3DFX card broken? \ VOGONS

3DFX card broken?

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First post, by hungerfish

Posted on 2016-12-03, 14:30

hungerfish Offline

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Hi,
so some time ago I've built myself an old 200mhz pc, sporting 128mb ram, it has a s3 vga card and also a voodoo 1 accelerator board, one of those 'no-name' ones.
I've been trying all sorts of different settings/driver versions etc. to get the voodoo card to function properly, but I'm beginning to think that it maybe broken in some weird way.
When starting a gl-app, glquake for instance (its the same for others, incoming 3dfx carmageddon...) the 3dfx logo appears, but already a strange discolouration is visible.
Its like no textures get rendered, lighting is all messed up, text glyphs too, but apart from that the games run 'fine' (framerate wise).

I'll post some images to illustrate, please excuse their poor quality, but my camera is crap, there is not actual motion blur, the camera is just too slow)

The attachment IMG_20161203_145441.jpg is no longer available

The attachment IMG_20161203_145557.jpg is no longer available

I've been searching around for something similar, have come up empty... so what do youthink? Driver/misconfiguration issue? Or broken hardware?

Call Apogee, Say "Aardwolf"!

Reply 1 of 6, by Jade Falcon

Posted on 2016-12-03, 15:05

Jade Falcon Offline

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Upgraded to the newest 3dfx drivers.
You can get them on falconfly.de or 3dfxzobe.it then report back.

Reply 2 of 6, by anthony

Posted on 2016-12-03, 21:30

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Tmu memory or tmu chip failure. Try to replace memory chip by chip at first, if no result, replace tmu

Reply 3 of 6, by FFXIhealer

Posted on 2016-12-04, 04:19

FFXIhealer Offline

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I had a similar graphical issue. Turns out on the card it was one of the two pixel shader chips that had a few of the connections bent so they touched. Examine all the chips for contacted pins. If they're all ok, then worry about the memory chips themselves. I straightened mine out with a sturdy knife I have that's fairly sharp (read: able to fit between those tiny connectors) and bend them back straight so they aren't touching. Then, I think I let the card sit in a drawer for a few months. After that, the card worked 100% fine ever since.

Reply 4 of 6, by meljor

Posted on 2016-12-04, 18:31

meljor Offline

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FFXIhealer wrote:
I had a similar graphical issue. Turns out on the card it was one of the two pixel shader chips that had a few of the connections bent so they touched. Examine all the chips for contacted pins. If they're all ok, then worry about the memory chips themselves. I straightened mine out with a sturdy knife I have that's fairly sharp (read: able to fit between those tiny connectors) and bend them back straight so they aren't touching. Then, I think I let the card sit in a drawer for a few months. After that, the card worked 100% fine ever since.

Correct. The space between those ''legs'' on the chips is so tiny that they can easily short when some one bumped the card or something. Straightening them fixed some cards for me.

asus tx97-e, 233mmx, voodoo1, s3 virge ,sb16
asus p5a, k6-3+ @ 550mhz, voodoo2 12mb sli, gf2 gts, awe32
asus p3b-f, p3-700, voodoo3 3500TV agp, awe64
asus tusl2-c, p3-S 1,4ghz, voodoo5 5500, live!
asus a7n8x DL, barton cpu, 6800ultra, Voodoo3 pci, audigy1

Reply 5 of 6, by Errius

Posted on 2016-12-04, 18:39

Errius Offline

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That rings a bell. I got a Voodoo2 on eBay some years ago that wouldn't work and I didn't understand why. Looking closely at the pins I could see that some of them were mushed up together. That card must have taken a knock at some time (probably in transit). With a needle I was able to tease apart the pins and it now works great.

Is this too much voodoo?

Reply 6 of 6, by hungerfish

Posted on 2016-12-05, 12:50

hungerfish Offline

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Part of my testing prior to posting was going through all driver versions I could find for the card, with mostly the same results. Sometimes, I can't remember which versions..) the card would not work at all(meaning no acceleration, 1-2fps).
As luck would have it, I actually have two of these cards lying around, the other one is definitely broken somehow (pc wont boo with it installed), but maybe it could be used to salvage from.
I'll take a look at the pins, because its very possible that the card may have been subjected to some pressure or knocks.

Call Apogee, Say "Aardwolf"!

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