I have this exact issue with a very different system: Pentium 3 with a Voodoo 4500. The thing is: it also has a VIA Apollo chipset. I think these chipsets don't like Glide or something. When I play NFS 2 for example, sometimes I can play a whole game, but usually it freezes before I am done with a race. Sometimes it even freezes in the menu if I take a break for a while. When I run games in Direct3D instead of Glide, they don't freeze. I tried a Geforce 2 in the system, no crashes. I tried the Voodoo card in a Pentium 4 system with the exact same games that crash (Need for Speed 2), and no issues at all, they work fine. I am 99% certain it is the chipset. Especially now that I know another case (yours) with the exact same issue.

have you tried another pci slot? another power supply? downclock the CPU hard to something like 300MHz

Pertinax wrote on 2023-07-04, 07:32:

I have this exact issue with a very different system: Pentium 3 with a Voodoo 4500. The thing is: it also has a VIA Apollo chipset. I think these chipsets don't like Glide or something. When I play NFS 2 for example, sometimes I can play a whole game, but usually it freezes before I am done with a race. Sometimes it even freezes in the menu if I take a break for a while. When I run games in Direct3D instead of Glide, they don't freeze. I tried a Geforce 2 in the system, no crashes. I tried the Voodoo card in a Pentium 4 system with the exact same games that crash (Need for Speed 2), and no issues at all, they work fine. I am 99% certain it is the chipset. Especially now that I know another case (yours) with the exact same issue.

At first I tried with Q2, and everything worked. So I installed 3DMark 2000 to test how it compares to main Ati Rage Fury Pro and then it froze when I switched to Voodoo 2. With Rage everything works, no freezes or crashes. With Voodoo 2 some tests pass (it didn't crash once on first Helicopter test) and Adventure test crashes in almost all runs. It did finish once or twice, but that was more a fluke...

Maybe I should try and install WinMe or WinXP (better, more different to Win98) and see if this is something due to software... Back in the day I had one cobbled up PC that was crashing wildly, just about the time Win XP came out. I installed Win XP and lo and behold, no more crashing...

I'll probably try to scrounge some parts and put together some similar Intel based system. I think I have few ~500 MHz celerons and working motherboard 🤔.
My then roomate had BX chipset motherboard, Celeron 300A OC-ed to 450 MHz with Voodoo 2 and it worked without problems.

rasz_pl wrote on 2023-07-04, 07:39:

have you tried another pci slot? another power supply? downclock the CPU hard to something like 300MHz

Yes, tried few slots, and even removed all cards except SATA controller (I have 120 GB SATA SSD on this machine), same one as in older P233 configuration, AGP card and Voodoo 2.
Tried another PSU, but it didn't help (they're not old period correct, but modern ones but with beefier 5V rails).

Haven't tried downclocking CPU, I might do that when I come home from work. Only tried different CPU (450 K6-2). Although, I might even try "regular" Pentium MMX in it as well 🤔. Although I doubt this is CPU issue, It's not like K6-2 was niche CPU back then. Not most popular, true, but they were used 😅.

*EDIT*

Tried underclocking but it won't boot if not at 500MHz 🤔. Tried setting jumpers for K6-2 300 and 350, won't work. Set it back to 500, boots without problems. I even tried downclocking via FSB, setting clock to 66/66 instead of 100/66, again no boot 😬.
Just tried running 3DMark 2000 with AGP Rage Fury Pro and it finished with ~850 score. No crashes. Tried running with Voodoo2 and crash in "Adventure" game test.

I guess only thing that remains is to cobble up alternative system with similar performance and intel chipset and test.

I may have stumbled onto something.

https://www.forum-3dcenter.org/vbulletin/show … ad.php?t=468939

It seems AMD's 3DNow is at fault, at least when it comes to 3DMark 2000.
I turned it off in 3DMark and all tests passed OK. Then I set it to loop second test 10 times and that also went without a hitch.
Next I turned it back on and it crashed as before...

Now I just need to figure out what's the deal with Unreal, haven't found any 3DNow options there. But I left it to loop for about 10 minutes and it also didn't crash 🤔.

I cobbled something up.

ECS P6BAP-me motherboard (Via Apollo Pro 133 chipset), Celeron mendocino 533 MHz, 256 MB ram, AGP GeForce 4 4200 GPU and that Innovision Voodoo 2 card.

Installed Win98SE, drivers and 3DMark 2000 and again, no problems. Tests completed fine. So it really seems that AMD 3DNow crashes that 3DMark test .

Another interesting thing is result score, I expected to get better result with Celeron, but it was actually lower than K6-2 500MHz, 711 for celeron vs 739 for K6-2.

Solo761 wrote on 2023-07-07, 06:24:

I cobbled something up. […]
Show full quote

I cobbled something up.

ECS P6BAP-me motherboard (Via Apollo Pro 133 chipset), Celeron mendocino 533 MHz, 256 MB ram, AGP GeForce 4 4200 GPU and that Innovision Voodoo 2 card.

Installed Win98SE, drivers and 3DMark 2000 and again, no problems. Tests completed fine. So it really seems that AMD 3DNow crashes that 3DMark test .

Another interesting thing is result score, I expected to get better result with Celeron, but it was actually lower than K6-2 500MHz, 711 for celeron vs 739 for K6-2.

Nice, lucky you! I have the exact same chipset, and I tried NFS 2 again, and it froze right when I was in my second lap. I replaced my 933 mhz cpu with a 800, installed older chipset drivers but it didn't help 🙁 Guess I'll have to find a different motherboard.