For the drivers on Win 95 OSR 2.1(withou IE4) I had to go for 1.03 Voodoo drivers. The latest 1.07 drivers seem to require IE4. However the build is very stable and pretty much all games of the era run smoothly. So far I have played Diablo 1&2, DeusEx, FIFA 98 RTWC, AoE 1&2 and had no issues. Also did not have any BSOD so far which is always a relief when you are dealing with Win 9x builds.

As for things I installed I ended up getting the XUSSB patch, RLOEW patches, Dx 7.0a, Via 4in1 3.5 drivers, Voodoo 1.03 and SB AWE 64 driver.

On the software side of things I only have Rain, Daemon Tools, Virtual Clone CD, 7zip, Total Uninstaller, Windows Plus here. Unlike my previous installation Windows Plus did not give me any crashes nor have I encountered any registry errors after nearly 2-3 hours of playing and rebooting the build. The build seems fairly stable and perfect. Also got some altec lansing speakers for the build.

Now I am going to take some time off from my retro hobby and balance my books before doing anything.

Congrats on reaching your goals, even if it took a couple of mobos and paying the Voodoo tax to get there!

sunkindly wrote on 2025-10-02, 05:50:

Congrats on reaching your goals, even if it took a couple of mobos and paying the Voodoo tax to get there!

Haha...yeah. Honestly I went a bit crazy with the spending. However I can finally play FIFA 98 RTWC and Dune as they were meant to be played.

Once again thanks to all the helpful forum members. This forum is truly one of a kind.

Is there any chance that the extra weight you have added to the Voodoo with heatsinks/fan could bend it and risk the solder joints?

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2025-10-02, 07:25:

Is there any chance that the extra weight you have added to the Voodoo with heatsinks/fan could bend it and risk the solder joints?

I hope not. The cooler fan and the backside geek pi heatsink are not as heavy as the installed heatsink. I will probably keep an eye on the card and move things around if I see any distortion on the board.

Really cool build, especially with the Voodoo 3 and AWE 64 combo. Glad to hear it’s running stable. Looking forward to hearing how it holds up long term.

LaurenKelly wrote on 2025-10-03, 08:35:

Really cool build, especially with the Voodoo 3 and AWE 64 combo. Glad to hear it’s running stable. Looking forward to hearing how it holds up long term.

So far it is doing pretty good and is quite stable. I even played Dune, Diablo 1&2 and Fifa on it and so far no crashes or sudden freezing/shutdowns. In fact I would say Win 95 feels quite snappy even though my only tasks on the system are installing games or playing games. As for the games themselves, I am getting decent FPS and I have not yet gotten any stutters or problems.

Pairing the P3 700 and V3 makes sense but the ISA soundcard, even the AWE, is bit of a downgrade IMHO.
For this era I'd recommend a Vortex 2 for A3d support or SB Live for EAX (I'm not sure if Audigy work in Win95)
Not to mention PCI cards in general had a lot less crackle and hiss then ISA cards.
Keep the AWE for dos games though!

But hey that's just my opinion and the main thing is you have a working system!

chinny22 wrote on 2025-10-04, 00:54:

Pairing the P3 700 and V3 makes sense but the ISA soundcard, even the AWE, is bit of a downgrade IMHO. For this era I'd recommen […]
Show full quote

Pairing the P3 700 and V3 makes sense but the ISA soundcard, even the AWE, is bit of a downgrade IMHO.
For this era I'd recommend a Vortex 2 for A3d support or SB Live for EAX (I'm not sure if Audigy work in Win95)
Not to mention PCI cards in general had a lot less crackle and hiss then ISA cards.
Keep the AWE for dos games though!

But hey that's just my opinion and the main thing is you have a working system!

Once again thanks for chiming in. Actually I had never owned an ISA card before, so I got the AWE 64 to check out how an actual ISA card sounds. It was the AWE64 or the Pico-GUS for this system. I do have a few SB Live Cards(or maybe they are rebranded Ensoniq CT4740s) lying around. I might one day put that into the system and see how it fares.

I am taking a hiatus from retro-gaming but I might get a Vortex 2 someday. Actually I would like to see how different the audio feels in some of my favorite games by using a SB card and a Vortex 2 card.

Hey mate

Your cooling solution for voodoo is no go . Just attach 60mm fan and you will get direct airflow at heatsink .

ciornyi wrote on 2025-10-05, 10:57:

Hey mate

Your cooling solution for voodoo is no go . Just attach 60mm fan and you will get direct airflow at heatsink .

Actually I am still monitoring the thing. So far it is working good. I took the idea of screwing in the cooler from Phil but coming to think of it maybe it can bend the board. The fan is not too heavy though. The geek pi heatsink though seems to be a good choice.

I might end up going with the 60 mm fan eventually. However I am trying to keep the original heatsink in place.

Love a good 95 build! I put one together myself not so long ago (my sound card is a crappy ess though), I gotta get Fifa 98, havent played that in ages, soon as I hear that intro song its a time warp

Hans Tork wrote on 2025-10-05, 16:51:

ciornyi wrote on 2025-10-05, 10:57:

Hey mate

Your cooling solution for voodoo is no go . Just attach 60mm fan and you will get direct airflow at heatsink .

Actually I am still monitoring the thing. So far it is working good. I took the idea of screwing in the cooler from Phil but coming to think of it maybe it can bend the board. The fan is not too heavy though. The geek pi heatsink though seems to be a good choice.

I might end up going with the 60 mm fan eventually. However I am trying to keep the original heatsink in place.

I agree with ciornyi, you have a heat sink on top of a heat sink? Absolutely yes, keep the original heat sink in place and install any kind of fan giving that some circulation, and you will have a way better cooling that what you get from the combo you've made now 😀

H3nrik V! wrote on Yesterday, 07:27:

Hans Tork wrote on 2025-10-05, 16:51:

ciornyi wrote on 2025-10-05, 10:57:

Hey mate

Your cooling solution for voodoo is no go . Just attach 60mm fan and you will get direct airflow at heatsink .

Actually I am still monitoring the thing. So far it is working good. I took the idea of screwing in the cooler from Phil but coming to think of it maybe it can bend the board. The fan is not too heavy though. The geek pi heatsink though seems to be a good choice.

I might end up going with the 60 mm fan eventually. However I am trying to keep the original heatsink in place.

I agree with ciornyi, you have a heat sink on top of a heat sink? Absolutely yes, keep the original heat sink in place and install any kind of fan giving that some circulation, and you will have a way better cooling that what you get from the combo you've made now 😀

It is actually a fan on top of that heatsink. I posted this in another thread. The fan helps cool the heatsink.

RetroBus wrote on Yesterday, 02:42:

Love a good 95 build! I put one together myself not so long ago (my sound card is a crappy ess though), I gotta get Fifa 98, havent played that in ages, soon as I hear that intro song its a time warp

Yes that song is indeed so timeless. Fifa 98 RTWC is my favorite FIFA. It is wrapped in so much nostalgic bubble of warmth and happiness. Also I think there were 2 Fifa games with the 98 tag. One was Fifa 98 RTWC released around 1997 and another one was World Cup 98. I have never played the latter one. As the world cup was held around 1998, EA decided to cash in on that hype. If I am not mistaken both games were based on FIFA 97, a game which has now become quite hard to get.

I had mostly played FIFA 98 RTWC on my original XP machine. I remember getting GLIDE.DLL errors and having to play the game using the safe mode option. Finally with a true 3dfx card I can play it as it was intended to be. Also it might be just me but the graphics do look a lot sharper here than what I remember it to be on my childhood XP rig which had no GPU.

Ah nice, it must have been a regional thing I have never seen the RTWC in Australia, just the regular old Fifa 98 and then the World cup which was pretty much the same game it felt like but reskinned and with only national teams. I didnt know it was a Glide game too! Im gonna have to get this up on my Voodoo Banshee

Hans Tork wrote on Yesterday, 15:09:

H3nrik V! wrote on Yesterday, 07:27:

Hans Tork wrote on 2025-10-05, 16:51:

Actually I am still monitoring the thing. So far it is working good. I took the idea of screwing in the cooler from Phil but coming to think of it maybe it can bend the board. The fan is not too heavy though. The geek pi heatsink though seems to be a good choice.

I might end up going with the 60 mm fan eventually. However I am trying to keep the original heatsink in place.

I agree with ciornyi, you have a heat sink on top of a heat sink? Absolutely yes, keep the original heat sink in place and install any kind of fan giving that some circulation, and you will have a way better cooling that what you get from the combo you've made now 😀

It is actually a fan on top of that heatsink. I posted this in another thread. The fan helps cool the heatsink.

Details

The attachment 3dfx.jpg is no longer available

But, that fan is mounted inside a round heatsink. Or am I getting blind here? You don't have direct airflow on the big rectangular heat sink with that setup? It looks like a HSF from some other graphics card?

Hans Tork wrote on Yesterday, 15:09:

It is actually a fan on top of that heatsink. I posted this in another thread. The fan helps cool the heatsink.

I think what they mean is, your Voodoo 3 already has a stock heatsink on the chip. And then you put a fan with another heatsink on top of it. That won't provide adequate cooling.

If you don't want to modify the card, consider getting one of those bracket coolers as shown in this post and install it in the slot under the Voodoo card.

H3nrik V! wrote on Today, 06:13:

Hans Tork wrote on Yesterday, 15:09:

H3nrik V! wrote on Yesterday, 07:27:

I agree with ciornyi, you have a heat sink on top of a heat sink? Absolutely yes, keep the original heat sink in place and install any kind of fan giving that some circulation, and you will have a way better cooling that what you get from the combo you've made now 😀

It is actually a fan on top of that heatsink. I posted this in another thread. The fan helps cool the heatsink.

Details

The attachment 3dfx.jpg is no longer available

But, that fan is mounted inside a round heatsink. Or am I getting blind here? You don't have direct airflow on the big rectangular heat sink with that setup? It looks like a HSF from some other graphics card?

I see what you're seeing, it looks like the fan is probably just affecting the round heatsink it's mounted in rather than the main heatsink.