GeForce 2 MX basically has the performance of a GeForce 256 SDR (while consuming a lot less power)... so what I said above also applies to the GeForce 256. Well... almost. If GeForce 2 MX PCI is 'rare', then the GeForce 256 PCI is practically unobtainium (I for one have never seen one in the wild).
Unfortunately Voodoo 2/3 cards are your best bet for 1996 - 1999 games (they will probably not be very good for Halo CE, though 🤣).
I know there are some unofficial Windows XP drivers, but I've never tried them myself, since I only use Voodoo cards in DOS/Win95/Win98.

Skalabala wrote on 2017-07-24, 20:57:

I do not think Asus is the problem. I think both ALi and Asus was the problem. Feast your eyes on the date code of the chipset m […]
Show full quote

meljor wrote:

BTW, i didn't know about the internal Tag chip. I checked with my p5a 1.06 (revision G) and indeed that board has no Tag chip.

I always wondered if Asus made a mistake or the revision G was wrong so it couldn't run the k6+ at full speed (it runs very slow on the 1.05 and 1.06 boards).

Since your J-542C is also a G revision and it runs the k6+ fine i guess that mystery is solved and it is just Asus that screwed up (big time).

I do not think Asus is the problem. I think both ALi and Asus was the problem.
Feast your eyes on the date code of the chipset my K6 friends 😁
The mosfets of this motherboard also runs cool 😀
I like it! Now to upgrade the Cache chip and then make turbo PLL for it. 😎

Did you ever do these mods?

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-12-25, 13:42:

Lotosdrache wrote on 2020-05-21, 09:48:

Hello to everybody here! […]
Show full quote

Hello to everybody here!

Nearly four month ago, Skalabala got in touch with me at my thread about my GA-5AX on overclockers.com and drew my attention to this contest here. I totally forgot that I also created an account here at vogons.org more than four years ago... 🙄

I read this thread and it's all about GeForce 3 (mostly) graphics card and most recently a Voodoo 5 on SS7 platform. I always preferred ATi cards because
1. after 8 years of working/playing on my AMD N80L286-16/S from 1990-1998, my second PC (Intel Pentium II 400 MHz) was equipped with ATi 3D Rage Pro AGP (8 MiB) "assisted" 😉 by Voodoo 2 (12 MiB)
2. ATi always had better support for DVD playback.

Now, led me introduce one of my Super Socket 7 systems first:
- Gigabyte GA-5AX [Rev. 5.2; ALi Aladdin V (Rev. H)]
- BIOS F4
alternatively: BIOS F5 Powered by Lotosdrache
- 512 kiB onboard Cache
- AMD K6-2+/570ACZ@600 (6*100 MHz)
- 2x 256 MiB Mircon Technology SD-RAM PC133U-222-542-Z (MT16LSDT3264AG-13EE3)
alternatively: 3x 512 MiB SD-RAM (vendor: Micron Technology or Xelo)
- 3Dfx Voodoo3 3500 TV incl. breakout cable
alternatively: Matrox G400 Max
- Matrox m3D
- 3Com 3CR990-TX-97
- Terratec EWS64 XXL (Rev 1.2)
- Gravis Ultrasound Max (Rev 2.1)
- IDE-HDD: Maxtor 6Y080P0 (80 GB), Maxtor 4R060J0 (60 GB)
- IDE-ODD: Kenwood UCR-421 True-X 72x, HP CD-Writer Plus (don't know the exact model number)
- 3.5" and 5.25" floppy disk drives
IMG_2100.JPG

That's how the system is intended to look like when it's finished. For this contest however, I will make a little change: I havn't got any GeForce 3 in my collection because GeForce is sooo mainstream. How boring! So, I looked through my stock and other systems and found a graphics card that should be equivalent to Geforce 3 considering time, features and performance:

ATi FireGL 8800 that found its way to me in an IBM IntelliStation M Pro (Pentium 4 with Rambus RAM) 😀

IMG_2142.JPG

As you can see, this combination is suffering some problems:
1. Although the chipset revision is H and supports internal tag RAM, Gigabyte still used an external one. The internal tag is deactivated. Therefore, it can only cache 128 MiB.
Solution: I reverse-engineered the BIOS and injected a patch that
a) disables external tag RAM,
b) enables internal tag RAM and now the board caches 512 MiB of RAM,
c) modifies a number of other chipset register settings:
- SDRAM Trc=7T (8T before) and Tras=4T (5T before)
- SDRAM Internal Page detection enabled
- SDRAM Enhanced Page Mode enabled
- LINEAR_WORD-Merge for Frame Buffer Cycle disabled
- Fast NAJ asserted in single write cycle enabled
- SDRAM tRP=2T@FSB100 (4T before)
- AGP Control Register II: Output delay control of AD_STB[1:0] : Default-1nsec=2,5nsec
The following chipset parameters were changed with modbin:
- Separate setting for Trcd and CL enabled
- Trcd=2T select when bit6 = 1 enable
These last two changes have no effect on RAM timings at all. They are just of cosmetic nature 😉

Now, the chipset programming of my Gigabyte GA-5AX resembles Asus P5A nearly 😀

2. ATi FireGL 8800 is a workstation card and there are no drivers for consumer Win98SE/2000/XP.
Solution: I modified the inf-file of Catalyst 6.2 Win98SE driver and installed the card via device manager:

😀

3. I saw that most of you had big problems to get ATi cards running on Aladdin V boards. My first trial on Thursday was a debacle, too. As soon as the system finished rebooting after driver installation, I could not open any program. Windows 98SE crashed immediately.
Solution: I had to limit Primary Frame Buffer Size to 16 MiB!
a) If you prefer using the original Microsoft Windows 98SE AGP driver then you must go into your BIOS-Setup -> Chipset Features Setup -> Primary Frame Buffer -> 16 MB
b) If you like to use ALi AGP driver (version 1.72, 1.82, 1.90, or 2.13 it doesn't matter) there is no need to change your BIOS setting. You can also use ALi AGP Control Center (aka ALi AGP Utility 1.40):
- click Smart Selection "Turbo" -> Apply
- go to "Manual"
- set "Frame Buffer Size" to 16M -> Apply
The other options (except AGP and SDRAM Delay Clock) have no effect on stability at least on my system. Frame buffer must be limited before Catalyst 6.2 installation. That's all. 😀

With this setting, FireGL 8800 runs absolutely stable albeit I only tested 3DMark2000 v1.1 with original BIOS F4, original MS Windows 98SE AGP driver, DirectX 8.1b, and ATi Catalyst 6.2 so far. The result was really disappointing:

BIOS F4
__________MS Win98SE____ALi AGP driver
___________AGP driver______1.72______1.82______1.90______2.13
128 MiB
DirectX 7.0a-------2900----------3019--------2845-------2979--------2837
-------------------------------------------------------------------(with 256 MiB: 2475)
-------------------------------------------------------------------(with K6-III+/400ATZ@550: 128 MiB=3441
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------256 MiB=3257)

---

512 MiB
DirectX 7.0a-------2439----------2513--------2445-------2440--------2489

---

128 MiB
DirectX 8.1b-------2940----------2883--------2987-------2801--------2881

---

512 MiB
Directx 8.1b-------2482 🙁--------2460--------2469-------2537--------2474
-----------------2410----------2400--------2496-------2461--------2512

---

BIOS F5 Powered by Lotosdrache
__________MS Win98SE____ALi AGP driver
___________AGP driver______1.72______1.82______1.90______2.13
128 MiB
DirectX 7.0a-------2891----------2822--------2856-------2807--------2912

---

512 MiB
DirectX 7.0a-------2834----------2858--------2866-------2872--------2811

---

128 MiB
DirectX 8.1b-------2823----------2873--------2906-------2846--------2930

---

512 MiB
DirectX 8.1b-------2879 ----------2820--------2923-------2910--------2911
-------------------------------------------------------------------(onbord L2=L3 cache off: 2527)
-------------------------------------------------------------------(1 GiB RAM with MS files: 2474
--------------------------------------------------------------------1 GiB RAM with Rudolph Loew patchmem: 2837)

---

You see there is lot's of work considering BIOS and chipset settings, AGP and graphics card drivers, RAM capacity, DirectX version...
I will continue to fill this "table" (How can I create a smarter one?) from time to time. First, I have to look for better cooling of AGP voltage converter (it's getting really hot) and CPU (there isn't even heatsink paste between cooler and cpu).

I've got absolutely no idea where this journey ends up. Stay tuned!

Last questions to you:
How often do you loop the benchmark with the aim of cache training?
Are your systems fully equipped with sound cards, network interface cards and so on or do you use minimal configuration with only a graphics card installed?

EDIT 1:
I finished benchmark run with original Gigabyte BIOS F4 (see table above). I did most of the runs only once and that with 512 MiB RAM and DirectX 8.1b twice. However, I think I can make/confirm following remarks/statements:
1. The result range is considerably high. My estimation for a given configuration is: average +/- 50 points. Therefore it's hardly possible to declare a winner.
2. The differences between both DirectX versions are small (128 MiB / 512 MiB):
- DirectX 7.0a: 2923.2 / 2465.2
- DirectX 8.1b: 2898.4 / 2470.1
- Δ..................... -24.8 / 4.9
3. The differences between all 5 drivers are small (128 MiB / 512 MiB):
- M 98SE: 2920 / 2443.7
- ALi 1.72: 2951 / 2457.7
- ALi 1.82: 2916 / 2470
- ALi 1.90: 2890 / 2479.3
- ALi 2.13: 2877 / 2491.7
4. 128 MiB RAM are much faster than 512 MiB RAM (256 MiB RAM gave similar results as 512 MiB):
- 2910.8 <-> 2468.48
- Δ -442.32
5. K6-III+/400ATZ@550 MHz (5.5*100 MHz) is much faster than K6-2+/570ACZ@600 MHz (6*100 MHz) albeit a little bit more unstable (128 MiB / 256 MiB):
- K6- 2+: 2837 / 2475
- K6-III+: 3441 / 3257
- Δ............ 604 / 782
Therefore, more on-die cache is more helpful than higher clock.
6. With K6-2+/570ACZ@600 MHz on GA-5AX, I hardly achieve 3000 points with FireGL 8800 and standard chipset configuration 🙁

To comments about ALi M1541 AGP driver that drove me crazy:
1. Version 1.72 doesn't enable SDRAM Internal Page Detection (Offset 49/ Bit 1) when set to Turbo Mode as newer versions do.
2. All versions disable Force Snoop INV (Offset 43/ Bit 7) upon installation on this board (it's enabled by default through Gigabyte's BIOS) and enable it again after installation of graphics card driver.

To be continued...

EDIT 2:
I finished testing of my BIOS patch:
1. Differences between both DirectX versions are small again (128 MiB / 512 MiB):
- DirectX 7.0a: 2857.6 / 2848.2
- DirectX 8.1b: 2875.6 / 2888.6
- Δ...........................18 / 40.4
3. The differences between all 5 drivers are small again (128 MiB / 512 MiB):
- M 98SE: 2857 / 2856.5
- ALi 1.72: 2847.5 / 2839
- ALi 1.82: 2881 / 2894.5
- ALi 1.90: 2826.5 / 2891
- ALi 2.13: 2921 / 2861
4. 128 MiB RAM are no longer faster than 512 MiB RAM:
- 2866.6 <-> 2868,4
- Δ 1.8
😀
From this I can conclude that
- the patch works and the board is now able to cache 512 MiB of memory with its internal tag RAM 😀
- decreased results with original BIOS F4 are possibly due to smaller cacheable area
5. Onboard L2 cache (= L3 cache with K6-2+) still impacts performance even with K6-2+ and its internal L2 cache
When switching onboard cache (=L3 cache with K6-2+) off, I only got 2527 points.
6. Upgrading RAM to 1 GiB decreased performance again:
- 2474 -> Here I am again out of the cacheable area with MS Win98SE original files.
Interestingly, using Rudolph Loew's patchmem files for systems with more than 512 MiB RAM kept the result high:
- 2837 -> Either the patch limits the system to the lower cacheable 512 MiB, or it reprograms Win98SE to fill the cacheable area first. I don't know.

All in all:
- DirectX 7.0a seems to be less stable on this system than DirectX 8.1b. At least, I got more abnormal terminations with version 7.0a than with 8.1b.
- With the new BIOS, the system seems to be a little bit slower than with the older one albeit of faster RAM timings. At least, I never reached 3000+ points as I did once before with 128 MiB RAM.
Therefore, I have to check whether SDRAM Enhanced Page Mode is really so enhanced. I tested 4 CPUCLKs here. Other settings are 8, 12, or 16 CPUCLKs. However, I never saw a board where this is enabled. Maybe I will disable it again. For this tests I'm going to use a Matrox G400 Max...

Do you think you might be able to apply any of your bios patching knowhow to a asus p5a bios?

As far as I know P5A uses an Award BIOS, too. The basic steps in modifying are the same as for GA-5AX.
To make a long story short, in principle it's possible to inject a patch into P5A's BIOS. The question is: What do you want to be modified? I used the P5A as basic and modified my GA-5AX BIOS to resemble the P5A settings. Therefore, most of northbridge settings are already identical (mainly memory timings). The rest has no impact on performance or I'm not sure about their effects on the system. So I left them untouched.

Lotosdrache wrote on 2021-12-28, 09:34:

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-12-25, 13:42:

Lotosdrache wrote on 2020-05-21, 09:48:

Hello to everybody here! […]
Show full quote

Hello to everybody here!

Nearly four month ago, Skalabala got in touch with me at my thread about my GA-5AX on overclockers.com and drew my attention to this contest here. I totally forgot that I also created an account here at vogons.org more than four years ago... 🙄

I read this thread and it's all about GeForce 3 (mostly) graphics card and most recently a Voodoo 5 on SS7 platform. I always preferred ATi cards because
1. after 8 years of working/playing on my AMD N80L286-16/S from 1990-1998, my second PC (Intel Pentium II 400 MHz) was equipped with ATi 3D Rage Pro AGP (8 MiB) "assisted" 😉 by Voodoo 2 (12 MiB)
2. ATi always had better support for DVD playback.

Now, led me introduce one of my Super Socket 7 systems first:
- Gigabyte GA-5AX [Rev. 5.2; ALi Aladdin V (Rev. H)]
- BIOS F4
alternatively: BIOS F5 Powered by Lotosdrache
- 512 kiB onboard Cache
- AMD K6-2+/570ACZ@600 (6*100 MHz)
- 2x 256 MiB Mircon Technology SD-RAM PC133U-222-542-Z (MT16LSDT3264AG-13EE3)
alternatively: 3x 512 MiB SD-RAM (vendor: Micron Technology or Xelo)
- 3Dfx Voodoo3 3500 TV incl. breakout cable
alternatively: Matrox G400 Max
- Matrox m3D
- 3Com 3CR990-TX-97
- Terratec EWS64 XXL (Rev 1.2)
- Gravis Ultrasound Max (Rev 2.1)
- IDE-HDD: Maxtor 6Y080P0 (80 GB), Maxtor 4R060J0 (60 GB)
- IDE-ODD: Kenwood UCR-421 True-X 72x, HP CD-Writer Plus (don't know the exact model number)
- 3.5" and 5.25" floppy disk drives
IMG_2100.JPG

That's how the system is intended to look like when it's finished. For this contest however, I will make a little change: I havn't got any GeForce 3 in my collection because GeForce is sooo mainstream. How boring! So, I looked through my stock and other systems and found a graphics card that should be equivalent to Geforce 3 considering time, features and performance:

ATi FireGL 8800 that found its way to me in an IBM IntelliStation M Pro (Pentium 4 with Rambus RAM) 😀

IMG_2142.JPG

As you can see, this combination is suffering some problems:
1. Although the chipset revision is H and supports internal tag RAM, Gigabyte still used an external one. The internal tag is deactivated. Therefore, it can only cache 128 MiB.
Solution: I reverse-engineered the BIOS and injected a patch that
a) disables external tag RAM,
b) enables internal tag RAM and now the board caches 512 MiB of RAM,
c) modifies a number of other chipset register settings:
- SDRAM Trc=7T (8T before) and Tras=4T (5T before)
- SDRAM Internal Page detection enabled
- SDRAM Enhanced Page Mode enabled
- LINEAR_WORD-Merge for Frame Buffer Cycle disabled
- Fast NAJ asserted in single write cycle enabled
- SDRAM tRP=2T@FSB100 (4T before)
- AGP Control Register II: Output delay control of AD_STB[1:0] : Default-1nsec=2,5nsec
The following chipset parameters were changed with modbin:
- Separate setting for Trcd and CL enabled
- Trcd=2T select when bit6 = 1 enable
These last two changes have no effect on RAM timings at all. They are just of cosmetic nature 😉

Now, the chipset programming of my Gigabyte GA-5AX resembles Asus P5A nearly 😀

2. ATi FireGL 8800 is a workstation card and there are no drivers for consumer Win98SE/2000/XP.
Solution: I modified the inf-file of Catalyst 6.2 Win98SE driver and installed the card via device manager:

😀

3. I saw that most of you had big problems to get ATi cards running on Aladdin V boards. My first trial on Thursday was a debacle, too. As soon as the system finished rebooting after driver installation, I could not open any program. Windows 98SE crashed immediately.
Solution: I had to limit Primary Frame Buffer Size to 16 MiB!
a) If you prefer using the original Microsoft Windows 98SE AGP driver then you must go into your BIOS-Setup -> Chipset Features Setup -> Primary Frame Buffer -> 16 MB
b) If you like to use ALi AGP driver (version 1.72, 1.82, 1.90, or 2.13 it doesn't matter) there is no need to change your BIOS setting. You can also use ALi AGP Control Center (aka ALi AGP Utility 1.40):
- click Smart Selection "Turbo" -> Apply
- go to "Manual"
- set "Frame Buffer Size" to 16M -> Apply
The other options (except AGP and SDRAM Delay Clock) have no effect on stability at least on my system. Frame buffer must be limited before Catalyst 6.2 installation. That's all. 😀

With this setting, FireGL 8800 runs absolutely stable albeit I only tested 3DMark2000 v1.1 with original BIOS F4, original MS Windows 98SE AGP driver, DirectX 8.1b, and ATi Catalyst 6.2 so far. The result was really disappointing:

BIOS F4
__________MS Win98SE____ALi AGP driver
___________AGP driver______1.72______1.82______1.90______2.13
128 MiB
DirectX 7.0a-------2900----------3019--------2845-------2979--------2837
-------------------------------------------------------------------(with 256 MiB: 2475)
-------------------------------------------------------------------(with K6-III+/400ATZ@550: 128 MiB=3441
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------256 MiB=3257)

---

512 MiB
DirectX 7.0a-------2439----------2513--------2445-------2440--------2489

---

128 MiB
DirectX 8.1b-------2940----------2883--------2987-------2801--------2881

---

512 MiB
Directx 8.1b-------2482 🙁--------2460--------2469-------2537--------2474
-----------------2410----------2400--------2496-------2461--------2512

---

BIOS F5 Powered by Lotosdrache
__________MS Win98SE____ALi AGP driver
___________AGP driver______1.72______1.82______1.90______2.13
128 MiB
DirectX 7.0a-------2891----------2822--------2856-------2807--------2912

---

512 MiB
DirectX 7.0a-------2834----------2858--------2866-------2872--------2811

---

128 MiB
DirectX 8.1b-------2823----------2873--------2906-------2846--------2930

---

512 MiB
DirectX 8.1b-------2879 ----------2820--------2923-------2910--------2911
-------------------------------------------------------------------(onbord L2=L3 cache off: 2527)
-------------------------------------------------------------------(1 GiB RAM with MS files: 2474
--------------------------------------------------------------------1 GiB RAM with Rudolph Loew patchmem: 2837)

---

You see there is lot's of work considering BIOS and chipset settings, AGP and graphics card drivers, RAM capacity, DirectX version...
I will continue to fill this "table" (How can I create a smarter one?) from time to time. First, I have to look for better cooling of AGP voltage converter (it's getting really hot) and CPU (there isn't even heatsink paste between cooler and cpu).

I've got absolutely no idea where this journey ends up. Stay tuned!

Last questions to you:
How often do you loop the benchmark with the aim of cache training?
Are your systems fully equipped with sound cards, network interface cards and so on or do you use minimal configuration with only a graphics card installed?

EDIT 1:
I finished benchmark run with original Gigabyte BIOS F4 (see table above). I did most of the runs only once and that with 512 MiB RAM and DirectX 8.1b twice. However, I think I can make/confirm following remarks/statements:
1. The result range is considerably high. My estimation for a given configuration is: average +/- 50 points. Therefore it's hardly possible to declare a winner.
2. The differences between both DirectX versions are small (128 MiB / 512 MiB):
- DirectX 7.0a: 2923.2 / 2465.2
- DirectX 8.1b: 2898.4 / 2470.1
- Δ..................... -24.8 / 4.9
3. The differences between all 5 drivers are small (128 MiB / 512 MiB):
- M 98SE: 2920 / 2443.7
- ALi 1.72: 2951 / 2457.7
- ALi 1.82: 2916 / 2470
- ALi 1.90: 2890 / 2479.3
- ALi 2.13: 2877 / 2491.7
4. 128 MiB RAM are much faster than 512 MiB RAM (256 MiB RAM gave similar results as 512 MiB):
- 2910.8 <-> 2468.48
- Δ -442.32
5. K6-III+/400ATZ@550 MHz (5.5*100 MHz) is much faster than K6-2+/570ACZ@600 MHz (6*100 MHz) albeit a little bit more unstable (128 MiB / 256 MiB):
- K6- 2+: 2837 / 2475
- K6-III+: 3441 / 3257
- Δ............ 604 / 782
Therefore, more on-die cache is more helpful than higher clock.
6. With K6-2+/570ACZ@600 MHz on GA-5AX, I hardly achieve 3000 points with FireGL 8800 and standard chipset configuration 🙁

To comments about ALi M1541 AGP driver that drove me crazy:
1. Version 1.72 doesn't enable SDRAM Internal Page Detection (Offset 49/ Bit 1) when set to Turbo Mode as newer versions do.
2. All versions disable Force Snoop INV (Offset 43/ Bit 7) upon installation on this board (it's enabled by default through Gigabyte's BIOS) and enable it again after installation of graphics card driver.

To be continued...

EDIT 2:
I finished testing of my BIOS patch:
1. Differences between both DirectX versions are small again (128 MiB / 512 MiB):
- DirectX 7.0a: 2857.6 / 2848.2
- DirectX 8.1b: 2875.6 / 2888.6
- Δ...........................18 / 40.4
3. The differences between all 5 drivers are small again (128 MiB / 512 MiB):
- M 98SE: 2857 / 2856.5
- ALi 1.72: 2847.5 / 2839
- ALi 1.82: 2881 / 2894.5
- ALi 1.90: 2826.5 / 2891
- ALi 2.13: 2921 / 2861
4. 128 MiB RAM are no longer faster than 512 MiB RAM:
- 2866.6 <-> 2868,4
- Δ 1.8
😀
From this I can conclude that
- the patch works and the board is now able to cache 512 MiB of memory with its internal tag RAM 😀
- decreased results with original BIOS F4 are possibly due to smaller cacheable area
5. Onboard L2 cache (= L3 cache with K6-2+) still impacts performance even with K6-2+ and its internal L2 cache
When switching onboard cache (=L3 cache with K6-2+) off, I only got 2527 points.
6. Upgrading RAM to 1 GiB decreased performance again:
- 2474 -> Here I am again out of the cacheable area with MS Win98SE original files.
Interestingly, using Rudolph Loew's patchmem files for systems with more than 512 MiB RAM kept the result high:
- 2837 -> Either the patch limits the system to the lower cacheable 512 MiB, or it reprograms Win98SE to fill the cacheable area first. I don't know.

All in all:
- DirectX 7.0a seems to be less stable on this system than DirectX 8.1b. At least, I got more abnormal terminations with version 7.0a than with 8.1b.
- With the new BIOS, the system seems to be a little bit slower than with the older one albeit of faster RAM timings. At least, I never reached 3000+ points as I did once before with 128 MiB RAM.
Therefore, I have to check whether SDRAM Enhanced Page Mode is really so enhanced. I tested 4 CPUCLKs here. Other settings are 8, 12, or 16 CPUCLKs. However, I never saw a board where this is enabled. Maybe I will disable it again. For this tests I'm going to use a Matrox G400 Max...

Do you think you might be able to apply any of your bios patching knowhow to a asus p5a bios?

As far as I know P5A uses an Award BIOS, too. The basic steps in modifying are the same as for GA-5AX.
To make a long story short, in principle it's possible to inject a patch into P5A's BIOS. The question is: What do you want to be modified? I used the P5A as basic and modified my GA-5AX BIOS to resemble the P5A settings. Therefore, most of northbridge settings are already identical (mainly memory timings). The rest has no impact on performance or I'm not sure about their effects on the system. So I left them untouched.

Gotcha.

Well, do you see any hidden settings that you could unhide? That would be handy.

I’m using the 1011 005 bios I believe it is.

Btw jan has a new patch for the hard drive bugs which may end up dropping for our boards at aome point here soon so we need to coordinate with him and make sure there is one bios with both tweaks whatever it is that we may or may not come up with.

It would be kinda cool to have a bios for each fsb setting that changed the timing of the cache to make it more stable or tighter at each fab setting.

I’m trying to find some 4ns chips so my settings may end up being different than a universal bios.

No chance cache timing is a setting that can be unlocked is there ?

Is jan aware of your tweaked bios for the gigabyte? Prob not, we should have him mod that one and post it if you are confident that it is stable and ready for prime time.

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-12-26, 09:44:

Is there a ATI counterpart to the awesome numbers you guys are getting to these geforce 3 and quadro 2s?

I used a Radeon 9250. It was faster than GF3 Ti200. But I have no idea how I made it work.
The motherboard was GA5AX, it was completely unstable, I want to try it on P5A but no clue what I did.
What I think I remember is that I did not use windows 98, I say this because I am sure I remember that I tried to use regedit to set ALi agp settings but there was no available settings.
Maybe I used win2000 or xp

Skalabala wrote on 2021-12-31, 14:16:

I used a Radeon 9250. It was faster than GF3 Ti200. But I have no idea how I made it work. The motherboard was GA5AX, it was com […]
Show full quote

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-12-26, 09:44:

Is there a ATI counterpart to the awesome numbers you guys are getting to these geforce 3 and quadro 2s?

I used a Radeon 9250. It was faster than GF3 Ti200. But I have no idea how I made it work.
The motherboard was GA5AX, it was completely unstable, I want to try it on P5A but no clue what I did.
What I think I remember is that I did not use windows 98, I say this because I am sure I remember that I tried to use regedit to set ALi agp settings but there was no available settings.
Maybe I used win2000 or xp

Interesting, I have a 9250 and it doesn’t perform any better than the 9800 and you guys are wiping the floor with the 9800 using gf3s which is just illogical, but it is what it is haha

9800 can do crazy high res at same fps as low res though. Which isn’t impressive fps 🤣

There is a very specific combination to use ATI cards. I used 9200 and 9250. 9800 should be faster

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-12-31, 14:46:

Interesting, I have a 9250 and it doesn’t perform any better than the 9800 and you guys are wiping the floor with the 9800 using gf3s which is just illogical, but it is what it is haha

It's not illogical. This thing still happens to this day with modern video cards (drivers) and modern(ish) CPUs. 😀
In fact, Hardware Unboxed actually has a very interesting video exploring why modern Radeon cards (drivers) seem to give much better performance with weaker CPUs than nVIDIA cards (drivers): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLEIJhunaW8

So, regarding the Radeon 9800 PRO being slower on SS7 than much older cards, you need to think about it from a developer's point of view. Let's say the year is 2002, and you are part of the team that develops the drivers for the upcoming Radeon 9800 PRO.
As a developer (well, more accurately, project manager), you need to make a few assumptions and more importantly ask yourself some questions:
- what are your target systems?
- who is more likely to use your upcoming ultra high-end card?
- what CPUs/platforms will 2003 enthusiast gamers use?

Actually, come to think about it, I am pretty sure that these questions are first asked by the sales department. 😀

Why do you need to answer these questions, though? Well, because it's obvious that the more platforms you will support, the more you and your team will need to work in order to properly polish them (i.e. test all possible hardware combos for multiple generations of platforms). And since these things are usually done with very tight deadlines, the more platforms you support (and test thoroughly), the less polished your drivers will be even for modern hardware (which is owned by the vast majority of your buyers). So, basically, you risk affecting ALL your future buyers, just to please... the crazy 0.1%? (the guys who might actually try to run an upcoming high-end 2003 card on... SS7)? 😀
Obviously not... so what you end up doing is compromise and decide well ahead of time who your average buyer is (probably a Pentium 4 or Athlon XP Thoroughbred owner) and properly optimize your drivers for these platforms. Then, depending on the deadline, you continue with the optimizations for some older platforms (but it's VERY unlikely that you will EVER have the time or even want to optimize for SS7).

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-12-28, 09:40:

Well, do you see any hidden settings that you could unhide? That would be handy. […]
Show full quote

Well, do you see any hidden settings that you could unhide? That would be handy.

I’m using the 1011 005 bios I believe it is.

Btw jan has a new patch for the hard drive bugs which may end up dropping for our boards at aome point here soon so we need to coordinate with him and make sure there is one bios with both tweaks whatever it is that we may or may not come up with.

It would be kinda cool to have a bios for each fsb setting that changed the timing of the cache to make it more stable or tighter at each fab setting.

I’m trying to find some 4ns chips so my settings may end up being different than a universal bios.

No chance cache timing is a setting that can be unlocked is there ?

Is jan aware of your tweaked bios for the gigabyte? Prob not, we should have him mod that one and post it if you are confident that it is stable and ready for prime time.

- Hidden settings: I didn't dive such deep into analysis of this BIOS. Just put in my patch. It was my first own BIOS mod and I was just happy when I saw it worked. Well, I'm still learning...

- I talked to Jan - I guess you are talking of J. Steunebrink - at the beginning of my work. I think he uses a different approach for his mod. However, it should be possible to combine both modifications. The question is, does it make sense? I think you cannot use a Gigabyte GA-5AX BIOS on an Asus P5A or any other board.

- FSB and timings: At the moment, I don't know how cache timings are set. I always thought that, after sending some kind of request to the cache, the cpu will just wait a number of cycles (2 or 3) and read the answer then. So it's manufacturer's responsibility to solder cache chips that are fast enough to work reliable at all specified FSB speeds.

- Stability of my BIOS: It wasn't unstable at any one time. Okay, once when I activated L2 cache accidentally during P.O.S.T. The System wasn't amused about this very much and it was the first time in my life that I saw an error message from boot block. 😯 Well, it gave me a reason for buying an external chip programmer. 😀

The reason why I hesitate to publish it is that I don't have a nice logo to replace the EPA one. I'm dreaming of a white dragon (maybe with green eyes) spitting some red fire to the left. The problem is I'm really really bad in drawing such a picture. 🙄

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-12-28, 07:10:

Skalabala wrote on 2017-07-24, 20:57:

I do not think Asus is the problem. I think both ALi and Asus was the problem. Feast your eyes on the date code of the chipset m […]
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meljor wrote:

BTW, i didn't know about the internal Tag chip. I checked with my p5a 1.06 (revision G) and indeed that board has no Tag chip.

I always wondered if Asus made a mistake or the revision G was wrong so it couldn't run the k6+ at full speed (it runs very slow on the 1.05 and 1.06 boards).

Since your J-542C is also a G revision and it runs the k6+ fine i guess that mystery is solved and it is just Asus that screwed up (big time).

I do not think Asus is the problem. I think both ALi and Asus was the problem.
Feast your eyes on the date code of the chipset my K6 friends 😁
The mosfets of this motherboard also runs cool 😀
I like it! Now to upgrade the Cache chip and then make turbo PLL for it. 😎

Did you ever do these mods?

Did not do the mods as the P5A is faster, but I still want to try these mods when we have the correct way 😀

Lotosdrache wrote on 2022-01-01, 10:12:

- Hidden settings: I didn't dive such deep into analysis of this BIOS. Just put in my patch. It was my first own BIOS mod and I […]
Show full quote

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-12-28, 09:40:

Well, do you see any hidden settings that you could unhide? That would be handy. […]
Show full quote

Well, do you see any hidden settings that you could unhide? That would be handy.

I’m using the 1011 005 bios I believe it is.

Btw jan has a new patch for the hard drive bugs which may end up dropping for our boards at aome point here soon so we need to coordinate with him and make sure there is one bios with both tweaks whatever it is that we may or may not come up with.

It would be kinda cool to have a bios for each fsb setting that changed the timing of the cache to make it more stable or tighter at each fab setting.

I’m trying to find some 4ns chips so my settings may end up being different than a universal bios.

No chance cache timing is a setting that can be unlocked is there ?

Is jan aware of your tweaked bios for the gigabyte? Prob not, we should have him mod that one and post it if you are confident that it is stable and ready for prime time.

- Hidden settings: I didn't dive such deep into analysis of this BIOS. Just put in my patch. It was my first own BIOS mod and I was just happy when I saw it worked. Well, I'm still learning...

- I talked to Jan - I guess you are talking of J. Steunebrink - at the beginning of my work. I think he uses a different approach for his mod. However, it should be possible to combine both modifications. The question is, does it make sense? I think you cannot use a Gigabyte GA-5AX BIOS on an Asus P5A or any other board.

- FSB and timings: At the moment, I don't know how cache timings are set. I always thought that, after sending some kind of request to the cache, the cpu will just wait a number of cycles (2 or 3) and read the answer then. So it's manufacturer's responsibility to solder cache chips that are fast enough to work reliable at all specified FSB speeds.

- Stability of my BIOS: It wasn't unstable at any one time. Okay, once when I activated L2 cache accidentally during P.O.S.T. The System wasn't amused about this very much and it was the first time in my life that I saw an error message from boot block. 😯 Well, it gave me a reason for buying an external chip programmer. 😀

The reason why I hesitate to publish it is that I don't have a nice logo to replace the EPA one. I'm dreaming of a white dragon (maybe with green eyes) spitting some red fire to the left. The problem is I'm really really bad in drawing such a picture. 🙄

I have since talked with Jan and these boards it doesn’t seem will need his latest patch as they already have good code in the latest version

That’s a interesting idea, watermarking your bios version.

Jan does that but in text. It’s kinda cool seeing his patch marked on bios screen. Modifying the logo is a neat idea.

I kinda like seeing the EPA logo though (part of the whole retro experience is seeing that on post) maybe keep the logo but add a dragon on it? But alas, just input. The project is yours to do as you like 😀 the guys at ultimate retro I’m sure would love to upload that also maybe jan could add it to his list, you would have to ask him.

The problem is not integrating the logo into the BIOS file. It starts much earlier. I don't have a nice picture. I was always bad in art lessons. I liked maths. 😉
So if someone would draw a nice picture according to the formats described here, publication process will be accelerated.

Freeway mobo and 9800 pro

You guys may wanna check out this thread.
The coolest socket 7 motherboard that you’ve never heard of

The p5a may be dethroned.
Just wait till I get a gf3 and That might prove it…😳

Apart for the sexy red pcb, I do not see any aspect of that mobo that I would call great…

Mamba wrote on 2022-01-05, 10:57:

Apart for the sexy red pcb, I do not see any aspect of that mobo that I would call great…

It gets like 45MB/sec more ram bandwidth than my p5a

The agp seems to be far more stable

It has 2mb 4ns cache

Moaaaarrrr pci slots..

Atx and floppy positions suck… 🤣

Yes I know but with that motherboard is a bit hit and miss.
Yours can perform quite well, another absolutely not.
Plus no ISA slot…
Personally I prefer Epox.

Mamba wrote on 2022-01-05, 11:12:

Yes I know but with that motherboard is a bit hit and miss.
Your can perform quite well, another absolutely not.

I don’t understand.

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-01-05, 11:15:

Mamba wrote on 2022-01-05, 11:12:

Yes I know but with that motherboard is a bit hit and miss.
Your can perform quite well, another absolutely not.

I don’t understand.

Not all manufactures are good with process standardisation.
The same model can be ok and a nightmare.
It happens even now with brand new motherboards.

The worst part is that the motherboard doesn't have any ISA slots so... not a real SS7 motherboard in my book. 😁
Why are SS7 boards so sought-after? Because of their flexibility, because SS7 can be a great platform for both Windows 98 and DOS. If it weren't for this particular advantage, NOBODY would want them, SS7 boards would cost $5 on eBay (OK, maybe $10, some people would still buy them out of nostalgia). 😀
Unfortunately, without ISA, DOS is completely out of the question. Even though there are PCI cards out there that are very DOS compatible (i.e. Yamaha YMF7x4), in my experience these work better on much newer platforms than on SS7... so might as well get a VIA KT600 board + Athlon XP and enjoy the sweet spot for speed, stability and flexibility. 😀

bloodem wrote on 2022-01-05, 13:57:

The worst part is that the motherboard doesn't have any ISA slots so... not a real SS7 motherboard in my book. 😁
Why are SS7 boards so sought-after? Because of their flexibility, because SS7 can be a great platform for both Windows 98 and DOS. If it weren't for this particular advantage, NOBODY would want them, SS7 boards would cost $5 on eBay (OK, maybe $10, some people would still buy them out of nostalgia). 😀
Unfortunately, without ISA, DOS is completely out of the question. Even though there are PCI cards out there that are very DOS compatible (i.e. Yamaha YMF7x4), in my experience these work better on much newer platforms than on SS7... so might as well get a VIA KT600 board + Athlon XP and enjoy the sweet spot for speed, stability and flexibility. 😀

It really does blow my mind that they didn’t put even a single isa slot on it 🤣.

One would have fit on the bottom without sacrificing a pci slot…

Oh well. I like all the pci ports! Honestly I really don’t have any isa cards that I need to use anyway on builds. I ussually run ME or XP on these builds.

It’s looking like I may soon have my hands on a gf3 ti 500 😄 lead time on shipping is a bit out there though coming from poland

You guys are doing these runs under which os?
What’s the scoop on best gf3 ti 500 driver for xp?