Virge DX/GX won't run S3D games normally but I think there's a exe modifier program that fixes this. I think somebody on here mentioned it once.

swaaye wrote:

Virge DX/GX won't run S3D games normally but I think there's a exe modifier program that fixes this. I think somebody on here mentioned it once.

Yes we discussed those ( s3dsrvr.exe and s3run.exe ) earlier in the thread, i currently have two versions. One is specific for DX and the other one is for newer virge cards also. It is this latter one that allowed me to run TV with a trio3d, but its totally glitched 😜.
Now Putas seemed to imply he had good results with a DX, lets hope i can duplicate the feat!

Well, my experiment with the Virge DX is not all that good, Its actually slower that with the regular virge. Whether i use the old version of s3dtool or the newer one does not matter.

However, out of the box it was the less glitchy test so far, everything was good except for the frame rate. That being said, i just noticed there is an option in TV graphical properties that allows you to set the filtering mode to either bilinear or perspective. Bilinear seems faster, maybe close to as fast as it was with the trio virge, but the shifting texture "glitch" is back. Perspective gives a good image quality and no glitch, but slower performance. I would have to switch back to trio virge and see if i can change this option with only the original s3tv patch.

I am also gonna try this on another machine again. This time an athlon XP 1600+ with a MSI mobo that i hope will give me more control over the pci bus.

My experiences with overclocking the Virge netted absolutely no gains in D3D titles. Does Sppedy3d or RRedline suffer this?

my experience is opposite: http://www.vintage3d.org/virge.php

Check frequency of your DX, some were as low as 45 MHz.

Putas wrote:

my experience is opposite: http://www.vintage3d.org/virge.php

Check frequency of your DX, some were as low as 45 MHz.

Wow, very thorough testing of the ViRGE. Kudos!

What did you use to O/C your cards?

Yes, very nice read!

bushwack wrote:

What did you use to O/C your cards?

He mentions the uni driver, but it is not clear if it allows the OC. I also wonder if it is possible to overclock the cards via software and have it work under dos, as TV will not work under windows.

latest powerstrip
TV with s3d tool works for me under windows 95, sometimes it just takes long to start.

!!!

Really? I tried it on a 95 and two different 98 machines. It always got stuck at dos4gw...

Maybe i just need to leave it there for a while 🤣, will try that.
Thanks for the lead.

I had to use an older version 278 to do overclocking in Win95.

Well I did not use exactly the last version but 3.75. Performance Tuner works as well.

I had the same startup problem for TV. I found it starts almost immediately if you run the startup.exe and just skip down to the "save and run game" choice.

I decided to go for another round with the virge cards.
I set a new machine once again(P3 733 coppermine) on win98. I used an asus mobo that lets me adjust PCI bus speed, might come handy...

First i tried to start TV in win98 like Putas suggested and Yes! it does work, but takes several minutes to start.

I used win98 default drivers for the s3 virge and downloaded powerstrip. Seems I could not to adjust anything with latest version 3.90 so i went back to 2.78. Now it will let me adjust memory clock all right but i cannot change Engine clock. I suppose that is normal... It was default at 40 on my DX but 50-something on the 325. Using the 325 I rammed that thing to the maximum ( 80 mhz) and started up TV, And Hell! I am Almost impressed, the game got much smoother! It actually starts to look fun to play. It still gets choppy at times, mostly when you blow stuff up at close range but overall its really not too bad. I wish there was a way to display FPS in TV...
None the less i am still not happy with that, I wonder is there is a way to push it further as i really want to give that thing the ride of its life. I let the TV demo play for some time at 80 mhz and the S3 Gpu on the card was barely hot, it can take more i am sure. I wonder what will happen if i try to thinker with pci bus speed in the bios...

Then i tried the DX, the piece of crap would always default at 40 mhz and would start to artifact around 56mhz, ended up being slower than the other S3 trio virge 325. I knew i made a mistake by buying this FastWare VC963C-3D... should have went for the diamond stealth 2000 pro.

80 is great. If you are not having memory artifacts like dots and stuff you could go bit higher with heatsink on the chip. But yeah, it will never get smooth enough. I think we are spoiled, back then we were playing at much lower fps and enjoyed it. After a while I got used to it or avoided most of close up explosions.

Putas wrote:

80 is great. If you are not having memory artifacts like dots and stuff you could go bit higher with heatsink on the chip. But yeah, it will never get smooth enough. I think we are spoiled, back then we were playing at much lower fps and enjoyed it. After a while I got used to it or avoided most of close up explosions.

This ExpertColor Virge seems to support OC very well, at 80mhz i do not get any kind of artifacts either in the game or in windows. Any suggestion however as to how i can push it even higher? Powerstrip will not let me go higher than 80 mhz...
Also, do you have an explanation as to why i can only adjust Ram clock and not S3d engine clock? My guess would be that this card use the same clock for both but its only a guess...
Thanks

The clock is synchronized, to move just one of them will affect the other one as well.
Clock limits can be probably adjusted in ini of powerstrip. I don't remeber how. Try the 3.75 version, there you just click on a dial below clock slider and set maximum clock as you wish.

Well, it appears 80mhz is pretty much where it tops. i edited powerstrip config file and got to go over 80.

It would start to show artifacts in windows around 87 mhz. At 86 its fine artifact wise but TV Would crash my whole system withing less than a minute. If i go lower bit by bit it still ends up crashing in the same fashion but takes more time. ( everything jams and i get vertical bands on the display). I put a heatsink on the gpu and am monitoring temperature, it really is not heating much, heat is definitely not an issue.
At 82 mhz it took a dozen minutes running TV demo before crash.
At 80 i left it run at least 30 minutes without issues.

I think i need to find another game than TV , a game that lets me monitor FPS, then do more tests...

TRFRAME code not working on the virge version?

Actually it does thanks!
Now what id like though would be a way to use custom resolutions on S3 TV.
The game with my overclocked 80mhz virge reacts very well to a slight decrease in screen size. By pressing - by two increments it goes from around 20 fps to 30 fps. Getting the same effect but by changing resolution instead would be much cooler imo.

Edit: Btw i tried Overclocking PCI bus speed just for fun. Pretty much expectedly it does not affect the performance at all, as it is not really a bottleneck in the case of the virge, i even dared to push it to a dangerous 44mhz, nothing exploded but i did not net a single additional FPS.

That most probably cannot be done, one of the guys who made this and other virge ports was at beyond3d.com and he could not remeber any details, except the pain.