http://falconfly.de/voodoo3.htm
try v1.05. I'm fairly sure that's what worked with my 486 when I did this a few years ago. If not, try older.

Thanks for the help dude. I wasn't able to get 1.05 going as the newer 3dfx tools needed IE4 SP1 or later, but 1.04 worked fine.

I may have a theory why newer 3DFX drivers didn't work, only speculation really... but when I tried to install DirectX 8.0a on the machine, the install failed saying it required a Pentium or K6 processor. Could be that the DirectX 8 optimizations in later Voodoo3 drivers are incompatible with 486 instructions and the system failed when trying to load DirectDraw or something.

Even with the driver though the Voodoo3 didn't make GLQuake remotely playable, it's almost slower than the DOS mode@640x480, 🤣. The moral of the story is a 3DFX card of any type is useless under a 486. Woo, pointless endeavours!

Thanks!
-MaX

It's not the card's fault, Quake is hopeless on any kind of 486, regardless of how fantastic the video card may be.

To it's merit, Quake appears to be playable at 320x240 under DOS, but it's something I think I'd rather be playing on my K6-2 instead.

Welcome to the forum by the way 😀
So, Quake is not remotely playable with a 3D card huh? Me and Markk were going to try some 3D games on a Am5x86 @ 166MHz and two Voodoo 2 cards, but we haven't given it a try yet.
I seem to remember leileilol to have some success with some games though!

You should see a 40% boost in Quake performance when using a properly configured Cyrix 5x86-133 as compared to an AMD DX4-120. Even an AMD X5-160 will gain you 30%. I don't think the Voodoo will be of much help compared to other decent graphics cards of the time though.

Thanks for the welcome!
I think when it comes to Quake I might just leave the 486 as is and play Quake on the K6. I've been trying to keep to the "486" label on the chips (since anything faster is 5x86 branded), although if I ever found a 5x86 of some sort I'll defintely pop it in to try it.

As for other Graphics cards that might do 3D on a 486, are there some better options? I have a couple other cards/3D boards:
ATI 3D Xpression+ PC2TV
Voodoo1 4mb
Voodoo2 8mb and 12mb
Voodoo4 4500
Matrox M3D (PowerVR PCX2)
Might also be able to get an older GeForce or Radeon PCI card as well.

Voodoo is probably the best choice because Glide is a rather efficient 3D API and almost all pre-2000 3D games were basically designed for it. The bottleneck is the CPU and the system platform. There isn't enough memory performance and the CPUs are just too slow.

Voodoo1 has performance to spare up to about a P3-450 in my experience. It depends on the complexity of the game, but Unreal for example will show this I think.

Personally, I would avoid K6 for 3D games too. It is no competition for P2/P3 there. I know K6 has a lot of fans because it was a nice, cheap option back in the late '90s, but it has a weak FPU and a poor memory subsystem and it really shows in 3D games. I've found that K6-3+ @ 600 MHz loses against a 450 MHz P3.

Well, for games like Quake, I think I'll leave for the K6-2. My K6-266 was my main box back then in 98-00, and a good backup after up upgrading to a K6-2 500/Voodoo3 in 2001, so I have a sentimental soft spot for it and runs everything fine (a bit sluggish on QIIIA at higher res maybe). I know the FPU's are weak but I've never had a big issue as long as all the 3DNow patches are in place.

I could always take out the Athlon 550, but that things just so darn noisy.

I built a Slot A setup myself somewhat recently, first such box I've ever had. The Athlon 700's fan is very loud too so I experimented with running the fan on lower voltage. The 7v fan mod seems to keep it cool enough and it's much quieter.

I had my Slot A Athlon 550 since it was new, same fan it's always had (Global Win OEM fan) but it's always been noisy. That said, it doesn't run warm, and I have a couple of modified 5v fan connectors, I might give one a try.

swaaye wrote:

Voodoo is probably the best choice because Glide is a rather efficient 3D API and almost all pre-2000 3D games were basically designed for it. The bottleneck is the CPU and the system platform. There isn't enough memory performance and the CPUs are just too slow.

Voodoo1 has performance to spare up to about a P3-450 in my experience. It depends on the complexity of the game, but Unreal for example will show this I think.

Personally, I would avoid K6 for 3D games too. It is no competition for P2/P3 there. I know K6 has a lot of fans because it was a nice, cheap option back in the late '90s, but it has a weak FPU and a poor memory subsystem and it really shows in 3D games. I've found that K6-3+ @ 600 MHz loses against a 450 MHz P3.

Isn't a Voodoo 3 overkill in a 486/5x86 system, though? You're never going to see the full potential of the V3 unlocked with that CPU.

What I said was if he wants to use a 3D board in a 486, a Voodoo is the best choice. Voodoo is almost always the best practical choice. Of course even a Voodoo1 will be horribly bottlenecked.

I'm thinking that with a 486 the DOS Glide games for Voodoo1 might run OK. Particularly the simple Glide reworks like Descent 2, Shadow Warrior, Whiplash 3D, etc. Games that are low on geometric complexity.

The Voodoo3 was in there originally because it's a spare card and I needed a card in the 486. I'm thinking I might soon pop it out and toss in my ATI 3D Xpression+ PC2TV, mainly because of Win3.1x driver support and TV-Out (could use it for recording gaming videos to put vids on Youtube).

I don't have any of the aformentioned games, However now I'm curious if NFSIIse would run on it.... hmm...

I use version 1.03 for DX6. There is 1.03 for DX7 and 1.04, 1.05 for DX7, but I did not notice any speed improvement on a 486.

What frame rates did you get with GLQuake?