I'd really like some driver recommendations here, I'd be happy with DirectX 8.1 support, but 9 would be a bonus.
Should I stick to Windows 98SE instead for using this card? I've never had it working before, and only used a Voodoo3 way back when, so I am treading unfamiliar waters.
I usually go SFFT when using XP or newer OS with V5's.
I've downloaded that, the configuration utility requires a version of .Net that is not supported on XP, how do I configure the driver at all in that case?
What version would that be? As far as i know, SFFT requires .net 4.0 which is supported on Windows XP, that is Windows XP SP3.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/deta … s.aspx?id=17851
If you are not going for Windows XP SP3 then i guess you can use this link:
https://www.3dfxzone.it/dir/3dfx/voodoo5/drivers/voodoo45/
Choose Windows XP and then go with one of the amigamerlin drivers, they are quite popular to use. Or go with the official beta 3dfx Windows XP drivers.
Hrm thought .net 4 updates require SSE2 since august or so. Will check.
Cool, give me the results, because you might be right. SFFT was last developed ~2010 and that was way before the SSE2 crap with windows update and I have not used any voodoo cards in an XP machine since around 2016.
I think the config utility is not really needed. Just try V.control instead. http://www.3dfxzone.it/koolsmoky/vctrl.html
The driver itself will work without SSE2 just fine. I'm not sure how SSFT installs, but simple installation of the driver via device manager should do the trick without any utilities and other .NET stuff.
HW museum.cz - my collection of PC hardware
Thanks @havli I got this working now.
@dottoss the SFFT control just doesn't work on a PIII-S even with .net 4 installed, it sucks 99% cpu and I think it did some stuff to my system as I saw the microsoft security center thing pop up and immediately close when I was installing it (the drivers were fine). I don't have that machine connected to the internet so not much of a big deal as I can just reformat it whenever. Kinda sketchy...
wrote:Thanks @havli I got this working now.
@dottoss the SFFT control just doesn't work on a PIII-S even with .net 4 installed, it sucks 99% cpu and I think it did some stuff to my system as I saw the microsoft security center thing pop up and immediately close when I was installing it (the drivers were fine). I don't have that machine connected to the internet so not much of a big deal as I can just reformat it whenever. Kinda sketchy...
No need to be alarmed, .net 4 has well known issues when it comes to security control panel in Windows XP. Resolutions is to run ngen.exe executequeueditems after installing .net 4. I guess that poor p3 ipc can't really keep up with .net 4 sluggish compilation. I've noticed numerus "strange" issues when installing .net 4 like slow boot up, delayed windows xp security center, delayed NIC initialization, delayed device manager etc which always resolves for me by running the ngen.exe executequeueditems command.
More info:
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/wonderi … an-speed-it-up/
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/f … c2-bfe18dd408b0
The SFFT drivers don't work afterall, I think these are aimed at P4 and higher machines with AGP slots. My machine is a PIII and doesn't have SSE2 , and the card is a PCI one. They just BSOD the machine with driver_not_less_or_equal error.
I've given up at this point, just going to put the card in the closet.
I usually don't reply to myself, but I got it working finally using the win2k 1.04 driver. Its a little buggy in 1600x1200 desktop, it's more like 1650x1200 and goes off the edge of the screen. However it is working nicely now and I played some Shadows of the Empire on it. 😀
I may try the beta driver and see if that fixes the issue with the screen size.
wrote:I usually don't reply to myself, but I got it working finally using the win2k 1.04 driver. Its a little buggy in 1600x1200 desktop, it's more like 1650x1200 and goes off the edge of the screen. However it is working nicely now and I played some Shadows of the Empire on it. 😀
I may try the beta driver and see if that fixes the issue with the screen size.
I'm happy you gotten it sorted out and I'm sorry that the SFFT have gotten you problems. If you have not already tested and are still up for the task of installing yet another driver, the amigamerlin drivers are very popular running on Windows XP. I would go either
Amigamerlin 2.5 XP, 3.0 XP or one of the 3.1 R1, R11 release.
I have a Voodoo 5 5500 PCI in a Windows XP machine with a Pentium 4 CPU. I'm using the the SFFT 1.9 driver. It works well with what I run on it, but I hadn't ever tried running anything on it from the DirectX 9 era...until now. I installed 3dMark03, which is a DirectX 9 benchmark, and it couldn't run.
I also tried the AmigaMerlin 3.1 R11 driver and the 3dfx V1.04.00 driver, and they gave me the same problems.
(3dMark2001 SE runs though. 3D marks: SFFT 1.9: 2510, AmigaMerlin 3.1 R11: 2565, 3dfx 1.04.00: 2516)
I think the SFFT driver requires SSE2, and a pentium III (or II) doesn't have it, so it's not really useful for vintage gaming imo. Or it could that it will not function along side nvidia drivers with a Geforce 4 installed into the AGP slot.
My whole reason for this setup was so I could swap displays and play either glide or directx games. I'm just happy the official driver works, and I think I will stick with that since I'm using it purely for glide and nothing else, I don't care if it supports directx 9 because I'm not playing any dx9 games, only older ones.
I would have chosen Windows98SE, but it's HD support is just too lacking for me, I have a lot of games, and the 120GB limit is just too small, I need that 2TB drive I put in there. It's also a lot faster than the older drives and not as noisy to boot.
Right now the system is stable and working good, so I am happy. I will try the 1.04 beta and see if the desktop resolution issue is fixed and just stick with that if so.
I decided to test the SFFT 1.9 driver on a Pentium III with Windows XP. I removed the GeForce FX 5600 from my Pentium III-S machine and installed the Voodoo 5 5500 PCI. Here are the 3dMark2001 SE results with the 3dfx V1.04.00 driver, the AmigaMerlin 3.1 R11 driver and the SFFT 1.9 driver.
3dfx V1.04.00 😀 :
AmigaMerlin 3.1 R11 😀 :
SFFT 1.9 😵 :
So, I would agree that continuing to use the official 3dfx driver in your machine would be a good idea. The AmigaMerlin 3.1 R11 driver would be a good alternative if you run into problems with the 3dfx drivers.
RoyBatty, where have you found a 3dfx 1.04 beta driver for Windows 2000/XP? On the FalconFly mirror, there is a 3dfx Voodoo4/5 V1.04.01b beta driver for Windows 9x, but I don't see one for Windows 2000/XP. Are you referring to a Windows 2000/XP beta driver with a different version number than 1.04?
Yeah I had misread and it's the win9x driver unfortunately. I can put up with the far right edge not being there as I run most games in 1024*768 anyways. It could be the monitor, Dell 2001FP that I bought because I saw it recommended here for older machines since I got rid of my Hitachi Superscan 814 (burned out finally).
Shame about the SFFT drivers, guess they don't test well.
