VOGONS


Voodoo 5 6000 Clone PCB

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Reply 80 of 135, by red-ray

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anthony wrote on 2021-02-23, 07:10:

take a look:

Thank you. I am still awaiting new real 6000 SIV save files so I can't check how the registers compare. Looking at the PCI config space then both my 5500 and the real 6000 have ROM BAR present, but it's zero on your card + they have cfgSliLfbCtrl as 00000000 and with your card it's 021F0060, why?

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Reply 81 of 135, by anthony

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red-ray wrote on 2021-02-23, 08:28:

Thank you. I am still awaiting new real 6000 SIV save files so I can't check how the registers compare. Looking at the PCI config space then both my 5500 and the real 6000 have ROM BAR present, but it's zero on your card + they have cfgSliLfbCtrl as 00000000 and with your card it's 021F0060, why?

dunno, maybe that issue could be related to a pci to pci-ex adapter or to a bios settings. i don't like such config (bridge behind bridge), i don't like xp os for that card either. if you want to make some comparison, let's do it on the same systems in win9x.

that register you mentioned changes from 00000000 to the new value after a 3d app run.

to be honest, there's no space for an improvisation, every single pin of vsa chips is wired the same way as on the original board

Reply 82 of 135, by matze79

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Hm why not add 64Mb per VSA 😀 Voodoo 5 6500 !

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Reply 83 of 135, by Tetrium

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matze79 wrote on 2021-02-23, 12:14:

Hm why not add 64Mb per VSA 😀 Voodoo 5 6500 !

Or this 😜
byqK4Kd.jpg

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Reply 84 of 135, by waterbeesje

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Tetrium wrote on 2021-02-23, 13:15:
Or this :P https://i.imgur.com/byqK4Kd.jpg […]
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matze79 wrote on 2021-02-23, 12:14:

Hm why not add 64Mb per VSA 😀 Voodoo 5 6500 !

Or this 😜
byqK4Kd.jpg

I'd like to get that one into my 1050MHz BX computer 😁
It would probably outrun an AGP rx3090 xD

Seriously, would that be "doable" in any way?
Or even 6-8 cores? Would it have any practical purpose besides "because it's possible"?

Stuck at 10MHz...

Reply 86 of 135, by red-ray

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anthony wrote on 2021-02-23, 15:39:

Do you know any drivers to support 6-8 cores?

Looking in SLIAA.h + SLIAA.c they have as below so I suspect that four is the limit unless the driver is updated.

#define MAX_CHIPS (4)

typedef struct chipinfo {
DWORD dwChips; // dwChips: Number of chips in multi-chip configuration (1-4)
  // Some sanity checking...
if ((pChipInfo->dwChips == 0) ||
(pChipInfo->dwChips == 3) ||
(pChipInfo->dwChips > 4) ||
(pChipInfo->dwChips == 1 && (pChipInfo->dwsliEn || pChipInfo->dwaaSampleHigh)) ||
(pChipInfo->dwChips == 2 && (pChipInfo->dwsliEn && pChipInfo->dwaaEn && pChipInfo->dwaaSampleHigh)) ||
(aaSample8x && !(pChipInfo->dwChips == 4 && ! pChipInfo->dwsliEn && pChipInfo->dwaaEn && pChipInfo->dwsliAaAnalog)))
{
VideoDebugPrint((0, "H3_SETUP_SLI_AA() ERROR: Unsupported input params...\n"));
return;
}

Searching some more I found as below so adding support for more than four is likely to be none trvial.

F:\3dfx-Win32\H5\W2K\Src\Video\Miniport\H5\SLIAA.C(2446):    else if (pChipInfo->dwChips == 4 &&
F:\3dfx-Win32\H5\W2K\Src\Video\Miniport\H5\SLIAA.C(2515): else if (pChipInfo->dwChips == 4 &&
F:\3dfx-Win32\H5\W2K\Src\Video\Miniport\H5\SLIAA.C(2587): else if (pChipInfo->dwChips == 4 &&
F:\3dfx-Win32\H5\W2K\Src\Video\Miniport\H5\SLIAA.C(2661): else if (pChipInfo->dwChips == 2 &&
F:\3dfx-Win32\H5\W2K\Src\Video\Miniport\H5\SLIAA.C(2708): else if (pChipInfo->dwChips == 2 &&
F:\3dfx-Win32\H5\W2K\Src\Video\Miniport\H5\SLIAA.C(2748): else if (pChipInfo->dwChips == 4 &&

Reply 88 of 135, by 386SX

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Tetrium wrote on 2021-02-23, 13:15:
Or this :P https://i.imgur.com/byqK4Kd.jpg […]
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matze79 wrote on 2021-02-23, 12:14:

Hm why not add 64Mb per VSA 😀 Voodoo 5 6500 !

Or this 😜
byqK4Kd.jpg

😁

But seriously I'd ask if such thing if existed realistically would perform slower than a V5 6000 considering the amount of time spent into the SLI connections..

Reply 90 of 135, by anthony

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Blaster wrote on 2021-02-25, 01:03:

Oh wow, any plans on sending one of those to LGR or PhilsComputerLab?

if one will be free and available, maybe. anthough, i had a bad experience with such endeavour, 3 years ago, when i made v1 sli project, i sent a couple of these abroad to the certain paper magazine for review. when they sent the parcel back, they didn't tell me the tracknum at time, parcel arrived, kept time expired, parcel was returned and lost.

Reply 91 of 135, by villeneuve

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@anthony: I think doing this clone V5 6000 for PCI only is a waste of an otherwise absolutely great project. I absolutely don't get it since even V5 5500 benchmarks show that AGP is still beneficial despite VSA-100 not making use of special AGP features.
A question I have: what about that famous 3dfx filter in RAMDAC. Are you able to recreate that to get the look of the output picture exactly like on the original cards?
And another question regarding the re-engineering process: You wrote that you didn't investigate the PCB differences of the revisions of the original V5 6000 cards and I wonder why you didn't (need to) do that. As a noob in electronics I imagine comparing those PCB revisions would be very helpful for your project. So how did you approach the construction of the clone then? Did you have a look at an original V5 6000 at all or did you design your own PCB purely based on what you thought was needed judging by the VSA-100 datasheet and the specs demanded by the PCI bus standard?

Reply 92 of 135, by mwdmeyer

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Honestly at this point I question 3dfx's skill at all. They took so long trying to get the voodoo 5 6000 out and Anthony has managed to do it himself. Crazy.

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Reply 93 of 135, by Sphere478

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mwdmeyer wrote on 2021-02-26, 05:43:

Honestly at this point I question 3dfx's skill at all. They took so long trying to get the voodoo 5 6000 out and Anthony has managed to do it himself. Crazy.

at the time it was probably difficult to make the pcb for a reasonable price maybe? idono..

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Reply 94 of 135, by kolderman

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mwdmeyer wrote on 2021-02-26, 05:43:

Honestly at this point I question 3dfx's skill at all. They took so long trying to get the voodoo 5 6000 out and Anthony has managed to do it himself. Crazy.

Or the skill of a Mexican OEM that they bought out...which was their undoing. If they didn't do that they might have been the one to buy NVidia.

Reply 95 of 135, by anthony

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mwdmeyer wrote on 2021-02-26, 05:43:

Honestly at this point I question 3dfx's skill at all. They took so long trying to get the voodoo 5 6000 out and Anthony has managed to do it himself. Crazy.

most likely they outsourced pcb design. i saw strange things on their pcbs. but all that was more than 2 decades ago, who knows what difficulties they encounter. apparently, they tried to make a cost effective pcb.

stb is just a pcb manufacturer not the design bureau, i may be wrong, thou.

Reply 96 of 135, by anthony

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villeneuve wrote on 2021-02-26, 01:50:

@anthony: I think doing this clone V5 6000 for PCI only is a waste of an otherwise absolutely great project. I absolutely don't get it since even V5 5500 benchmarks show that AGP is still beneficial despite VSA-100 not making use of special AGP features.
A question I have: what about that famous 3dfx filter in RAMDAC. Are you able to recreate that to get the look of the output picture exactly like on the original cards?
And another question regarding the re-engineering process: You wrote that you didn't investigate the PCB differences of the revisions of the original V5 6000 cards and I wonder why you didn't (need to) do that. As a noob in electronics I imagine comparing those PCB revisions would be very helpful for your project. So how did you approach the construction of the clone then? Did you have a look at an original V5 6000 at all or did you design your own PCB purely based on what you thought was needed judging by the VSA-100 datasheet and the specs demanded by the PCI bus standard?

for the glide apps performance difference on 33 mhz and 66mhz bus is close to zero.

since i use the original vsa chips, picture looks the same.

in an existing layout all routings may be done only in a certain way with a minor variation. 3dfx defined that layout, i found it useful just because it's most cost-effective and friendly to a manual assembly.

Reply 97 of 135, by 386SX

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I can only imagine that at first the company might have had the idea to really put the card on the market but both the power usage (for its time) problem and the various revision (even the PCI bridge has changed from the big Intel one to the Hint) imho they arrived at a point that I always supposed the card wasn't really going to be seriously sold and that might have become imho (just an opinion) a slowing down project of a company closing its activities.
We don't really know how many people actually did work at the end on that card and maybe not that many at that point; and not that the 6000 model would've saved the company considering the biggest questions: PCB lenght, external PSU, AGP compatibility and probably building costs. For what I remember most cards needed some PCI rework and still if I remember the Hint chips was going to have problems in certain conditions/motherboards.
But obviously from a nostalgic point of view I always liked that card cause it was the peak of my computer/graphic cards passion back then and I really hoped to see that sold and fighting the others but at that point the Geforce3 was almost out there, Pixel and Vertex Shaders were going to push even more what the T&L already did on a marketing side and games like Doom3 would have completed the situation.

Reply 99 of 135, by Doornkaat

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I also think the Voodoo 6000 has never been a priority.
Rampage was the upcoming (but delayed) chip, the VSA-100 was a stop gap solution and never intended to compete in the 2000 high end market. Nvidia was simply putting out new chips too fast and 3dfx couldn't keep up.
A single VSA-100 chip couldn't compete with what nVidia offered and the Rev 220 didn't reach the clocks 3dfx was hoping for.
The Voodoo 6000 was a prestige project that was expected to reclaim the performance crown but it was too expensive to be competitive even in the enthusiast market. It was a brute force approach and still a DX6 chip with no T&L.
Maybe 3dfx were also waiting for the VSA-100 Rev 320 with higher possible clocks before finishing the Voodoo 6000 project but that's speculation.
Maybe they also realised that contemporary CPUs didn't allow the card to perform well enough and actually abandoned the project, who knows?