VOGONS


First post, by user33331

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Hello
What are games that started to make Voodoo3-3000 AGP 16mb SDR "cough" mfg.1999 ?
- I tried GTA 2 -1999. 800x600 Maxed options and it tilted.
- I tried Midtown Madness 1,2 -1999,-2000. 800x600 Maxed options and they tilted.

Does Voodoo3-3000 suck on these games because of only 16mb SDR memory ?
Or does this have to do with PC's RAM being only 512mb SDRAM in Win98se ?

Last edited by user33331 on 2019-07-11, 05:26. Edited 2 times in total.

Reply 1 of 31, by Bige4u

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What processor are you using.... usually you'll want at max is, a 1ghz cpu to get more than resonable framerates when using the voodoo3 3000 videocard.

Pentium3 1400s/ Asus Tusl2-c / Kingston 512mb pc133 cl2 / WD 20gb 7200rpm / GeForce3 Ti-500 64mb / Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 SB0100 / 16x dvdrom / 3.5 Floppy / Enermax 420w / Win98se

Reply 2 of 31, by user33331

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Socket A: Duron 650 Mhz 😀
Thought going slower would be better when playing also old dos games and also for lower temperatures (only 30W).
I guess not for performance ?

Duron 650 Mhz goes 30W.
Duron 800 Mhz goes 35W.
Duron 1000 Mhz goes 46W.
Athlon 1000 Mhz goes 54W.
Athlon 1200 Mhz goes 60W.
Athlon 2000+ goes 60-70W.
Athlon 2800+ goes 70W. ( Not putting this it runs way too hot 😀 even with copper heatsinks.)

Reply 3 of 31, by Deksor

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"Only 512MB of ram" this is the exact opposite, this is more or less the best you can get safely with 9x without getting some bugs here and there. You'd be fine with only 128MB of ram for real

Trying to identify old hardware ? Visit The retro web - Project's thread The Retro Web project - a stason.org/TH99 alternative

Reply 5 of 31, by user33331

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I was thinking too that older 512mb SDRAM and newer 512mb DDR1 had some performance difference on games.
Should I go for Socket A DDR1 motherboards and not use SDRAM motherboards ?
Or are Durons a bad choice and I should just use Athlons ?

When going high speed and high traffic in GTA2 or Midtown Madness 1,2 it tilts noticeably.
- If slowly driving or walking it works normally.

CPU: Socket A: Duron 650 Mhz.
RAM: 1x512mb SDRAM.
GPU: Voodoo 3-3000 AGP 16mb SDR.

Reply 6 of 31, by leileilol

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Sounds more like DMA to me... perhaps GTA2's "coughing" was the radio station file caching as there's weaker variants between areas... There is nothing in GTA2 that would warrant a severe texture thrash. V3 should handle Quake3 on r_picmip 0 even.

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Reply 8 of 31, by dr.zeissler

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On my celeron433 I can play most titels on a decent framerate in 1024x768, on some I need to go down to 800x600.
I always use wickedGL where it is possible. Fanatastic performance and image-quality for that small machine.

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 9 of 31, by sf78

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Half-Life slows down considerably if there are too many enemies and explosions on screen (V3 2000 AGP, Pentium III 500). Also the tentacle monster in the blast pit level makes the game turn into a slide show.

Reply 10 of 31, by user33331

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It is either Duron 650 Mhz or Voodoo 3-3000 AGP 16mb.

If I remember we used to have Riva TNT2 and Ati Radeon 32mb AGP back in early 2000 and none tilted like this.
Then Geforce4 mx440 64mb which would run GTA3(III) well.

Reply 11 of 31, by Deksor

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I can run gta2 perfectly with my pentium 2 450 with voodoo 2 sli and 128MB of pc100 sdram
The duron should run gta2 properly, same with the voodoo 3, the problem must be elsewhere.

Edit : it seems you have a via chipset. Have you installed the chipset drivers ?

Trying to identify old hardware ? Visit The retro web - Project's thread The Retro Web project - a stason.org/TH99 alternative

Reply 12 of 31, by Warlord

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If you use voodoo 3 to play half life you should try wickedGL it will increase FPS considerably. Thats probably the issue here. Keep in mid of CPU bottle necks. This is probably the problem here also. Na I think a duron 650 is probably slower than a PIII 500 in gaming.

Reply 13 of 31, by user33331

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I don't know what VIA Chipset 4in1 drivers 2007-04-20 does but I have installed them.
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/MS634 … r&Win%2098%20SE

Are they wrong chipset drivers and how do they effect performance ?
What does a chipset driver do ?
MSI MS-6340 v3 (micro-ATX.)

Reply 14 of 31, by Warlord

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you should use 4.35 Version from VIA site. https://d34vhvz8ul1ifj.cloudfront.net/Driver/4in1435v.zip
or 4.43 https://d34vhvz8ul1ifj.cloudfront.net/Driver/ … A_4in1_443v.zip

"Win95/98/98SE are now legacy operating systems and latest release drivers are no longer optimized for them. Users of VIA chipsets who run Win95/98/98SE report that using this old 4in1 version, they experience a more responsive system. If you add new hardware/peripherals to your system and you experience instability, update to the latest VIA Hyperion driver package which may contain updates that will increase compatibility. The inf file version in these drivers (which contains chipset IDs) dates from late 2001. If you are running Win98SE on a system from 2002 or later, you will require later release drivers so that your chipset is properly identified. "

Reply 16 of 31, by leileilol

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Warlord wrote:

If you use voodoo 3 to play half life you should try wickedGL it will increase FPS considerably. Thats probably the issue here.

WickedGL won't fix Half-Life's slowdown issues. Even a Geforce2 GTS with that CPU will slow down hard in the same spots.

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Reply 17 of 31, by Warlord

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just saying issue isn't the GPU, at least for the games mentioned in this thread which should run amazing on a voodoo 3. Problem is likely the platfum the voodoo is running on. On my BX with intel 850 cpu i never experienced same issues. Halflife with wicked GL almost run to fast on that atleast it feels too fast.

Reply 18 of 31, by user33331

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Ok.Installed v.4.35 VIA 4in1 chipset drivers.
- It might be faster. It surely isn't worse.
Midtown Madness 2: still when going high speed in high traffic crashing and such in some instances I succeeded to make it tilt* a bit(*Not so smooth).

I guess it is the AMD Duron 650 fault then =D650AST1B (Spitfire mfg.2000)
- We had a Pentium3 500mhz or something like that +Radeon 32mb, TNT2, Geforce 2, and such back in early 2000 and it was smooth all the way. 😊 But they had bigger GPU memory 32 and 64mb compared to Voodoo 16mb.

I might try installing a geforce4 mx440 64mb or a Radeon 9600, 9800 128/256mb and see if they help when I have time.

+ FSB jumper on motherboard(MSI MS-6340 v3) is set to "100" and not "133".
Memory RAM 1x512mb is PC133 SDRAM Kingston.

Reply 19 of 31, by sf78

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Warlord wrote:

just saying issue isn't the GPU, at least for the games mentioned in this thread which should run amazing on a voodoo 3. Problem is likely the platfum the voodoo is running on. On my BX with intel 850 cpu i never experienced same issues. Halflife with wicked GL almost run to fast on that atleast it feels too fast.

I actually played the same levels with a GF3 ti and it ran everything just fine. Problem is, I try to keep everything as close to period correct as possible, but I'm pretty sure the Geforce 256 also ran the game much smoother than V3 or V2.