JustJulião wrote on 2024-04-02, 17:44:

Wow I'm impressed. Which CPU? Can you post the driver? You'd just have to pack it in an archive if you don't have the links. You […]
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386SX wrote on 2024-04-01, 16:35:

at3D card with Terracide demo game with Direct3D (works great, great frame rate @ 640x480!)

Wow I'm impressed.
Which CPU?
Can you post the driver? You'd just have to pack it in an archive if you don't have the links.
You made me want to try this card ignoring that boring chips on the top.
IMG20240402194102.jpg

386SX wrote on 2024-04-02, 09:38:

I searched all the versions I could find and there are few 04.30.203x ones which was a good start, I don't have links. It would be interesting to find archived official pages that should even have that .2039 that was not archived from the company webpage. The Voodoo Rush road seems the easy one to find more files to work with.

Latest Voodoo Rush drivers are known to overclock the AT3D to an extent that many cards show artifacts even on the desktop! Mine supports the frequency (72MHz, I think). It shows that there was at least a minimal effort to improve the chip's performance late on its life. You are right, it could be interesting to dig.

That card look great!

The CPU used was before the Pentium II 400 but later went for a quiet Celeron 333. While scores were lower, I'd imagine the chip can't do much more than already does with those "high end" CPUs. I was even deciding to try again the Socket 7 option which may increase the audio card compatibility which is indeed a big problem. I think the ALi chipset had a better isolation of both video cards and audio cards without anything else on the PCI/ISA rails.

analog_programmer wrote on 2024-04-02, 18:04:

JustJulião, I'm not 100% sure, but as far as I know the AT25 chip is cut-down version of AT3D and it lacks 3D functionalities.

For some reason I was almost sure that it was the same chip.
Looks like you are right theorically, but it seems that some aT25 chips are overmarked aT3Ds.
Let's check it.

JustJulião wrote on 2024-04-02, 18:22:

For some reason I was almost sure that it was the same chip. Looks like you are right theorically, but it seems that some aT25 c […]
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analog_programmer wrote on 2024-04-02, 18:04:

JustJulião, I'm not 100% sure, but as far as I know the AT25 chip is cut-down version of AT3D and it lacks 3D functionalities.

For some reason I was almost sure that it was the same chip.
Looks like you are right theorically, but it seems that some aT25 chips are overmarked aT3Ds.
Let's check it.Capture.PNG

In their press releases it was marketed as a 2D chip and even the Voodoo Rush drivers seems to point at it as a 2D driver only but I suppose having maybe a lot of aT3D cores already built, it'd have been smart to sell it as 2D only while maybe not really only that. Other video chips were not really what supposed to be from their name until found what really were (Sigma Designs video chip, Rage Pro Turbo, Radeon 9500, etc..). Just a theory but the real 2D chips might have been the AT24 already used in boards like Diamond and the AT25 may have kept that 128bit 2D core optimized for something like video playback, but I still wonder if they really disabled the 3D unit or not. If I can get one board I'll surely try!

Trying Forsaken Demo and the default one (and later even the 3dfx, Matrox customized versions) seems having huge texture problems with every interesting textures option choices. I'll post some screenshot but this has some big problems there.

JustJulião wrote on 2024-04-02, 18:22:

For some reason I was almost sure that it was the same chip.
Looks like you are right theorically, but it seems that some aT25 chips are overmarked aT3Ds.
Let's check it.

Great. So there is a chance it can be a Rush with re-marked AT3D chip 😀

analog_programmer wrote on 2024-04-02, 21:35:

JustJulião wrote on 2024-04-02, 18:22:

For some reason I was almost sure that it was the same chip.
Looks like you are right theorically, but it seems that some aT25 chips are overmarked aT3Ds.
Let's check it.

Great. So there is a chance it can be a Rush with re-marked AT3D chip 😀

There's also the possibility it might have been an upgraded AT24 at first so an optimized last real 2D video chip on a similar level of the S3 Trio chips, considering good brands like Diamond were using them in those years.

386SX wrote on 2024-04-03, 04:16:

There's also the possibility it might have been an upgraded AT24 at first so an optimized last real 2D video chip on a similar level of the S3 Trio chips, considering good brands like Diamond were using them in those years.

I didn't know that AT25 may also be an upgraded AT24 chip. But as far as I understood he wants to test 3D capabilities of AT3D chip on a Voodoo Rush card.

analog_programmer wrote on 2024-04-03, 04:59:

386SX wrote on 2024-04-03, 04:16:

There's also the possibility it might have been an upgraded AT24 at first so an optimized last real 2D video chip on a similar level of the S3 Trio chips, considering good brands like Diamond were using them in those years.

I didn't know that AT25 may also be an upgraded AT24 chip. But as far as I understood he wants to test 3D capabilities of AT3D chip on a Voodoo Rush card.

I see sometimes that some softwares report the AT25 chip running at 46Mhz which seems an error but would probably have sense if the target was a cheaper 2D version of the aT3D cores that might not have reached higher clocks and not really needed to.

It's difficult to keep installations working test after test. I was trying new drivers mix and now I can't go back to the same situation I was running Terracide on and it crash during Loading screen... but I'm trying Viper Racing and incredibly it run quite well while graphically not that great but still good. Screenshots soon..

Viper Racing demo with the aT3D card. I was expecting the early Voodoo Rush drivers to be easier to work with and they'd have nice versions to use but they are more customized for that card and even break the Win GUI @ default clocks. Anyway 640x480, mostly all options enabled in the menu. Went back to the early PIII-500. Audio is really a pain but I don't care now. It might look like software rendering but I'm quite sure is hardware rendering, hw menu features are working. Not sure how to double check it but textures, unique shadows wireframe with "transparencies" suggest it is.

Meanwhile I should receive another SiS6326 in the fastest version by Diamond and DVD 8MB variant. Hope it will work ok to test soon.

386SX wrote on 2024-04-04, 14:44:

Meanwhile I should receive another SiS6326 in the fastest version by Diamond and DVD 8MB variant. Hope it will work ok to test soon.

You're tempting me to get one S3 ViRGE/GX2 AGP as it seems pretty useless AGP videocard, 'cause I can get it almost for free. I think I can use it in combination with Voodoo2 on some of my Slot1 with AGP motherboards 😀

That should be the fastest of the classic Virges, think they'd got as fast as the voodoo1 by that point. But should pair a V2 nicely, provided it's one with clean output.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-04-04, 15:39:

That should be the fastest of the classic Virges, think they'd got as fast as the voodoo1 by that point.

hard to believe 😀 would love to see that

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-04-04, 15:39:

That should be the fastest of the classic Virges, think they'd got as fast as the voodoo1 by that point. But should pair a V2 nicely, provided it's one with clean output.

Yeah, maybe GX2 will be on par with Voodoo1, but it seems that this is one of the worst AGP "3D accelerators".

Cause I'm not an Unreal game expert, do you know any fast trick to pass the "texture size" error that come when the game start in Direct3D? I was thinking to test it on the aT3D but I don't want to use OpenGL wrappers.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-04-04, 15:39:

That should be the fastest of the classic Virges, think they'd got as fast as the voodoo1 by that point. But should pair a V2 nicely, provided it's one with clean output.

Do you mean that in supported bench like Final Reality it should be as fast as a Voodoo Graphic in Direct3D for example or using S3D in few games? Cause I think I might look for a card too. 😁

I might have been overoptimistic, I think I saw it leveling with a another card in that cards worst title, which was good for the s3, then saw that card in one of it's best titles, leveling with voodoo, which may have not been optimum on that one. However it being the result of a pile of 10% here, 15% there improvements, that barely seem like anything along the road, making it being almost a "performer" compared to original ViRGE.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-04-04, 18:37:

I might have been overoptimistic, I think I saw it leveling with a another card in that cards worst title, which was good for the s3, then saw that card in one of it's best titles, leveling with voodoo, which may have not been optimum on that one. However it being the result of a pile of 10% here, 15% there improvements, that barely seem like anything along the road, making it being almost a "performer" compared to original ViRGE.

Of course it's a nice great "worst" but "fastest" card I suppose (I've never tried it) and seems match the thread title and my search! 😀
In fact it's time I was thinking to look for one (I've seen the Diamond one might be the fastest?) and I already read in the vintage3d great reviews it's quite fast and in my country even a bit unknown for what I remember when most cheap cards were the usual Virge or Virge/DX or the Trio3D.

But for now I'm going to continue aT3D tests..what did you think about the Viper Racing screenshots? Any good 1997/8 demo/games to suggest and any hints to run Unreal Gold with very old cards cause that texture size error?

The thread is very interesting.

Any opinions for 3DLabs Permedia 2? Can this one qualify in the category "worst fastest early 3D cards"? I got one recently, but sill have no time to test it in windows 98/xp.