VOGONS


Voodoo5 + Voodoo1 Combo

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First post, by Stef

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Hi folks! 😀

I have this retro machine...

- AMD Thunderbird 1333 mhz
- Voodoo 5
- SoundBlaster Live
- CRT Monitor
- Windows ME

...and it has been like that, since... forever. No complains.

Recently I, rather accidentally, came in possession of Voodoo 1 GFX and I still remember some very old Glide games from long time ago, that I never managed to 3D accelerate since those required Voodoo1 (or "modded" Voodoo2 which I didn't know about at the time when I had it). So I want to put this one in use and finally see some of those games 3D accelerated. There is some reckoning satisfaction in that too 😀 Plus, it's nice to make this retro machine even more compatible.

I have red several topics here, that are about having multiple Voodoo GFXs for best compatibility, but I still have some questions:

- It is emphasized that Add-On Voodoo card drivers (in my case Voodoo1) should be installed first, and then drivers for 2D/3D card (Voodoo5), last. I maintain the health of the system by using Norton Ghost utility since forever (as far as I am concerned, THE most useful utility, proven to me countless times), thus whenever something goes wrong with OS, I just take a couple of minutes to restore the healthy image of system partition and everything is in order once again. This means however that Voodoo5 remains the first installed card and I am really not fan of re-installing the whole system just because there doesn't seem to be a "normal" way to fully uninstall V5 drivers. Also whole system is kinda like museum, so restoring all after fresh installation would be a hassle. Is there something I can do about this? Like just installing V1 drivers regardless, and then immediately install V5 drivers again on top of it (run "Repair" in 3dfx Tools) or this is known bad idea in the long run for whatever reason?

- Which drivers for Voodoo1 should I install for best compatibility? Can latest ones -- voodoo1-30100 -- do? It looks to me that noone complained around here with those, except possible lack of D3D.

- Assuming I do not have VGA switcher, does that mean there is no other way but to daisy-chain V1 to V5 over the VGA cable, where monitor would be connected to Voodoo1 permanently instead to Voodoo5 (I read that there could be some problems with such config, although I do not remember any during my Voodoo2 days which was paired with S3 Virge), or there is some other solution?

- Finally, the first of these problematic games, I intend to try to run in Glide, is Pandemonium 1. Any possible tips for game to finally recognize Voodoo card during installation, in combo like this, would be welcome.

Reply 1 of 20, by meljor

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Yes, that combination will work fine. Like you said: if you don't want to do a fresh installation then install the v1 and after that the v5 again. The v5 will be your operating system's choice of card for 2d and 3d that way while older glide games will work on the v1. If not, copy the glide.dll and glide.ovl files directly in the game's folder and it should work.

Beware: the 1333mhz system CAN be a problem for the v1. They do not like fast systems sometimes. Some people have few to no problems but for example my tualatin 1400mhz was to fast for any of the six v1 cards i tested and they gave me a black screen in 3d, same thing with voodoo rush when using 3d on that system. All of these cards work perfectly fine on slower systems.

Some people only have problems in certain games or just a few glitches. These things do not happen with a 400mhz or slower cpu, so problems are certainly cpu related.

Sometimes it's the high clockspeed, sometimes the fast fsb and sometimes both that creates the problem. Just try it out, hopefully it works for you.

asus tx97-e, 233mmx, voodoo1, s3 virge ,sb16
asus p5a, k6-3+ @ 550mhz, voodoo2 12mb sli, gf2 gts, awe32
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asus tusl2-c, p3-S 1,4ghz, voodoo5 5500, live!
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Reply 2 of 20, by Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman

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meljor wrote:

Yes, that combination will work fine. Like you said: if you don't want to do a fresh installation then install the v1 and after that the v5 again. The v5 will be your operating system's choice of card for 2d and 3d that way while older glide games will work on the v1. If not, copy the glide.dll and glide.ovl files directly in the game's folder and it should work.

One has to specifically put the V1's GLide DLL files in the game's folder so the game would use V1, otherwise the game will use whatever version of GLide in WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 directory.

Never thought this thread would be that long, but now, for something different.....
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Reply 3 of 20, by Stef

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Yeah, driver juggling appears to have passed well, despite Voodoo5 was installed first. And just as you warned me, meljor, I hit "too-fast-CPU" problem next.

Pandemonium 1 seems to refuse to work on frequencies this high and as soon as it switches to Glide, just mess up the screen and crashes the system. I used CPU-Killer utility to check if CPU was culprit and indeed it was. About 30% performance less, and game starts fine in Glide (I even didn't have to copy Glide libraries to game dir). In my experience, CPU slowing utilities are useless and gaming with one in the background is just impossible, but these programs are not bad for diagnostics and debugging. So... I proceeded to bios and downclocked the CPU. 1000 mhz still didn't work but 800 mhz did the trick 😀

Just to add, unlike in this topic...

Running Pandemonium in Glide

...I didn't have the problem with game's sudden speed ups under Glide, while those speed ups were present previously in software mode (making it nearly impossible to play). And also, game still doesn't recognize Voodoo card during installation, so I had to manually copy pandy3.exe from CD into game dir (kinda makes me wonder what else this game requires to finally recognize Voodoo card on its own) 😀

All in all, this combo stuff has been overall success, for now 😀

Reply 4 of 20, by PhilsComputerLab

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Incoming and Expendable will show texture errors at 400+ MHZ. I saw it in Turok also.

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Reply 5 of 20, by Stef

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PhilsComputerLab wrote:

Incoming and Expendable will show texture errors at 400+ MHZ. I saw it in Turok also.

Expendable and Incoming work just fine on Voodoo5, so I guess any Voodoo card will do. I was playing Incoming again, on this system, long time ago. Only problem was that game worked too fast, but there is an official patch that solves that one.

Reply 6 of 20, by PhilsComputerLab

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Yup absolutely. I just remember seeing these two games, both by Rage, have issues on the V1 with a fast CPU.

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Reply 7 of 20, by Tetrium

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PhilsComputerLab wrote:

Incoming and Expendable will show texture errors at 400+ MHZ. I saw it in Turok also.

Another good reason for me to build me a Pentium 1 rig, I've been wanting to replay Turok for years now!

I suppose this speed problem won't be an issue when using a Voodoo 2? I apparently have a single 8MB Voodoo 2 laying around which I could one day try out to see how Voodoo 1 games will run on it.

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Reply 8 of 20, by Gamecollector

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Tetrium wrote:

I suppose this speed problem won't be an issue when using a Voodoo 2?

Unfortunanely no.
If you use any versions of voodoo2 w9x drivers except 3.02.02 (last version) and 3.03.00b - the initialization of Voodoo2 fails. 3.02.02 and 3.03.00b are ok. W2k drivers 1.02.00 are ok too, I have used them with Q45 Express + C2D E8400 + WinXpPro Sp3.
The trouble is - glide 2.1.1 and earlier games will fail. Both DOS (=statically linked) and Win32 (glide.dll + sst1init.dll). Can't detect / initialize the card because the CPU is too fast.

Last edited by Gamecollector on 2016-12-03, 15:40. Edited 1 time in total.

Asus P4P800 SE/Pentium4 3.2E/2 Gb DDR400B,
Radeon HD3850 Agp (Sapphire), Catalyst 14.4 (XpProSp3).
Voodoo2 12 MB SLI, Win2k drivers 1.02.00 (XpProSp3).

Reply 9 of 20, by Jade Falcon

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PhilsComputerLab wrote:

Yup absolutely. I just remember seeing these two games, both by Rage, have issues on the V1 with a fast CPU.

Can people stop beating this dead horse already? Its buss speeds that's the problem and not cpu speed. All 3dfx cards prier to the vsa-100 have problems with higher then stock pci buss speeds

If a fast cpu was a problem with voodoo 1 and 2's then GlideXP and GlideXP_64 would not work.

Last edited by Jade Falcon on 2016-12-02, 16:24. Edited 2 times in total.

Reply 10 of 20, by havli

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Uhm... no
Voodoos have no issues running at overclocked PCI/AGP... or well, not worse issues than any other GPU. At very least Banshee / V2 / V3 can run out-of-spec PCI/AGP just fine. How about V3 AGP at 133MHz i440BX board (AGP @ 89MHz)? No problem at all.

V1 indeed has problem with fast CPU. Many years ago at local czech forum we had research thread concerning this matter - in general any Pentium / MMX / Pro should be fine. Pentium II and early PIII most likely as well. Faster PIII might depend on MB/chipset used. Early P4 with 8xx chipsets might work, any 9xx series chipsets / LGA 775 and later are a no go (including VIA PT880). AMD platforms are even more problematic, even K6-2 might not work properly... not to mention anything faster.

To some extent the key might be drivers. http://www.falconfly.de/voodoo1.htm 3dfx Voodoo1 V3.01.00 in my experience works on Intel systems but not K6-2 and up (immediate lockup). On the other hand 3dfx Voodoo1 V3.00.01 was just fine even on K6-2 450 system. At the time I didn't test it on K7... so not sure about Athlon. Another interesting thing is you can use V3.00.01 and copy both glide2x/3x and 3dfxOGL from the latest driver and games still work on K6-2. The issue must be related to some other part of the driver, not glide or OGL.

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Reply 11 of 20, by Jade Falcon

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I used to run a voodoo1 on a AMD AthlonXP system for years and never once had a problem. I even had a voodoo 2 sli setup in that system for a wile, the problem is buss speeds, when out of spec odd things can happen with a lot of older 3dfx cards. the voodoo3 can handle slightly higher then stock agp buss speeds but the voodoo1 just doesn't like buss speeds over 33mhz on newer systems.

Infact I had plenty of 3dfx cards in new systems, everything from p4 to i7 setups. Not once did I have a problem with a voodoo1 or 2.
No odd rendering problems, no blank screen, no overheating voodoo2, Nothing. The only time I ever had such problems with a 3dfx card is when the PCI buss was overclocked.

Reply 12 of 20, by havli

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Well, for me V1 on AXP never worked. And I'm 100% sure it wasn't bus speed issue (running at stock settings). V2 (SLI) is ok on most systems (except nForce4 maybe)... but V1 simply isn't.

Not that it matters much in case of V1 - it is simply too slow to deliver playable framerate... not to mention 640x480 resolution, ugh.

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Reply 13 of 20, by firage

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It's expected that XP and 2K drivers act differently from 9x and DOS drivers in this regard.

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Reply 14 of 20, by meljor

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Thank you havli, i didn't know it was also driver related. Will test this soon.

A while ago i had problems with some of my voodoo's while benching them on a p3-s 1400 (Asus tusl2-c). None of the v1's worked and even a banshee agp and my voodoo rush gave problems.
Even clocking down to 66fsb/700mhz didn't solve this problem on that board. V2 and up gave no problems and all other cards worked fine as well. For sure pci was in-spec and cards were fine.

Some people have no problems on much faster systems, so maybe they used a different driver? As i said, i will test this out soon.

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 15 of 20, by havli

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Yeah, driver can make a difference. Btw - maybe it is just me 😊 but Asus Cusl2/Tusl2 and P3B-F both gave me a lot of issues using Voodoos. After all these years I'm not really sure - it was V3 and maybe V1 too... random crashes and instability.

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Reply 16 of 20, by meljor

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See my sig below, i mainly use Asus and have zero troubles other than Tusl2-c and older 3dfx.
P2b and p3b-f run great with 3000 and 3500tv.

V1 i use with p1 mmx and works fine on tx97-e.

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 17 of 20, by KT7AGuy

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Hi! I just thought I would chime in because I run a system with a Voodoo 3 3000 AGP combined with an Orchid Righteous 3D Voodoo 1 card.

ABIT BM6 Motherboard
Celeron 600 at 66mhz FSB
384MB PC100 RAM

This is actually my 2nd oldest originally-owned and custom-built system still in my collection. The other is my now-upgraded P233. I built and used an ABIT BH6 with a Celeron 300A between these two, but it overheated and died while overclocked on a hot day in the late 90s. I replaced that system with the BM6/Cel600 that I'm talking about here. At the time, the BM6 seemed like a good replacement for the BH6. (It wasn't. The BH6 is far more flexible and compatible. The BM6 isn't a bad board, provided you know its limitations.)

Anyway, It works fine and it doesn't matter which set of drivers you install first because you can't use them at the same time anyway. For example, if I want to run something with the V3 card, I need to reinstall the V3 drivers to make it the "active" card. If I want to run something with the V1 card, then I need to reinstall the V1 drivers to make that card "active". It's annoying to have to do this, but it's a sacrifice I gladly make to have the convenience of a V1 in the same system as a V3. I have 100% GLIDE compatibility with this setup, including the old static-link games.

I have heard that V1 cards don't like to be run above 66mhz FSB. I don't know if this is actually true or not because I just don't do it; because I have no need to do it.

A few years back I decided to re-create my old BH6 system, only this time I used a BH6 v1.1 and paired it with a kickass P3 1000 at 100mhz FSB. This system has a V3 3500 and a Canopus Pure3D V1 card. The BH6 only supports the P3 1000 by manually setting the FSB to 100mhz, but this is a feature - not a bug. I can also manually set the FSB to 66mhz for full V1 compatibility with the CPU at 660mhz.

I don't run the 3dfx reference drivers with my cards. I use the official Orchid and Canopus drivers. They seem to give me good results.

A comment about the V3 and scaling:
I can only comment about my personal experience, but it seems like the V3 doesn't scale well beyond 600mhz. Red Baron 3D FCJ runs the same on my BM6/Cel600 as it does on the BH6/P1000 as it does on my IBM NetVista P3 1000 at 133mhz FSB. I haven't really made notice of any other games.

The Voodoo 5 is supposed to scale quite well with faster CPUs.

While I'm a big fan of KT7A boards and Athlon 1400 CPUs, I've never tried my V1 cards in any of those systems. However, I do run V2 cards in SLI in those systems without any problems. FastVoodoo2 drivers are the best.

Reply 18 of 20, by Gamecollector

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KT7AGuy wrote:

For example, if I want to run something with the V3 card, I need to reinstall the V3 drivers to make it the "active" card. If I want to run something with the V1 card, then I need to reinstall the V1 drivers to make that card "active".

Just install V1 drivers then V3 drivers. Then you will get both cards in ddraw / d3d and Voodoo3 in glide.
If the game needs Voodoo Graphics then copy Voodoo Graphics glide2x.dll (or glide3x.dll) to the game .exe directory.
I use the similar method to switch between Voodoo2 SLI and nGlide on my test PC.

Asus P4P800 SE/Pentium4 3.2E/2 Gb DDR400B,
Radeon HD3850 Agp (Sapphire), Catalyst 14.4 (XpProSp3).
Voodoo2 12 MB SLI, Win2k drivers 1.02.00 (XpProSp3).

Reply 19 of 20, by PhilsComputerLab

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Jade Falcon wrote:

Can people stop beating this dead horse already? Its buss speeds that's the problem and not cpu speed. All 3dfx cards prier to the vsa-100 have problems with higher then stock pci buss speeds

I've actually tested this quite thoroughly. I certainly did not run the PCI bus out of spec. You are basically implying I overclocked something, which isn't the case.

Could you please try Incoming and Expendable on your Athlon XP system with the V1? Those games worked best for me to show the issue.

And older post of mine with some screenshots of the issue: 3dfx Voodoo vs. Voodoo 2 - This might help you make a choice!

If a fast cpu was a problem with voodoo 1 and 2's then GlideXP and GlideXP_64 would not work.

I don't know Glide XP, but it's likely some sort of wrapper. I don't see how that proves anything to be honest.

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