VOGONS

Voodoo 1 Missing transparency in POD

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First post, by acl

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Hi,

I recently obtained a pair of Voodoo 1 cards. One Guillemot Maxi Gamer and an unidentified one (no name ?).
I bought them together for cheap but untested.

And i got a strange issue. Both cards worked. But the Guillemot seems to have transparency problems when using POD (the only Glide game i tested).
But when playing HalfLife Uplink with opengl-3dfx driver, no issue at all...

IMG_20220506_021022.jpg
IMG_20220506_021038.jpg

I used the same setup. Same driver. Same everything. I just shut down the system, swap the cards, "re-detect" the driver (probably not necessary), reboot ant try.
One card renders POD correctly, the other does not. I tried 2 times, with a total system re-installation. Same issue.
See attached screenshot for illustration. (featuring my 25yo pirated copy of POD. I bought it digital last year to repent my two decades of criminality. "Don't copy that floppy" convinced me)

I used the following system for testing. Fresh install (2 times) :
- Celeron 300A @450 / Gigabyte GA-6VXE+ (Rev4.1) / ATI MACH64 PCI / Vortex advantage / Windows 98SE
- POD with 2.0 3dfx patch
- Half-Life : Uplink opengl-3dfx renderer

IMG_20220509_012505.jpg
IMG_20220509_015113.jpg

I'm not very experienced with 3dfx cards (recent acquisition) but is it possible to have 2 different bios/firmware with differences ?
The card looks great, no sign of physical damage. very clean. Maybe caused by the Celeron overclocking (but the 100Mhz FSB should have the proper ratio to ensure a good PCI frequency)

If someone comes with a troubleshooting idea, i'm all ears !
Thanks a lot

"Hello, my friend. Stay awhile and listen..."
My collection (not up to date)

Reply 2 of 5, by danijelm

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Hi
check the legs on the TMU chip down right at number 52. i think they are damaged or connected

I speak sarcasm as a 2nd language

Reply 3 of 5, by danijelm

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danijelm wrote on 2022-05-10, 06:32:

Hi
check the legs on the TMU chip down right at number 52. i think they are damaged or connected

Look here 😀

I speak sarcasm as a 2nd language

Reply 4 of 5, by acl

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danijelm wrote on 2022-05-10, 06:32:

check the legs on the TMU chip down right at number 52. i think they are damaged or connected

Good catch !
I rectified the bent pin with a needle and a magnifying glass.
Unfortunately, this did not fixed the problem.
Other pins seems OK.

  • I reverted the CPU overclocking (From 450 to the stock 300 Mhz)
    • No effect
  • I re-installed a fresh W98SE and tried several Voodoo drivers (V3.01.00, V2.16, IceMan V3.01.01)
    • No effect

I'm thinking about testing more Glide Games. Since POD is the only one glide native i tested. (Half-Life runs flawlessly, but it uses a glide to opengl wrapper)
Could be an incompatibility between my card and this game (even if it's really improbable).
I think i have some native glide games on my shelves (TombRaider, Diablo II, maybe some other)
The fact that HL runs flawlessly really bugs me...

I could also give a try with Windows 95 instead of 98SE

"Hello, my friend. Stay awhile and listen..."
My collection (not up to date)

Reply 5 of 5, by acl

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I have issues in every other glide games too. This must be an hardware issue.
With no visible damages that's beyond my electronics skills. I will ask to a more experienced friend.

"Hello, my friend. Stay awhile and listen..."
My collection (not up to date)

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