be due to AGP incompatibilities.

It happens with both drivers. The motherboard is a PA-2013 Rev2.0 MVP3 board with meh AGP - maybe I should just disable AGP 2x support in BIOS, as I doubt Voodoo Banshee uses this at all? Or maybe it has to do with VIA GART drivers? I was using 4-in-1 4.35, maybe I should try a newer version like 4.43?

derSammler wrote on 2020-02-24, 12:40:

(2) is normal when the device/vendor ID is changed by the manufacturer. The 3dfx drivers will no longer find a card then. Install the Guillemot drivers and re-install DirectX after that, it should fix the issue with Direct3D. Make sure you install the version of DirectX that is compatible with the driver, not a newer one.

Ah, I see. I never installed Guillemot drivers after a clean install, I removed 3dfx drivers and installed Guillemot drivers, then got "No Direct3D Acceleration" errors. So maybe I should just wipe it all clean and start over with Guillemot drivers first?

Hey, i'm having the exact same issues you described with my Guillemot PCI card. Did you manage to fix any of them? It's very annoying not being able to access the control panel... Thanks!

DoutorHouse wrote on 2020-09-04, 00:02:

appiah4 wrote on 2020-02-24, 13:00:

It happens with both drivers. The motherboard is a PA-2013 Rev2.0 MVP3 board with meh AGP - maybe I should just disable AGP 2x […]
Show full quote

derSammler wrote on 2020-02-24, 12:40:

Does (1) happen with both the 3dfx and the Guillemot drivers? 32-bit only adds an 8-bit alpha channel, which kind of explains why you get that issue with highlighted text. The alpha channel is used in that case. Probably the drivers are buggy, which also is in line with it working when reducing hardware acceleration. In rare cases, this can also be due to AGP incompatibilities.

It happens with both drivers. The motherboard is a PA-2013 Rev2.0 MVP3 board with meh AGP - maybe I should just disable AGP 2x support in BIOS, as I doubt Voodoo Banshee uses this at all? Or maybe it has to do with VIA GART drivers? I was using 4-in-1 4.35, maybe I should try a newer version like 4.43?

derSammler wrote on 2020-02-24, 12:40:

(2) is normal when the device/vendor ID is changed by the manufacturer. The 3dfx drivers will no longer find a card then. Install the Guillemot drivers and re-install DirectX after that, it should fix the issue with Direct3D. Make sure you install the version of DirectX that is compatible with the driver, not a newer one.

Ah, I see. I never installed Guillemot drivers after a clean install, I removed 3dfx drivers and installed Guillemot drivers, then got "No Direct3D Acceleration" errors. So maybe I should just wipe it all clean and start over with Guillemot drivers first?

Hey, i'm having the exact same issues you described with my Guillemot PCI card. Did you manage to fix any of them? It's very annoying not being able to access the control panel... Thanks!

No I never found the proper drivers by Guillemot, if you do please let me know as well. Someone somewhere must have a driver CD I would think..

appiah4 wrote on 2020-09-04, 04:59:

DoutorHouse wrote on 2020-09-04, 00:02:

appiah4 wrote on 2020-02-24, 13:00:

It happens with both drivers. The motherboard is a PA-2013 Rev2.0 MVP3 board with meh AGP - maybe I should just disable AGP 2x support in BIOS, as I doubt Voodoo Banshee uses this at all? Or maybe it has to do with VIA GART drivers? I was using 4-in-1 4.35, maybe I should try a newer version like 4.43?

Ah, I see. I never installed Guillemot drivers after a clean install, I removed 3dfx drivers and installed Guillemot drivers, then got "No Direct3D Acceleration" errors. So maybe I should just wipe it all clean and start over with Guillemot drivers first?

Hey, i'm having the exact same issues you described with my Guillemot PCI card. Did you manage to fix any of them? It's very annoying not being able to access the control panel... Thanks!

No I never found the proper drivers by Guillemot, if you do please let me know as well. Someone somewhere must have a driver CD I would think..

Thanks for replying! I've been messing with these drivers and it's really annoying me.

The Guillemot "official drivers" i found here on VOGONS are exactly the same as the 3dfx ones (except they are not the latest ones, they are 1.03.04 and the latest are 1.04.00 and the .inf file is named phoenix instead of banshee and it is edited with different values)...

The weird part is that when i try to install the latest 3dfx drivers, win98se always tells me these drivers weren't designed for my card but still allows to install them (but then i can't access the properties sheet).

This also happens when i install the latest 3dfx drivers using the phoenix.inf file from Guillemot: i get no warning message but then i can't acess the properties sheet...

If i install the 1.03.04 drivers (using banshee.inf or phoenix.inf) the properties sheet is functional.

So far, no matter what i do, the 1.04.00 drivers never allow me to access the properties sheet. I'll do some more tries with different directx versions (i tried 7.0 and 7.0a). I just closed my two mmx pentiums but i'm also considering trying the card on a different computer (also with WIN98SE).

Forgot to ask what is the bios number on your card?

1.01 IIRC.. I will chevk today.

I should try the 1.03.04 drivers myself!

appiah4 wrote on 2020-09-05, 07:26:

1.01 IIRC.. I will chevk today.

I should try the 1.03.04 drivers myself!

Ok, so after a bunch of trials and errors I've managed to figure out some stuff.

I accessed the old Guillemot support pages and FAQs for the Maxi Gamer Phoenix and they say the 32bits modes won't work with all newer 3dfx reference drivers (Guillemot used these same drivers, except they changed the banshee.inf file to phoenix.inf and edited a couple of things). The last time they did this was for ver. 1.03.04. Apparently they never released an edited set for the last reference drivers ver. 1.04.00...

Both the Guillemot and the 1.03.04 drivers install just fine on my Win98SE machines and work just fine too, except phoenix.inf doesn't produce that annoying warning error about the hardware probably not being compatible, etc... I guess the device ids inside the phoenix.inf file are a closer match and they don't seem to be present on banshee.inf either... Also, the card and properties sheet show up as... Maxi Gamer Phoenix! 😜

Most way older drivers work well with 32bits (I installed and tried some) but Guillemot's site says that it's a drivers problem that might be fixed in the future and users should just use 16 or 24bits instead...

This was back in 1999 and i still haven't found a set of official or unofficial drivers that corrects this particular issue...

Finally, trying to solve the 32bits problem, i went and flashed and reflashed my Banshee card with all bios i could find (1.00.03-ET from Guillemot (the original on my card), 1.00.10-SG from Guillemot and the reference one from 3dfx and i even tried some from Creative Labs, maybe risking damaging the card because Creative ones use SDRAM instead of SGRAM...). None of these worked and the annoying 32bits glitch happened every time i used newer drivers... I ended up using the last one from Guillemot.

Now for the properties sheet problem: it never shows up if i use the 4.12.01.1222 version files (they are named 3dfx16vb.dll, 3dfx32vb.dll and 3dfxvb.vxd and go on x:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM).
If i copy the 4.12.01.1157 version files from previous 1.03.04 release over the 1.04.00 and install the whole package again, the problem goes away and the properties sheet displays normally. I'm suspecting this is the reason most unofficial drivers set i've found use this version instead of the last one... But maybe someone else who's more of an "expert" on 3dfx stuff can confirm this...

Most of the stuff i used was already uploaded here to VOGONS but i kept the older files i retrieved from Guillemot's site and also the BIOS.

Now, i'm running the card at 24bits, installed everything from scratch with latest reference drivers 1.04.00 but replaced those three files with the older versions before installation and i can now access the properties sheet. There's probably some obvious workaround to this but i'm really no expert and i'm open to suggestions or/and info!