bloodem wrote on 2023-05-18, 14:39:

Also, Joseph, I compared the original "rev 1.0" BIOS on my Voodoo 3 2000 PCI with the latest BIOS available for the Voodoo 3 2000 AGP (2.15.11), and one of the two DRAM registers is the same on both! This could explain why you are still seeing the problems with this later BIOS. Unfortunately, I don't have any spare Voodoo 3 2000 AGP card on hand, so if you want to try the fix, I can give you pointers.

No worries, I rarely play DOS games on that system nowadays. It pretty much became my Win9x Glide gaming rig.

Awesome work on doing the research though. I'm sure many others who use their Voodoo 3 cards for running DOS games will appreciate it!

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-05-18, 14:53:

No worries, I rarely play DOS games on that system nowadays. It pretty much became my Win9x Glide gaming rig.

Awesome work on doing the research though. I'm sure many others who use their Voodoo 3 cards for running DOS games will appreciate it!

Thank you, I hope so too. I also enjoy using the Voodoo 3 PCI models with overclocked Pentium MMX builds (for early Win98 and DOS gaming), and it's amazing how VERY usable these CPUs can be when paired with these cards.

bloodem wrote on 2023-05-18, 14:39:

Yeah, definitely the same issue! […]
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Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-05-18, 10:33:

Yeah, they do show up very prominently in Lion King. Personally, I like to test this using WarCraft 1, specifically the first level in the Human campaign. The artifacts appear as thin, white lines which "dance" on the right side of the screen. It's kind of hard to capture this on a photo, since they move so fast, but here's an example:

WarCraft_Artifacts.jpg

I can reproduce this reliably with write combining on. Likewise, I never see those artifacts when write combining is turned off.

Yeah, definitely the same issue!

UPDATE:

In other news, I just looked at a few Voodoo 3 2000 PCI cards that I have, and they all seem to come with the rev. 1.0 BIOS. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any newer official BIOS revision for these cards.

So I poked around, and found something interesting, which seems to be directly linked to the DOS VESA behavior.
At first, I tried to modify the Voodoo 3 3000 AGP BIOS that I was using (2.15.12), so that it works with the Voodoo 3 2000 PCI. I initially changed the registers for frequency (downclocked from 166 to 143 MHz), flashed one of my Voodoo 3 2000 PCI cards with this modified BIOS and... it worked perfectly in both Windows and DOS (and the DOS VESA issues were gone, at least on my testbench KT266A board with Athlon XP 2200+).

Then I went further and compared the registers between the original BIOS and the new one. I changed them one by one, so that they ended up being identical to those in the original BIOS. Flashed it again, tested Lion King and.... the DOS issues were back!

Long story short, I discovered that the "DRAMinit" registers appear to be causing these problems.
So what I ended up doing, was simply to modify the original Voodoo 3 2000 PCI BIOS (revision 1.0) and changing only those two DRAM registers to the same values they have in revision 2.15.12.
And, lo and behold, this actually works! I've ended up flashing all three spare Voodoo 3 2000 PCI cards that I have + 2 x Voodoo 3 3000 PCI, and the DOS issues are gone on all of them. I've also stressed them in Windows, just to make sure that everything is OK and... yes, it is.

Also, Joseph, I compared the original "rev 1.0" BIOS on my Voodoo 3 2000 PCI with the latest BIOS available for the Voodoo 3 2000 AGP (2.15.11), and one of the two DRAM registers is the same on both! This could explain why you are still seeing the problems with this later BIOS. Unfortunately, I don't have any spare Voodoo 3 2000 AGP card on hand, so if you want to try the fix, I can give you pointers.

Uploading the modified Voodoo 3 2000 PCI and Voodoo 3 3000 PCI BIOS files here, in case anyone wants to try them out (at your own risk!!!).
EDIT: I should mention that the bios for the Voodoo 3 2000 PCI is technically for the model with SDRAM memory, while the Voodoo 3 3000 PCI BIOS is for the one with SGRAM memory, but this does not really seem to matter, I've flashed them both on SDRAM / SGRAM cards, and they work just fine.

I've also uploaded a Youtube video with the before/after behavior: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVBMC8194ps (make sure to select 4k quality, the artifacts are much more visible this way, and sorry about the lack of sound in games, I don't have a DOS compatible sound card hooked to this test PC)

Many thanks for your extensive test [and risks!] . Glad that I have somehow stumbled on this thread and reviving it.

I have myself took note and screenshots of the current BIOS settings for the Asus P3B-F mobo should someone encounter the same issue...

The Voodoo flashing is also tempting me to perform it as I wish to install back the PIII 500Mhz on my MS-DOS / Win9X/XP rig in order to be able to play games catered for Win9X / XP era... Question, how can I check the BIOS ROM version of my Voodoo 3, can it be done with apps such as CPU-Z or Everest ?

Thanks again!

DesktopDynamite wrote on 2023-05-18, 15:18:

Many thanks for your extensive test [and risks!] . Glad that I have somehow stumbled on this thread and reviving it. […]
Show full quote

Many thanks for your extensive test [and risks!] . Glad that I have somehow stumbled on this thread and reviving it.

I have myself took note and screenshots of the current BIOS settings for the Asus P3B-F mobo should someone encounter the same issue...

The Voodoo flashing is also tempting me to perform it as I wish to install back the PIII 500Mhz on my MS-DOS / Win9X/XP rig in order to be able to play games catered for Win9X / XP era... Question, how can I check the BIOS ROM version of my Voodoo 3, can it be done with apps such as CPU-Z or Everest ?

Thanks again!

You're welcome, glad to have helped. 😀
You can see the card's BIOS version right when you power on the PC. Something like: Voodoo 3 2000 BIOS - Version 1.00.01-SD (you can see it in the Youtube video I uploaded, each time I reboot the PC).
If, for some reason, you don't see the video card splash screen, you can check the BIOS version with software like Everest / Aida32 / Aida64 (also visible in the Youtube video).

OK, an update..

So in my case, I have reverted the specs back as they were.

PIII 500MHZ and installed back the 512MB RAM x133... Guess what, no harsh artifacts..

So in the end I'm thinking that a BIOS setting did the trick....

DesktopDynamite wrote on 2023-05-19, 05:16:

So in the end I'm thinking that a BIOS setting did the trick....

Glad that you found a way to make it work! 😀

So the dramInit means, that the memory timings are a bit less sharper than with the original bios? Maybe your Voodoo 3 2000 PCI only has 7ns memory, and other 2000 PCI cards with faster (for example 6ns SDRAM memory) do not have this problems?

Here is a page for Voodoo 3 bios register tuning: http://pa3pyx.hostronavt.ru/voodoo3.html?i=1

NostalgicAslinger wrote on 2023-05-19, 13:44:

So the dramInit means, that the memory timings are a bit less sharper than with the original bios? Maybe your Voodoo 3 2000 PCI only has 7ns memory, and other 2000 PCI cards with faster (for example 6ns SDRAM memory) do not have this problems?

Here is a page for Voodoo 3 bios register tuning: http://pa3pyx.hostronavt.ru/voodoo3.html?i=1

The memory timings are the same (or better?), it's not related to memory timings. In fact, I think the BIOS version which does not show these issues (2.15.12) has tigher timings (though, unconfirmed for now, I haven't dug deeper).
All cards that I tested exhibit the same problems on certain PC configurations (including a few Banshees that I just tried).

Do you know which registers have had these issues resolved? I have posted two screenshots from the dramInit0 and dramInit1 settings...

NostalgicAslinger wrote on 2023-05-19, 14:35:

Do you know which registers have had these issues resolved? I have posted two screenshots from the dramInit0 and dramInit1 settings...

Well, I managed to narrow it down to only one: memory refresh load. Not 100% sure, since there might be other contributing factors, but I'm fairly certain. I've modified all registers as they were initially and flashed the card multiple times after each change. When I reverted the memory refresh load value from "256" (the value found in Voodoo 3 3000 BIOS v2.15.12) to "24" (as my cards originally had), the stripes in Lion King appeared again. I then changed it back to 256, flashed again - stripes gone.

bloodem wrote on 2023-05-19, 15:46:

Well, I managed to narrow it down to only one: memory refresh load. Not 100% sure, since there might be other contributing factors, but I'm fairly certain. I've modified all registers as they were initially and flashed the card multiple times after each change. When I reverted the memory refresh load value from "256" (the value found in Voodoo 3 3000 BIOS v2.15.12) to "24" (as my cards originally had), the stripes in Lion King appeared again. I then changed it back to 256, flashed again - stripes gone.

Since I was revamping my Voodoo 3 system, I thought I might as well try this fix. Basically, I did the same thing as @wiibur described here. Downloaded the tdfx bios editor, edited my current BIOS (it was 2.15.11-SD) and changed draminit1 refresh_load value to 256 (was 24 originally). Worked like a charm, no more artifacts in WarCraft and Lion King on my Voodoo 3 2000 AGP!

Thanks again for this great find @bloodem!

Thanks again, bloodem! Attached is my modded bios version 2.15.05 for the Voodoo 3 3500 TV in case anyone needs it.

wiibur wrote on 2023-06-28, 15:44:

Thanks again, bloodem! Attached is my modded bios version 2.15.05 for the Voodoo 3 3500 TV in case anyone needs it.

You're welcome, thank you too for also uploading the Voodoo 3 3500 modded BIOS. 😀

Has anyone patched a bios for STB V3 3000 and can share it?

I guess I should have shared a link regarding my experience with this earlier Voodoo 3 snow/glitches and AGP vs PCI BIOS questions , as it might have saved some time. I probably also should have dug deeper into into the "why" at the time myself.

Kudos to everyone who did the digging/analysis/testing and answered the question .

Zerthimon wrote on 2023-08-28, 16:00:

Has anyone patched a bios for STB V3 3000 and can share it?

For the Voodoo 3 3000, bios version 2.15.12 already sets dramInit1 refresh_load to 256, so you can just update to that (see above). You can obtain stock bios files from here.

Old to the party but Vooodoo 3 works quite well with a Pentium MMX 233, it's a great card for DOS games and also early 3D games.
ofc it's a card that has more power to deliver with strong cards, but the drivers are enough optimised to allow it to run just fine on old Pentium MMX machines (and never stop them from upgrading to an AMD K6-III)

wiibur wrote on 2023-08-29, 06:51:

For the Voodoo 3 3000, bios version 2.15.12 already sets dramInit1 refresh_load to 256, so you can just update to that (see above). You can obtain stock bios files from here.

Aah, ok. So stock bios 2.15.12 already has this setting. Now I got it. Thanks!

I join the discussion, i found a Voodoo 3 2000 PCI which looks like brand new but.....sadly, he gives shaky / trembling images at any resolution, more or less it doesn't matter, just differently.

The video says it all:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BMCMdngB7ynx … iew?usp=sharing

I tried already to:

- Change PSU
- Put a fan to blow to the entire card
- Tried with two different vintage PCs....same problem. I think it's hardware related.

Also, take a look at the attached image, that part with that MOSFET with that little heatsink becomes VERY hot after a couple of minutes already. Not sure if it's a part of the problem tho

_StIwY_ wrote on 2023-10-12, 14:49:

gives shaky / trembling images at any resolution

The aluminum electrolytic caps have died out. Replace them all with new ones. This will solve the issue.