chinny22 wrote on 2024-12-27, 00:16:

Congratulations on your purchase! Many of us in the west also missed out on Voodoo cards back when they were new and only disco […]
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Congratulations on your purchase!
Many of us in the west also missed out on Voodoo cards back when they were new and only discovering them now.
I had more fun than I should have trying games in glide for the first time, even games that didn't make the "games that look better in glide" list.
I used a P4 running Win98 when I got my first Voodoo 2, not ideal but whatever you have is good enough to try it out while waiting for the perfect build.

Thanks, friend 😀) Tbh I checked old NFS games on Glide on Youtube - I only ever played them in software - and I get how magical it was when Voodoo graphics first came out, there was a generational leap in frame rate and graphics even though the games were the same.

AlexZ wrote on 2024-12-24, 08:18:

For 440BX a PIII 900 is a good compromise without risk of instability. A voodoo card is good for early/mid Windows 98 era games when D3D support was nonexistent. For late Windows 98 era games I prefer D3D.

The thing with a 900 is - it's only FCPGA, i.e. will need a slotket and as of my experience, it's pretty rare i.e. expensive ...

Watch out for upgrade fever I guess, and be clear on what will satisfy you, what your objectives are.

I came to the party late, never bought new 3dfx, went something like banshee - v3 - faster v3 - v4 - v5, went back and bought v2 - v1 - rush (all cards dirt cheap at the time)... ended up with a v5 in an athlon 1.6ghz, but I think that's overkill cpu-wise (my sole reason was chasing down loading lags in diablo 2 when first walking out of harrogath, which I think is texture loading speed so there's nothing else to be done; and trying to get anything remotely near the quake 3 FPS figures that I found quoted online - which I never managed so I reckon were a mix of bs, flagrant misrepresentation or special l33t tester settings that don't actually reflect the reality I live in).

I've ditched all but the v3/4/5 and now my favourite is a v3 with athlon 700, feels very well balanced.

ratfink wrote on 2024-12-27, 12:24:

trying to get anything remotely near the quake 3 FPS figures that I found quoted online - which I never managed so I reckon were a mix of bs, flagrant misrepresentation or special l33t tester settings that don't actually reflect the reality I live in).

I was also puzzled when trying to match some period correct late 90s and early 2000s benchmarks while using identical hardware and driver versions as the original reviewers. Then I remembered that most tests from that time were conducted without having a sound card installed, which seems to raise FPS substantially.

On one hand I get why the reviewers did that, as everyone had a different sound card back then. But on the other hand, their numbers are not representative of real world usage.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-12-27, 13:35:

On one hand I get why the reviewers did that, as everyone had a different sound card back then. But on the other hand, their numbers are not representative of real world usage.

Oh interesting! Thanks!

ratfink wrote on 2024-12-27, 12:24:

Watch out for upgrade fever I guess, and be clear on what will satisfy you, what your objectives are.

I came to the party late, never bought new 3dfx, went something like banshee - v3 - faster v3 - v4 - v5, went back and bought v2 - v1 - rush (all cards dirt cheap at the time)... ended up with a v5 in an athlon 1.6ghz, but I think that's overkill cpu-wise (my sole reason was chasing down loading lags in diablo 2 when first walking out of harrogath, which I think is texture loading speed so there's nothing else to be done; and trying to get anything remotely near the quake 3 FPS figures that I found quoted online - which I never managed so I reckon were a mix of bs, flagrant misrepresentation or special l33t tester settings that don't actually reflect the reality I live in).

I've ditched all but the v3/4/5 and now my favourite is a v3 with athlon 700, feels very well balanced.

Tbh I don't care about benchmarks, and back in the day I would call Hitman 2 running like a slideshow "playable", and my retro systems right now do a much better job than that. I just want to experience some of that Voodoo magic, when games with software rendering would completely transform with a 3dfx card.

songoffall wrote on 2024-12-21, 17:58:

I have a FIC AN11 with a VIA KT266A and Athlon XP 1700+, might try the Voodoo on that one.

Yes, that's a good basis when you want to have good performance with a Voodoo3. The latest BIOS also has the option "bank interleaving" (had a look right now) which should be enabled (among some others).

songoffall wrote on 2024-12-21, 17:58:

But I've wanted to build a 440BX for a very long time, and all I'm missing is a motherboard, which I might get one of these days (I've seen a Lucky Star 6ABX2V for about $40 floating around, sadly - no Coppermine support).

This would be more period correct when it comes to "best technique available" when the Voodoo3 was brand new, but I bought my Voodoo3 2000 new back then when there already was socket A with VIA KT133(A). So I wouldn't give too much weight on that "period correctness" as the support of Voodoo3 AGP cards ended with the end of AGP 1.0 support anyway.

kind regards
soggi

Some thoughts on the Acorp 8VIA81 motherboard.

It gave me hell. The BIOS corrupted while upgrading - a first for me, some of the fan headers don't work, and I don't know why, the documentation is crap, and even the print on the motherboard doesn't say which motherboard you have: it says 8BX/VIA/ZX81, so it's one of three possible motherboards, although the chipset and the BIOS POST screen tell you which one.

But I can't bring myself to hate it.

It has SB-Link, even if the motherboard documentation doesn't show one on the diagrams. The performance is quite adequate. The stability is nothing to complain about. The drivers are ok. The capacitors are in pristine condition - no leaks, no bulges.

I was expecting it to be a cheap crap motherboard, but it's fine. I'm not afraid to say I like it.

soggi wrote on 2024-12-29, 00:12:

Yes, that's a good basis when you want to have good performance with a Voodoo3. The latest BIOS also has the option "bank interl […]
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songoffall wrote on 2024-12-21, 17:58:

I have a FIC AN11 with a VIA KT266A and Athlon XP 1700+, might try the Voodoo on that one.

Yes, that's a good basis when you want to have good performance with a Voodoo3. The latest BIOS also has the option "bank interleaving" (had a look right now) which should be enabled (among some others).

songoffall wrote on 2024-12-21, 17:58:

But I've wanted to build a 440BX for a very long time, and all I'm missing is a motherboard, which I might get one of these days (I've seen a Lucky Star 6ABX2V for about $40 floating around, sadly - no Coppermine support).

This would be more period correct when it comes to "best technique available" when the Voodoo3 was brand new, but I bought my Voodoo3 2000 new back then when there already was socket A with VIA KT133(A). So I wouldn't give too much weight on that "period correctness" as the support of Voodoo3 AGP cards ended with the end of AGP 1.0 support anyway.

kind regards
soggi

You've been a tremendous help to me, thanks, friend.

So I got my Voodoo3 a bit earlier than I expected, and earlier than I had finished the computer I was going to use it on. Still, I'm only a power supply and some SDRAM short of finishing the build.

The motherboard is Acorp 6VIA81 with VIA Apollo Pro+. It's one of the slower Pentium III Slot 1 chipsets, but the motherboard is quite nice, it has SB-Link, AGP 1x/2x, I'll hang on to it even after I get a BX motherboard for this build.

The CPU is Pentium III Katmai 500MHz, I have three of those on hand, but will eventually replace it with with a faster Pentium III Coppermine 700MHz.

As for the RAM, I'm really short on PC100 or faster SDRAM, so one 64Mb stick of PC133 SDRAM will have to do for now until I get more.

I'm using an SD2IDE adapter for storage with a 4Gb SD card. My other SD cards are a bit deeper in storage or used in cameras, but this will be enough for now.

The sound card, for now, is the Creative AWE32 Value, but I have an Aureal Vortex 2 for this build. BTW, is there a way to get custom PCI brackets for Vortex2? My Vortex2 came with a Sound Blaster Live bracket mangled so the Vortex would fit in it, it does the job, but looks quite ugly.

And then we have the star of the show - the 3DFX Voodoo3 3000. It even has a shop sticker showing it was sold to a customer in 1999. It's well used, but in good shape.

I wish I had a beige case with 7-segment display for this build, but couldn't track one down locally, sadly. I did spend some time on the cable management though, and overall I'm satisfied with the build.

Guess I'll get to test it tomorrow. Then add some active cooling to the Voodoo.

Looks like you are making good progress. What does the front of the case look like? Your cable management looks very tidy so far. Well done!

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2025-01-05, 17:41:

Looks like you are making good progress. What does the front of the case look like? Your cable management looks very tidy so far. Well done!

Thanks, friend.

The case is from early to mid 2000s, Startech, silver, it has a handle so I was thinking to keep it for LAN parties.

I feel like it's both too bulky and too modern for this build, but it will have to do until I get something more appropriate.

songoffall wrote on 2025-01-05, 18:13:

Thanks, friend.

The case is from early to mid 2000s, Startech, silver, it has a handle so I was thinking to keep it for LAN parties.

I feel like it's both too bulky and too modern for this build, but it will have to do until I get something more appropriate.

Are LAN parties still a thing? In my friends circle nobody else is into retro gaming. They all play on consoles.

Finding period-correct cases in good condition for a good price is getting more and more difficult. My systems are mostly going to be in new cases from evercase.co.uk. Some do look quite period correct. Others less so. I do also have some in OEM cases. Viglen, Opus and Gateway 2000.

I also got this one on ebay fairly recently. Not sure how period correct it is. I'm thinking of putting a Voodoo 3500 build in it

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2025-01-05, 18:27:

Are LAN parties still a thing? In my friends circle nobody else is into retro gaming. They all play on consoles. […]
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songoffall wrote on 2025-01-05, 18:13:

Thanks, friend.

The case is from early to mid 2000s, Startech, silver, it has a handle so I was thinking to keep it for LAN parties.

I feel like it's both too bulky and too modern for this build, but it will have to do until I get something more appropriate.

Are LAN parties still a thing? In my friends circle nobody else is into retro gaming. They all play on consoles.

Finding period-correct cases in good condition for a good price is getting more and more difficult. My systems are mostly going to be in new cases from evercase.co.uk. Some do look quite period correct. Others less so. I do also have some in OEM cases. Viglen, Opus and Gateway 2000.

I also got this one on ebay fairly recently. Not sure how period correct it is. I'm thinking of putting a Voodoo 3500 build in it

The attachment case.png is no longer available

Looks early 2000s to me 😀) I think it would be quite nice for a build like that.

Most of my stuff these days comes from local company warehouses. The motherboard I found was from a furniture manufacturer's warehouse. I try to rescue as many parts as I can, keep some, and pass others to people who need it. There's the retro computing people, and there's people who still operate old lasers and CNC machines on DOS. So we try to help each other out. I try to repair whatever can be repaired, because even the most mundane parts are no longer produced and there are only going to be less of them over time.

As for LAN parties, I have old friends who still play Quake 3 and Unreal, so we're trying to get together and do something like that, for old times' sake.

songoffall wrote on 2024-12-29, 13:32:

Some thoughts on the Acorp 8VIA81 motherboard.

I already had a look for this and it doesn't exist...but then you wrote:

songoffall wrote on 2025-01-05, 17:20:

The motherboard is Acorp 6VIA81 with VIA Apollo Pro+.

Yes...this one really exists. But is it really this one? Could you post a photograph of the P.O.S.T. screen with BIOS ID (by pressing "Pause"/"Break" you can stop it from continue booting)? Maybe you can also provide a photograph (high-res, good illumination) of the blank motherboard!?

I would consider to update and even mod the BIOS, Acorp isn't known to have performant boards in the first place.

songoffall wrote on 2025-01-05, 18:42:

... I try to rescue as many parts as I can, keep some, and pass others to people who need it. There's the retro computing people, and there's people who still operate old lasers and CNC machines on DOS. So we try to help each other out. I try to repair whatever can be repaired, because even the most mundane parts are no longer produced and there are only going to be less of them over time.

Please keep acting this way, it's the spirit of the real retro/vintage computer scene (and every good scene).

songoffall wrote on 2025-01-05, 17:20:

As for LAN parties, I have old friends who still play Quake 3 and Unreal, so we're trying to get together and do something like that, for old times' sake.

I hoped to have again a LAN with my friends some day...but I hope for nearly 20 years...since ~2010 my plan is to build at least four computers with (at best) A64 4000+, 1 GiB RAM, Radeon 9800, 120 GiB HDD, Win98SE/WinXP...oh man, time flies.

kind regards
soggi

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2025-01-05, 18:27:

Are LAN parties still a thing? In my friends circle nobody else is into retro gaming. They all play on consoles.

Surprisingly I find if you have the computers they will come.
Last Christmas break I was at my parents for the first time for ages and was testing my old PC's I had at their house.
a pair of P2 era PC's and 2 486's all networked up. Christmas day we ended up having a 4 player game of Warcraft 2 and coupe of 2 player Warcraft (on the 486's) and Need for Speed 3 on the P2's

soggi wrote on 2025-01-06, 02:21:

songoffall wrote on 2024-12-29, 13:32:

Some thoughts on the Acorp 8VIA81 motherboard.

I already had a look for this and it doesn't exist...but then you wrote:

I mistyped. It's an Acorp 6VIA81, not 8VIA81. Sorry about that.

I'll disassemble it and post pics after my morning coffee, and the BIOS post string when my PSU arrives 😀)

In the meantime, here's the pics I took while acquiring and restoring the motherboard.

First boot, replaced the CMOS battery. As promised, here's the BIOS screen. I actually did prep the motherboard beforehand and even bricked it and had to restore/update the BIOS, discussed here:

Restoring corrupted BIOS

I think I will also mod the bios, as shown in this video by Necroware:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwZT40sRMzM

Funnily enough, I just realized this Voodoo3 3000 is the second high end graphics card I've ever owned - the first being a GeForce 8800GT from back then which I still have, a beautiful card with great performance.

songoffall wrote on 2025-01-06, 19:38:

Funnily enough, I just realized this Voodoo3 3000 is the second high end graphics card I've ever owned - the first being a GeForce 8800GT from back then which I still have, a beautiful card with great performance.

8800 series were great. Too good infact. Left ATI in the dust, and caused nVidia to do very little to improve for a while.