Did you install the chipset drivers? Have you tested the reference Voodoo3 drivers? What version of DirectX is installed?

bad vram?

Caps maybe?

Out of curiosity have you tried Windows 98SE?

Have you tried UT D3D or OpenGL mode? I think those work on a V3.

I have one of those boards, it has been a while since I used it, but it worked fine.

I agree it is worth trying Win 98. Also Caps, it could be caps on all 3 boards.

Also have you tried different ram?

Another thing worth trying is to think about other peripherals that you are using, one of those could be causing a conflict.
So, as others before me have said, I would try a clean Win98SE installation with the bare minimum (no sound card & no other devices) and simply install:
- the 440BX chipset drivers
- DirectX 7
- latest Voodoo 3 reference drivers (1.07.00)

I recently had an issue with freezes when changing resolutions or exiting Quake 2 on KT600 / KT880 boards and it turns out that the Yamaha YMF724/744 sound cards were to blame. 😀

The only instance that I can remember, when I was getting random lock-ups in UT99 while using Voodoo3 and a 600 MHz PIII Katmai, was on Acer 440BX motherboard with stock BIOS which had no patch for Katmai microcode, after the patch random lock-ups were gone 😀

From what I understood you've only tried Unreal? I'd try something else too to see if it's glide instability in general or specifically in Unreal.

TheMLGladiator wrote on 2021-03-19, 01:34:

Did you install the chipset drivers?

It's i440BX, supported natively by Win2k.

Have you tested the reference Voodoo3 drivers?

Yes, 1.03. Behaviour unchanged (note that I'm not entirely sure the 1.03 driver installed correctly, during installation it gave an error about the PCI ID not begin in the .inf file and that it needed manually correcting. However after that install continued and said it completed successfully.

What version of DirectX is installed?

Not sure at first, so installed 8.1 to be sure. Behaviour unchanged.

Warlord wrote on 2021-03-19, 05:02:

bad vram?

ODwilly wrote on 2021-03-19, 05:17:

Caps maybe?

mwdmeyer wrote on 2021-03-19, 06:55:

I have one of those boards, it has been a while since I used it, but it worked fine.

Also Caps, it could be caps on all 3 boards.

Also have you tried different ram?

As I said, I have three essentially identical boards, each with own CPU and RAM (but in all cases a single 256MB DIMM). If I interchange them, behaviour is identical. That's why I consider hardware issues unlikely - old stuff gets unreliable, but it would be extreme coincidence for exactly the same severity of issues happening at exactly the same time. I have re-capped all of them. Also I had a fourth one with SGRAM issues (probably the Voodoo BGA at fault rather than the RAM chips) and that was different - perfectly stable but artefacting all over the place.\

Oetker wrote on 2021-03-19, 06:46:

Have you tried UT D3D or OpenGL mode? I think those work on a V3.

Hadn't as they didn't immediately show up in the rendering device menu. However when I clicked 'show all' they popped up. After an hour or two I can confirm Direct3D seems stable (if significantly slower than GLide). Will look into OpenGL later.

386DX40 wrote on 2021-03-19, 06:08:

Out of curiosity have you tried Windows 98SE?

mwdmeyer wrote on 2021-03-19, 06:55:

I agree it is worth trying Win 98.

bloodem wrote on 2021-03-19, 08:03:

So, as others before me have said, I would try a clean Win98SE installation with the bare minimum (no sound card & no other devi […]
Show full quote

So, as others before me have said, I would try a clean Win98SE installation with the bare minimum (no sound card & no other devices) and simply install:
- the 440BX chipset drivers
- DirectX 7
- latest Voodoo 3 reference drivers (1.07.00)

That's an option, but I have a specific reason for wanting Win2k on this system, it's all about a running joke a former colleague made for years about a misunderstanding of mine regarding the specs of the v2 of the board. Wouldn't be funny if you weren't there, but bottom line: this system needs to run Win2k for very non-technical reasons 😉

If I really keep pulling up blank, I happen to have just received some 16GB DOMs, so I could use one of those for Win98SE, if only to confirm that it's a software issue.

bloodem wrote on 2021-03-19, 08:03:

Another thing worth trying is to think about other peripherals that you are using, one of those could be causing a conflict.

[...]

I recently had an issue with freezes when changing resolutions or exiting Quake 2 on KT600 / KT880 boards and it turns out that the Yamaha YMF724/744 sound cards were to blame. 😀

Good point, although tricky to perform in this case. The only cards in here are the SATA controller (which I can't drop as OS is on the SATA drive and Win2k doesn't respond well to a different interface/driver for the boot/OS disk) and an Ethernet card. Sound is onboard on the motherboard. I'll remove the Ethernet card to be sure thouhg.

SSTV2 wrote on 2021-03-19, 20:04:

The only instance that I can remember, when I was getting random lock-ups in UT99 while using Voodoo3 and a 600 MHz PIII Katmai, was on Acer 440BX motherboard with stock BIOS which had no patch for Katmai microcode, after the patch random lock-ups were gone 😀

Interesting.... that might explain why it happens on my Tualatin (although not why it's GLide-only) but not on CuMine and Katmai. The board was originally sold paired with Katmai, later cA0-stepping CuMine. I have a BIOS that succesfully identifies faster/newer Coppermines too.

konc wrote on 2021-03-19, 20:09:

From what I understood you've only tried Unreal? I'd try something else too to see if it's glide instability in general or specifically in Unreal.

Another good point. Will have to dig deep for suitable games. I wasn't into 3D stuff much in those days.

Update:
- have now tested with OpenGL too: same as with GLide, crashes after a few minutes. Direct3D still rock-solid after hours.
- during last Direct3D test, the heatsink fell of the V3 chip and I didn't notice for a few minutes... No crash. Alarming and definitely not something I would have done intentionally, but rules out overheating during GLide/OpenGL (heatsink does warm up noticeably, so there is thermal transfer going on)
- have upgraded driver to AmigaSport 2.9 according to instructions, so completely removed 3dfx tools and old driver first. This was completely successful. Unfortunately behaviour unchanged: crashes in GLide and OpenGL, no crashes in software rendering or Direct3D.
- removed 3Com NIC. No change.

Despite not wanting it as final situation, now intend to install Win98SE on a DOM. If that also fails there's something wrong with my hardware (all of it), it it works things are still a mystery as I can't be sure of the Win2k install vs the SATA controller (as the Promise SATA300TX2 isn't supported in Win9x).

I wonder if you need specific drivers for the videocard made by the motherboard manufacturer, if those exist? Maybe there's something different about this card the drivers need to account for?

I had MS-6168 system years ago and the onboard GPU worked perfectly even in glide. There are no special drivers, it is regular Voodoo3 (or in fact Velocity 100 - it has only one TMU active) soldered on the PCB, nothing special about it. I remember running Windows 98 and XP, both were ok.

havli wrote on 2021-03-22, 12:43:

I had MS-6168 system years ago and the onboard GPU worked perfectly even in glide. There are no special drivers, it is regular Voodoo3 (or in fact Velocity 100 - it has only one TMU active) soldered on the PCB, nothing special about it. I remember running Windows 98 and XP, both were ok.

It's not a Velocity, it's a Voodoo 2 2000 (chip code: 355-0021-002). The only difference is that some motherboards came with the full 16 MB of VRAM, while others (probably most) came with only 8MB.

I don't know how the 16MB version performs, they seem to be bery rare and I never had one.
But the 8MB V3 on MS-6168 board performs exactly like Velocity 100 - so 1 TMU in OGL/glide and 2 TMU in D3D. It can be reenabled using the well known registry hack. Well, at least it worked that way last time I used that board. Perhaps it depends on the BIOS version.

why insist on that 3rd party driver if 2k actually had 3dfx drivers? it's a bit of a strange starting point for troubleshooting...