I only have really bad photos that were provided by the author of this mod at Falconfly forum long time ago... They are not really useful. But his instructions should be good enough to add the extra RAM.

DIY guide: From 2 to 4 Mb on the TMU Stack RAM chips ontop those 4 allocated to the TMU and solder each pin to the same below ex […]
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DIY guide:
From 2 to 4 Mb on the TMU
Stack RAM chips ontop those 4 allocated to the TMU and solder each pin to the same below except pin 14. Connect pin 14 on all 4 piggybacked modules to pin 130 of the TMU through a 22-47 ohm resistor. I only had at hand 100 ohm ones and used those and had no problem.
From 2 to 4 Mb on the FBI
Stack RAM chips ontop those 4 allocated to the FBI and solder each pin to the same below except pin 14. Check with a multimeter where pin 14 on the original modules connect. You should have 2 of them linked to pin 124 of the FBI and the other 2 to pin 125. For the chips piggybacked to those that are wired 124, connect pin 14 to pin 199 on the FBI. For the chips piggybacked to those that are wired 125, connect pin 14 to pin 180 on the FBI. Use 22-47 ohm resistors before FBI. I only had at hand 100 ohm ones and used those and had no problem.

Funny, I used a multimeter on a Miro Hiscore3D (4mb TMU) and some Voodoo Rush (4mb frame buffer) to figure out the adress pins on FBI and TMU a while ago to perform the same mod. I haven't ordered the RAM chips yet though. Had I found those instructions I would have saved some time. 😁

Why would you even want to do this? 95% of all Voodoo 1 cards had 4 MB. The rest were 6 MB (very few, almost of no importance) and 8 MB (professional use only). Not a single 3dfx game for the Voodoo 1 will make use of extra RAM, some games even have issues on cards with more than 4 MB (which is why even the Voodoo 2 drivers still allowed to limit RAM for certain games). Also, the card will look ugly after such a modification.

Only upgrading a Voodoo 2 from 8 MB to 12 MB makes sense.

derSammler wrote:

Why would you even want to do this?

Why does a dog lick his balls?
Because he can.

Seriously dude, what's the point in asking a question like that? 😁

derSammler wrote:

Also, the card will look ugly after such a modification.

Only upgrading a Voodoo 2 from 8 MB to 12 MB makes sense.

Thanks @Havli, I have seen these before but was really hoping for some sharp pics to see what pin is what... I guess I have to go trough some documents to find out the pinouts for the ram and the 3dfx chips..

Any pointers where to look for these?

The card will get ''ugly'' but I don't care. Just want to create the fastest voodoo1 I can produce with these mods as I really love the voodoo1 but finding a real 8mb version is pretty hard and expensive. I have several ''good looking'' v1 cards that work great so making 1 a bit uglier is okay for me, if I can I will use a card that artifacts right now so with a bit of luck I'll make good use of a card that was defective before!

I have a Canopus 6mb version that is really about 15-20 percent faster in 3dmark99 on a p1 233mmx vs a normal 4mb card so more ram can have an impact on performance, don't know about glide. Also I've read that the drivers can make use of the full 8mb so there will be no problems.

If I can find a V2 1000 (with the 1 mb ramchips) would it be a simple ram swap on a voodoo1? Or do I need to hook up some pins to the 3dfx chips also?

Thanx for the input guys!

While adding more texture memory certainly has some benefit, I doubt that adding more frame buffer memory will help in any significant way.

I wouldn't bother modding a Voodoo for the same reasons, that derSammler mentioned. You could directly swap 256K DRAM ICs with 512K DRAM, only on one condition: both FBI and TMU should be able to address more than 2 megs per bank (TMU might comply with such req., not sure about the FBI). Higher density chips are pin compatible, except they have one additional address line, which would be NC on the Voodoo's DRAM pads.

The Serpent Rider wrote:

While adding more texture memory certainly has some benefit, I doubt that adding more frame buffer memory will help in any significant way.

800x600 resolution, yo 🤣

There is one more option to get 8MB Voodoo Graphics - Skywell Magic 3D Plus https://twitter.com/3Dfx_Aslinger/status/1138 … 4701056/photo/1 I have one of these and by default it comes with 4MB only (half of the positions are empty). So it should be possible to just solder the rest and done. Perhaps some cards are factory-made 8MB... but I am not sure.

800x600 resolution, yo

Try to downclock Voodoo 2 to 50Mhz and you will see how miserably it struggles to run many games at 800x600. While it's unknown how much Voodoo 2 is better on clock-for-clock basis (without multitexturing), it's safe to assume that Voodoo 1 would be at least slightly worse.

The Serpent Rider wrote:

Try to downclock Voodoo 2 to 50Mhz and you will see how miserably it struggles to run many games at 800x600. While it's unknown how much Voodoo 2 is better on clock-for-clock basis (without multitexturing), it's safe to assume that Voodoo 1 would be at least slightly worse.

Agreed. In my opinion, adding a higher resolution mode support for a Voodoo should be done in order to satisfy one's curiosity than anything else, as you can already feel Voodoo's bottleneck in more demanding games, like Quake @ 640x480 resolution, in systems using 200MHz+ P1 MMX CPU. Though less demanding DX5 era games, might work good enough @ 800x600 resolution, for eg. Twisted Metal 2, Croc, Fighting Force, granted that those support such resolution in glide.

havli wrote:

There is one more option to get 8MB Voodoo Graphics - Skywell Magic 3D Plus https://twitter.com/3Dfx_Aslinger/status/1138 … 4701056/photo/1 I have one of these and by default it comes with 4MB only (half of the positions are empty). So it should be possible to just solder the rest and done. Perhaps some cards are factory-made 8MB... but I am not sure.

Yes, skywell made the 8mb versions as well as Quantum3d. So it will work without a doubt and a v1 can address all of the 8mb and drivers are compatible.
Unfortunately in my country I have never come across one of these cards as it would indeed be the simplest to just use a skywell 8mb or add the 4mb myself.

I'm just curious and would like to see if it works on most games and if there is a difference. I know I can just use my v2 etc. but it's not about that. Just like maxing out system memory, overclocks etc. it's just for fun.

Don’t know about current situation, but couple years ago villagetronic macmagic cards were most easily obtainable among 8mb v1. As i remember, only rd signal recovery needed to make it work on pc

The Serpent Rider wrote:

While adding more texture memory certainly has some benefit, I doubt that adding more frame buffer memory will help in any significant way.

There is a comparison between 4 6 and 8 MB versions on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmmSBFVeF3I

The difference in performance is very small, but it's there.

Munx wrote:

There is a comparison between 4 6 and 8 MB versions on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmmSBFVeF3I […]
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The Serpent Rider wrote:

While adding more texture memory certainly has some benefit, I doubt that adding more frame buffer memory will help in any significant way.

There is a comparison between 4 6 and 8 MB versions on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmmSBFVeF3I

The difference in performance is very small, but it's there.

I have seen this video before and I'm really curious to know wether other 8MB card owners can validate the performance benefit of added frame buffer or if this is a mismeasure. Checking this for myself is actually why I tried to figure out the adress lines on the Voodoo chipset. But then I slacked off again. 🤣
Also can anyone provide a logical explanation for that? I always thought more (not faster) frame buffer memory would only increase possible 3D image size. 😕

Can be double vs triple buffering. If so, I wouldn't sweat it due to the input lag of triple buffering.

I see about half the performance gain in Unreal compared to the video, though that might be due to some setting details.
As soon as you change to 800x600 the fps is lower than 640x480 with a 4 MB V1.

Most of the early glide games work only with a 4 MB V1. Setting environment vars to limit memory helps only in a very few cases. This is also the reason why I use in actual systems 4 MB V1 only.

elianda wrote:

Most of the early glide games work only with a 4 MB V1. Setting environment vars to limit memory helps only in a very few cases. This is also the reason why I use in actual systems 4 MB V1 only.

Could you elaborate, what games are not care about tmu memory limit sst variable?

@Anthony
DOS 3dfx games came with a "driver" for the Voodoo1 (sometimes also rush and voodoo2) that "communicates" with the card directly.
For example GTA 1 or the Glide Tomb Raider version.

I dont know if you can "manipulate" any variables in these cases.

Arctic wrote:

@Anthony DOS 3dfx games came with a "driver" for the Voodoo1 (sometimes also rush and voodoo2) that "communicates" with the card […]
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@Anthony
DOS 3dfx games came with a "driver" for the Voodoo1 (sometimes also rush and voodoo2) that "communicates" with the card directly.
For example GTA 1 or the Glide Tomb Raider version.

I dont know if you can "manipulate" any variables in these cases.

just cheked both games, and either of them obeying sst variables according to glide log

seriously, i'd like to see example where 4mb tmu mem will be an issue to run game