What FSB frequency?

Did you try the FastVoodoo2 V4.6 from http://www.falconfly.de/voodoo2.htm

philscomputerlab wrote:

What FSB frequency?

Did you try the FastVoodoo2 V4.6 from http://www.falconfly.de/voodoo2.htm

At full speed I'm running 100Mhz FSB. When I drop down to 333Mhz, I'm running 66Mhz FSB. Dropping the FSB is the only way to change the system speed as the multiplier is locked on both my 800Mhz and 500Mhz CPUs. I tried the FastVoodoo 2 drivers, but it didn't make a difference. The Glide2x.ovl file is exactly the same as the one that came with the last official 3DFX driver set anyways.

Maybe it is your ram that can`t get stable anymore at that speed? Try with only one stick first, set timings at the slowest settings.

Other way around: test your system for stability with a good working agp card without the voodoo2`s.

Check if your bios setings are correct and the pci bus is really working at 33mhz.

Try a different harddisk, maybe it is on it`s way out... or your power supply.

Both v2`s defect is very unlikely imho.

Well, took some time. Ended up finding out that my both of my spare IDE HDDs are bad 🙁 Can't complain they were free. So I ended up copying everything off of the secondary HDDs on my system and trying each of them in turn as the only drives (other than the CDROM,) attached. Installed DOS 6.22, and then Tomb Raider. In both cases the same problem occurs. Sometimes I'll get the Tomb Raider menu, but black screen lockup when I enter the game, but most times it locks up before I even get the menu. Took out all 3 sticks of ram, and cycled through all four compatible sticks I have. In all 4 cases, same thing. Finally, tried all 4 of my AGP graphics cards with the same results. I did discover that my Rage Turbo Pro card has an issue I wasn't aware off. For some reason text mode access in VGA screen mode is really wonky. Don't have that problem with the Rage 128 Pro, the NVidia GForce2 MX 200, or the TNT2 M64 cards. But none of those have Windows 3.1 drivers that work 🙁 So I'm looking for a new AGP card with Windows 3.1 drivers (may end up trying the Matrox G200 card next, I guess.)

None of this tells me why my Voodoo cards refuse to work at speed 🙁. Can't adjust the PCI speed in BIOS, either. It is locked at 1/3rd or 1/2 the BUS speed, depending on the bus speed selected. The AGP is locked at 2/3rd or equal to, depending, as well. At the beginning of all this, I also tried another PSU, but it had no effect. I'm also not comfortable using the other PSU any more. On it's last use it started putting 6.5V out on the 5V line, and the MB I was trying it on is now scrap. Not sure if it was the PSU that caused it or not, but it had been only putting 5V out on the line before, and only recently started causing the BIOS to error out (when HW monitoring is on,) because of the extra voltage. Don't want to risk my latest MB on that, just in case.

If you haven't already, try Prime95 torture test, mprime (text version of the same thing), or memtest86. mprime and memtest86 are on the "ultimate boot CD", memtest86 can be put on a floppy. Prime95 is a Windows program and I'm guessing there's no Win16 version.

If the game didn't work with your AGP cards, then it sounds like the problem isn't specific to the Voodoo cards, but some other instability in the system. Unless you're saying these tests still had the Voodoo2s involved, but anyway, try to verify that everything else is stable.

What motherboard is this? Are you sure the PCI/AGP ratios switch automatically? This board doesn't have jumpers for that?

Do the voltages from this PSU all look good?
If the other PSU was putting out 6.5v, it's bad - there's no way the motherboard would cause that to happen. The only thing the motherboard could do is maybe give a false reading, but I wouldn't bet on that. Don't leave that PSU sitting around intact, it's a board killer and you don't want to ever accidentally use it again.
If the Voodoo cards were connected with that PSU, they could have been damaged, but that doesn't explain it if you're having the same problem with other video cards. I'm assuming they didn't all get subjected to that PSU.
Depending which of your components were exposed to that bad PSU, it raises the possibility of many components being damaged.

I'm going to track down those test programs and run those. Actually memtest86 is running now, going to take a while though it seems. My Windows 98 install is outdated and I'll have to re-install it before I can run Prime95. I was trying to hold off on re-installing Windows 98 until I had everything else worked out. With all the switching out of MB's I've done, I was hoping to make sure I had settled things before running through that again. Guess I'll need to do it after all.

This is the thing that's driving me crazy. The problem persists no matter what I update or do, yet it doesn't seem likely that both cards have the exact same problem. Considering the age of the Voodoo 2 chipset, I would find it acceptable that it had problems with faster systems, but others have SLI Voodoo 2's working just fine at faster speeds. 3 motherboards that it has failed on, different memory, different VGA cards, even removing everything from my system except the bare minimum to actually load one of the games on (1 HDD, 1 CD-ROM, 1 Voodoo 2, 1 VGA Card, 1 Stick RAM.) I didn't even have the FDD attached (after installing DOS that is.) The single working ATX PSU I have now is only 300W, which is the reason I had been swapping it out with the other one (500W,) in the first place. But even it shouldn't have a problem with only those attached to the system.

My first MB was a Asus P3V133 - and I had other problems with the board but they were all minor. The questionable PSU was reporting fine across the board at first (with this board,) but didn't fix this problem. The P3V133's other issues were that a <CTRL><ALT><DEL> reboot would always lock up the system a few seconds into the reboot. But only when the KVM was attached, not if the KB was connected directly to the system. I had assumed that this was caused because the KVM doesn't give a solid signal on the CTRL line (it uses it for control purposes.) It also had a problem with my Amiga's first PS/2 KB adaptor, because it needed a solid signal on the CTRL line to function properly. A more adaptive adaptor worked fine. The other problem was that some games wouldn't function at higher speeds as well. Both of these issues disappeared with all of the replacement boards.

The second MB was an Asus P3B-F that didn't function at all, ever. I shouldn't count it, I guess, as I was never able to do any testing with it. The 3rd board was also an Asus P3B-F board, that worked fine in all ways except the Voodoo card issue. It was the third boot up of this MB, that the BIOS started reporting the voltage error. I shut it down, and switched PSU's but it wouldn't boot any more after that. That PSU has been set aside now, and will not be used ever again.

My current MB is a Gigabyte GA-6BXC board. Again, it works fine in all ways, except for the Voodoo issue. <CTRL><ALT><DEL> now works as it should. The games that wouldn't run without slowing the system down, now run correctly at full speed. It's just trying to run 3DFX games that I'm having problems. Even the graphics card issues of the first board are gone. Windows 3.1 wouldn't run with the SVGA drivers (the image was majorly corrupted.) The only card that functioned right was the Rage Pro Turbo card, and it has issues with text modes (that it also had with the P3V133 board.) The TNT2 now works with its Windows 3.1 drivers. I had read that it had problems with Windows 3.1, and had just assumed that it was part of that. The Savage 4 card won't boot, but it had problems with the first board as well.

The first board had a jumper for setting the ratio between the PCI/AGP bus and the main bus speed. With the AGP speed always being twice the PCI speed. At 100Mhz FSB, I set it at 1/3rd, at 66Mhz I set it at 1/2. At speeds between 66 & 100 (I never used any of the FSB settings above 100Mhz, the RAM is PC100 and I don't like over-clocking,) I had to use the 1/2 FSB setting for FSB, it wouldn't boot at 1/3rd. Which meant, if I used any FSB setting above 66Mhz (other than 100Mhz of course,) I had to over-clock the PCI & AGP bus. I did test it out at those setting, and it worked fine (as long as the overall speed was 416Mhz or less.) This new MB doesn't have a jumper to set the ratio, it just sets it on its own depending on the FSB selected. I've read the manual many times now and tried everything I can think of to find such a setting without finding anything. That may have something to do with why I can't get it to work even at the slower speeds now.

Switching back to the P3V133 might get me going at 333Mhz again (or 416Mhz if I decide to go ahead and overclock the PCI/AGP bus after all.) But I would much rather figure out what is going on and fix it without doing that if I can. I prefer Intel chipsets anyways, I only went with the VIA at the time because the price was right and I was ticked off with Intel at the time. FYI - I got ticked because the first board I bought was locked to only using a single floppy drive (it was an Intel brand board SE-440BX.) Though, until my new 5.25" drive gets here, it might be worth it to test things out with that board. Don't really want to remove and install another board into this case though, that's getting a little old 🙁 I'll probably do it in a day or so, just to test things out - I hate that board, I want my 3.5" and 5.25" drives both up and running eventually.

Ran memtest86 with no problems found, which is sort of mixed news I guess. I like that everything passed the tests, but still don't know what's wrong. I'm re-installing Windows 98 and running Prime95 next. I misplaced the CD & book (with CD-Key,) so that is going to have to wait until I can track down what I did with those. I know there here somewhere, as I installed 98 not that long ago in the first place. I've just gone through several graphics cards, and 3 motherboards since then. I've also re-formatted the drive it was installed on. Well, I re-partitioned it with DOS 6.22, which amounts to pretty much the same thing, I guess.

Having worked a LOT with 3dfx hardware recently (basically all cards) I can recommend the AOpen AX6BC and likely any other Intel BX440 chipset board.

I use a Intel Pentium III 1100 MHz and all cards have ran many benchmarks at every supported resolution. The ONLY speed related issue are the two Rage games: Incoming and Expendable, which have corrupt textures at over 400 MHz but only on the original Voodoo.

I don't quite understand your issue with jumpers. Put them on the default settings. And don't overclock. Load BIOS defaults. And what driver are you using, some overclock by default (That Fast Gold or whatever driver does this). So you need V2 tools to put it back to 90. Reference drivers don't overclock.

philscomputerlab wrote:

Having worked a LOT with 3dfx hardware recently (basically all cards) I can recommend the AOpen AX6BC and likely any other Intel BX440 chipset board.

I use a Intel Pentium III 1100 MHz and all cards have ran many benchmarks at every supported resolution. The ONLY speed related issue are the two Rage games: Incoming and Expendable, which have corrupt textures at over 400 MHz but only on the original Voodoo.

I don't quite understand your issue with jumpers. Put them on the default settings. And don't overclock. Load BIOS defaults. And what driver are you using, some overclock by default (That Fast Gold or whatever driver does this). So you need V2 tools to put it back to 90. Reference drivers don't overclock.

The only jumpers I mess around with are on the MB. I use the default settings for the CPU I have. In this case, 100Mhz FSB with 8x Multiplier. Though the multiplier jumpers don't do anything (fixed on the CPU.) I used the last reference drivers originally. Someone suggested I try the "fast" drivers. Since this is in DOS, all I need was the GLIDE2X.OVL file, which is completely identical for the "fast" driver suggested and the last reference driver. So that was never changed. I've used BIOS defaults and I've tried tweaking the PCI values in BIOS. As for overclocking, I never overclock. I will, under unique circumstances, "under" clock though. For example, I almost always try to under-clock modern NVidia cards. Mainly because every one I've ever had is over-clocked, by default, out of the box (and I don't like over clocking.)

The more tests I run, the more I start thinking that it's the Voodoo 2 cards themselves. They are both STB BlackMagic 3D 12MB cards. Did STB build the cards in such a way that they are speed sensitive? I bought them as a pair, is there something that could have affected both cards in the exact same way before I got them? (I've never had them working at speed.)

I thought the GA-6BXC sounded familiar, so I looked in my notes. Turns out I had one of those at one point, but sold it off.
It has an unusual pair of jumpers I haven't seen on other boards. From old notes:

Revision 2.0 board has a pair of jumpers JP12 and JP13 at north end of board. Manual says to close them for Voodoo3 card, but they are open by default. These jumpers are missing from rev1.9. They're black so hard to see. Had to close these to keep my rev2.0 board from freezing at a black screen during memtest86 with ti4200 installed.

I don't know what those jumpers actually do, so I don't know whether messing with them is considered safe. But maybe they might make a difference.
It might just be some hack for the power limitations of AGP slots back then, in which case it might be irrelevant for PCI Voodoos. I don't know.

My notes also mentioned some "Turbo" jumper near the CPU slot. I don't know what that does either, but it sounds like a potential troublemaker perhaps.

The fact it passes memtest86 does help suggest the motherboard/CPU/RAM are probably stable. Prime95 (torture test for a few hrs or so) seems to be even better for stress testing, since it should put more stress on the power circuitry to the CPU and such. I've a couple times had systems fail prime95 after passing memtest. But it is a pain to set that up. I agree it seems like something weird might be happening with those cards.

Do the problematic 3DFx games support running without the Voodoos? I've never had a Voodoo so I don't know what those game versions are like. If they will run on other, hopefully equally power demanding 3D accelerators, but fail with even a single Voodoo, then that does help point the finger.
I wish I knew of a thorough Voodoo2 diagnostic utility, it sounds like you could definitely use one.

Maybe try them in Windows as well?

The Voodoo 3 jumpers on the Rev2.0+ boards just increases the default voltage to the AGP port to support the Voodoo 3 cards that sometimes need a non-standard voltage for stability.

I left the turbo jumper alone.... The manual isn't clear about exactly what it does, but I imagine (just from research,) that it slightly increases the CPU voltage for stability in overclocking. But that is just a guess. The manual says, "2-3 for 100Mhz Normal" or "1-2 for 100Mhz Turbo and other Frequencies". Listing Turbo as 100Mhz just doesn't make sense (100Mhz is normal,) unless it's talking 100Mhz i/o 66Mhz (for example.) But why list the same frequency in normal & turbo mode? Why have a jumper in the first place when FSB speed is controlled by a separate set of DIP switches (or jumpers on some boards.) But then you consider that there are no jumpers/BIOS settings for over-voltage (a common practice, I've read, for increasing stability when over-clocking.) So, while I don't know for sure (and don't really care - as I never over-clock,) it makes sense that the jumper increases the CPU voltage. I wonder if anyone knows for sure 😀

On my latest board, both games (the only 2 I have readily available with 3DFX support,) play just fine in non-3DFX mode. With the P3V133 board Shadow Warrior wouldn't play at speeds over 500Mhz. But with this board it runs just fine at 800Mhz. I don't know of any patches for Shadow Warrior other than the 3DFX one. Tomb Raider has other patches, but not for any of the other cards I have access too (that work,) right now. Finally, on my old board, before scragging the install, I tried the games in Windows 98, and they just crashed back to the desktop. At least they didn't lock up the system 😀

I'm currently searching for Glide wrappers that work in DOS that will target my TNT2 card (the one currently installed.) The only one I have that has Windows 3.1 drivers and seems to be fully functional. It's 32M too 😀

OK, can't find any wrappers that work in DOS. Found plenty designed for emulators, and a couple that work in Windows, but nothing DOS. Will have to install Windows 98 again and try the games, then try the wrappers, and run the Prime95. Full plate planned out for when I find my Windows 98 CD/Book.

No wrapper will work in pure DOS environment. It is just not possible as in pure DOS there is no way to trap and redirect Glide APIs calls. Both dgVoodoo and GliDOS have to work under a form of VDM support from Windows in order to trap and redirect Glide APIs into WIN32 wrapper DLL. Nowadays, I think it is easier just to ditch the real 3Dfx HW and play the 3Dfx games in modern machines using DOSBox.

kjliew wrote:

No wrapper will work in pure DOS environment. It is just not possible as in pure DOS there is no way to trap and redirect Glide APIs calls. Both dgVoodoo and GliDOS have to work under a form of VDM support from Windows in order to trap and redirect Glide APIs into WIN32 wrapper DLL. Nowadays, I think it is easier just to ditch the real 3Dfx HW and play the 3Dfx games in modern machines using DOSBox.

Wrapper is probably the wrong term. For games that use it, I was hoping that a replacement GLIDE2X.OVL was available that would access other cards instead. From what I understand, Creative Labs had one such for their NVidia based cards, but had to remove it when 3DFX sued them. Since NVidia bought out 3DFX, I was hopeful that they had one, but they don't. The best I can do is to set up a wrapper in Windows 98, when I find the bloody thing, and try it there. This isn't an "answer" I'm really willing to accept, it's just for testing purposes. Failing all of this, my next step is to start looking to buy a replacement. Being careful to look for one I'm likely to be able to get a "pair" of (for eventual SLI.) At roughly $50 a pop currently, I will have to buy them one at a time 🙁

Exactly how closely matched do 2 Voodoo 2 cards have to be to function in SLI? I was told they had to be the same Make, Memory, & Revision. For example, even if they are both 12MB cards, a Diamond Monster 3D will not SLI with an STB BlackMagic card. Is this true?

All Voodoo2s have same vendor_id (121a) and device_id (0002). The only difference IS subsys and revision.
And yes, retail drivers not work with unmatched cards. Custom drivers can use two different Voodoo2s in SLI.

Well, ick 🙁 Was hoping I could just get 2 matching chipsets with the same type/size of RAM 🙁 Right now, to get matching ones, it's $115 for 2 STB cards or $140 for 2 Diamond cards.

Right now, I've got 98 up and running. Found the book, and discovered that the install files are still on the drive I put them on. For those who don't remember/know, Windows 9x had problems with CD-Rom access during the install process. So its usually better to copy the install directory off the CD before running setup so that it doesn't start looking for a non-existent CD-ROM drive for its files. Got the TNT2 drivers installed, am picking a Glide wrapper, and will be trying that in the morning. Have to go to bed for tonight, I'm afraid.

Still searching for some sort of testing tools for the Voodoo 2 cards. I find it hard to believe that nothing exists... No V2 Video RAM testers, no GPU performance testers? I tried an older GLIDE2X.OVL file, and got the splash screen, (the newest file doesn't show that.) Discovered that it works up to that point. But the screen was very hard to see. It was like it was showing interlaced, but only showing some of the lines in a rapidly changing pattern. Don't know how to describe it... Flickering extremely quickly, the "image" itself stable, but like I'm looking at it through fan blades. When the image is showing, what appears to be evenly spread (every other,) black lines through the image, with the "visible" lines moving up/down very quickly (again, like I'm looking through moving blinds, the image was still, just the visible portions - or windows- moving.) Removed one of the cards, and the splash screen now shows fine, and the menu, but when I try to enter the game.... Black screen, total system lock-up. Shadow warrior won't even get past the "lets make sure you have a voodoo card" section with the older driver installed.

Try with one card first, and test it in every pci slot. They can be sensitive in some slots and some games, i have a board that only does sli with some games (most worked fine in every slot) when the cards are in pci slot 4 en 5.

Trying those games in other slots gave me a black screen, even with one card! Never had problems in windows but some dos games simply didn`t work with the cards in other slots.

Weird, i know.... worth trying.