Direct3D drivers require the version of DirectX they were written for.

Did you try with old drivers that was released before DirectX 7?

I think that was September 1999.

I think I have only tried drivers that I downloaded from philscomputerlab web page and those are newer.

directx versions are generally backward compatible with older ones. What they mean with DX7 is "too new" is, that voodoo 3 cards don't support all features (Hardware T&L beiing the big one). sticking with old versions of DirectX is pointless, you merely limit the software you can run even if that software would run on your hardware.

I just don't think any pc that has voodoo 3 can run any directx 8 or 9 games anyway, so there would be no harm in staying period correct directx versions too.

As I said, the only thing you accomplish is locking yourself out of games that require higher DirectX version but still run on it. DirectX 7 examples are Unreal tournament, DeusEx, Ultima IX ascension (which in its original release only worked reasonably on voodoo cards anyway),quake III and so on. Same with DirectX 8 and 9 titles. Just because a game requires a certain directX version it does not mean it actually uses the modern features. Even in the mid 2000s there were still some games that didn't even require hardware T&L.

BTW, DirectX 7 is from september 1999, the voodoo 3 released april 1999. period correctness is not exactly a valid argument here. And even with directX 8 (november 2000) is reasonable.

I suggest not going beyond DirectX 7.0a on Win9x unless you have a good reason to. Some drivers can cause stability problems with DirectX 7.1 or later. Later Aureal drivers come to mind.

Using the drivers off Phil's page:
Earliest driver is voodoo3tm_driver_kit_1.03.04.zip (October 1999)
According to the readme.txt step 5 "Install DirectX 7.0"

Latest driver is voodoo3tm_driver_kit_1.07.00-whql.zip (November 2000)
According to the readme.txt step 6 "Install DirectX 7.0"

So 7.0 is the earliest you can use reliably

Or go here to try out DirectX 6 drivers:

http://falconfly.3dfx.pl/voodoo3.htm

I'd like to install Fifa 2003 on my system: AMD Athlon 600 with a Voodoo 3 2000.
The game requires directX 8.1. Is it ok to install this without breaking anything?

like for example Dark Forces 2.

peke12 wrote on 2020-12-28, 18:28:

I'd like to install Fifa 2003 on my system: AMD Athlon 600 with a Voodoo 3 2000.
The game requires directX 8.1. Is it ok to install this without breaking anything?

like for example Dark Forces 2.

I know this is 2 years later but, what I ended up doing is dual boot win98se with dx 7 and win XP with dx 9 and used amiga merlin drivers for XP.
Worked wonders for me, in fact there were several games that wouldn't run in 98 but in xp with these drivers worked good.