I'm not sure a Voodoo1 will work properly on this system. The card has issues with later Pentium II (400MHz) systems and above.

You can use it just fine without an extension cable as others have suggested, a two monitor setup could work for troubleshooting for the time being. I'd try a Glide game such as Tomb Raider and an early Direct3D game, such as say Motoracer 1.

Garrett W wrote on 2020-12-02, 09:31:

I'm not sure a Voodoo1 will work properly on this system. The card has issues with later Pentium II (400MHz) systems and above.

You can use it just fine without an extension cable as others have suggested, a two monitor setup could work for troubleshooting for the time being. I'd try a Glide game such as Tomb Raider and an early Direct3D game, such as say Motoracer 1.

I'm only running DOS, so I tried the Tomb Raider 3Dfx demo, but that didn't work. I can slow down the system using SetMul, but my BIOS does not let me pick a slower FSB than 100 MHz, and the motherboard doesn't have any jumpers either.
Is there any software that will let me set the FSB in DOS? Both the CPU and the motherboard support 66 MHz, but the BIOS won't let me select it.

The VGA extension cable finally arrived. Pass through video works fine with the AGP. However, when I run any glide tests or the 3Dfx Tomb Raider demo I get a "no signal" on my monitor. Using SetMul or reducing the RAM clock doesn't seem to make any difference. I guess the Diamond Monster 3D Voodoo 1 card really doesn't like the 100 MHz FSB. Oh, well. So much for my first foray into the land of Voodoo. The card is NOS so should hopefully keep well in storage, until I can find a use for it.

enaiel wrote on 2020-12-04, 23:06:

The VGA extension cable finally arrived. Pass through video works fine with the AGP. However, when I run any glide tests or the 3Dfx Tomb Raider demo I get a "no signal" on my monitor. Using SetMul or reducing the RAM clock doesn't seem to make any difference. I guess the Diamond Monster 3D Voodoo 1 card really doesn't like the 100 MHz FSB. Oh, well. So much for my first foray into the land of Voodoo. The card is NOS so should hopefully keep well in storage, until I can find a use for it.

I use a voodoo1 in a ss7 system with k6-3+. I use voodoo2 sli in my s370 rig. Can you reduce fsb with jumpers?

kolderman wrote on 2020-12-04, 23:10:

I use a voodoo1 in a ss7 system with k6-3+. I use voodoo2 sli in my s370 rig. Can you reduce fsb with jumpers?

This motherboard doesn't have any jumpers sadly. Everything is controlled from the BIOS.

Added a new piece of hardware to the build - a Roland SC-7! I was hoping to use it to mix the output of the YMF744, but the input volume is very low, no matter whether I use Input 1 or 2, and no matter what I set the Input 1 Level knob to. Ended up adding the SC-7 to the line-in of the YMF744 via a stereo splitter. Been listening to a few old MIDIs, and it sounds great!

Via C3 CPUs are excellent for retro PCS. I have a Nehemiah 1.2ghz. It has better floating point than the Ezra which helps a lot with quake and other software game. I get roughly similar performance to a 600mhz pentium 3 at full speed.

FASTVID does nothing for me but MTRRLFBE with the "LC WC" flags on my quadro FX card roughly doubles my performance in PC bench and increases my frame rate from 45fps to 60 fps in quake at 640x480.

mothergoose729 wrote on 2021-04-21, 21:30:

Via C3 CPUs are excellent for retro PCS. I have a Nehemiah 1.2ghz. It has better floating point than the Ezra which helps a lot with quake and other software game. I get roughly similar performance to a 600mhz pentium 3 at full speed.

FASTVID does nothing for me but MTRRLFBE with the "LC WC" flags on my quadro FX card roughly doubles my performance in PC bench and increases my frame rate from 45fps to 60 fps in quake at 640x480.

Agree, the VIA C3 has been super compatible and works great with the SETMUL utility. Unfortunately for me, MTRRLFBE LFB WC increases my framerate from 16fps to only 20fps in Quake at 640x480.

And I still have the problem that my Voodoo 1 won't work with this motherboard. Have tried everything I could think of, but it seems that some Voodoo 1 cards simply won't work with some motherboards 🙁.

I have a couple of questions regarding the SC-7:

1. Is there any battery that needs to be changed like in the SC-55? I couldn't find anything in the manual, and I'm guessing since it doesn't have any settings that it doesn't need one, but I just wanted to confirm.

2. For games that use General MIDI, is there any difference between SC-55 and SC-7? I can understand for games that specify SC-55 or MT-32 and the like that there would be a major difference, but for General MIDI, do the games detect the MIDI module and play different music? For example, does DOOM music sound different on a SC-7 vs a SC-55?

Thanks!

I hate this hobby! I just splurged again, this time on a Diamond Monster Voodoo2 8MB card. The Voodoo2 was a bit of a squeeze into this tiny mATX case. So I took a fan, reversed it, and attached it to the front of the case with duct tape to help with the airflow.

Unlike the Voodoo 1, this card worked fine with 100 MHz FSB. Tested Tomb Raider 3dfx demo, as well as Tomb Raider and Unfinished Business with the batch file from here and the tomb3dfx.exe from the Tomb Raider Gold CD, and they all worked fine. Tomb Raider also worked with tombrush.exe also from the same CD and the glide2x.ovl from the Diamond drivers available here.

A voodoo2 is always good to splurge on 😉

You're only inches away from buying that Gravis Ultrasound card. And then a Roland MT32. And then another Sound Canvas 55 or 88. And then.. ah you know where this is going.

Hezus wrote on 2021-05-18, 08:18:

A voodoo2 is always good to splurge on 😉

You're only inches away from buying that Gravis Ultrasound card. And then a Roland MT32. And then another Sound Canvas 55 or 88. And then.. ah you know where this is going.

Ha ha ha, that's so true! I've already spent 4x the amount I had budgeted, but I had never experienced Voodoo graphics cards, or Roland sound modules, or even Gravis Gamepads before. I think I can finally consider this build complete.

I considered upgrading the VIA C3 1.0 GHz Ezra CPU to a 1.2 GHz Nehemiah, but then I wouldn't get the nice 486 and P1 speeds with SETMUL.EXE. And anyway, now with the Voodoo2 I get a cool 65 FPS in QDOS so I don't need the proper FPU of the Nehemiah. I also considered getting a Slot1 i440BX board for the FSB options with SMB.EXE, but it seems an impossible task to find one in a mATX form factor along with an appropriate Slotket that supports Cu and Tu P3s. Not being able to take the FSB down to 66MHz means I cannot use the Voodoo 1, and I get some animations in certain games that go too fast. But I guess I can live with that, considering everything else this build covers.

Been enjoying listening to a variety of music files on this DOS pc:

• MOD, S3M, XM and IT module files using OpenCP
• MIDI files using GSPlay for SC-7, AWEPlay for AWE64, and OpenCP with GUS patches (No GUS required)
• VGM files with OPLX music using SBVGM
• AT2 and RAD OPLX tracker modules using Adlib Tracker II

I don't care much for the ROL and CMF files out there - most are pretty crappy.

I've attached recordings of my favourite MIDI file of all time (JUMP.MID) using SC-7, AWE64 and OpenCP. I didn't do any OPLX recording because playing this MIDI file with any OPLX soundbank sounds absolutely terrible, probably because of it's extremely high polyphony.

Been also playing a bunch of 3D games using the Voodoo 2, something I had never experienced before. I also finally bought a ViRGE card too (STB Nitro 3D S3 ViRGE GX 4MB), so I could finally run Tomb Raider and Descent II using S3D and compare with the Voodoo 2. Fun times!

enaiel wrote on 2020-11-02, 23:48:

built the new retro DOS PC with the following specs: […]
Show full quote

built the new retro DOS PC with the following specs:

• Motherboard: MSI MS-6368 mATX Socket 370
• Chipset: VIA PLE133T
• CPU: VIA C3-1.0AGHz CPU Ezra 1000MHz 1GHz 100x10 1.45V
• PSU: FSP300-60GHS 300W
• RAM: SDRAM 133 MHz 64 MB
• Video: Trident Blade 2D/3D IGP (Onboard)
• Video: Gainward CardExpert S3 ViRGE TRIO64V2/DX 4MB
• Video: STB Nitro 3D S3 ViRGE GX PCI 4MB
• Video: Trident Blade 2D/3D IGP (Onboard)
• Video: Diamond Monster 3D II 3Dfx Voodoo2 PCI 8MB
• Audio: Sound Blaster Pro (Onboard)
• Audio: PC Speaker (Onboard)
• Audio: AOpen Cobra AW744L II [YMF744]
• Audio: Sound Blaster AWE64 [CT4520]
• MIDI: Roland SC-7
• FDD: 3.5" 1.44 MB
• CDROM: DVD-RW LITE-ON LDW-811S 8x
• HDD: Syba CF to IDE Adapter + CF to SDCARD Adapter + 64GB MicroSD
• ZIP: Iomega Zip 100
• NIC: Realtek 8100 Fast Ethernet Controller [RTL8100] (Onboard)
• Keyboard: Logitech Y-BE22
• Mouse: Logitech M-BE58
• Joy: Gravis Gamepad x 2

So far it has been completely rock solid. I have an abundance of highly compatible sound and video options, and the ability to slowdown the CPU to 386 and 486 levels. Everything I've thrown at it works so far. The only drawback of this build is that late DOS 3D games like Quake and Tomb Raider are much slower than on the P3, and FASTVID and MTRRLFBE have no discernable effect. I ended up spending around $250 $320 $430 $450 instead of my original budget of $100, but I'm super happy with the results. Thanks to everyone at Vogons for all their invaluable help! I will post in more detail about different aspects of this build.

Hello,

I found exactly the same motherboard locally and contemplating to purchase it for a similar purpose - early to mid Dos gaming. The existing board however comes with a P3 processor. Is a C3 processor required for obtaining the various speed steps or could the same be achieved partly with a P3 (atleast through Throttle) ? Please let me know your thoughts. Thanks.

stealthjoe wrote on 2021-11-30, 14:43:

Hello,

I found exactly the same motherboard locally and contemplating to purchase it for a similar purpose - early to mid Dos gaming. The existing board however comes with a P3 processor. Is a C3 processor required for obtaining the various speed steps or could the same be achieved partly with a P3 (atleast through Throttle) ? Please let me know your thoughts. Thanks.

Hey,

It's a great little motherboard! It just lacks an AGP port, and any ability to lower the FSB. Without the ability to lower the FSB it won't work with a Voodoo 1, but otherwise it's pretty solid.

The C3 processor is required for the speed steps. I did try to use a P3 and Throttle (or CpuSPD) with a different motherboard in my first DOS PC attempt, but it really only worked for late DOS games. The P3 could only go too fast, or too slow (with L1 Cache disabled). Throttle didn't give enough control to get older games to work. I feel Throttle works better when you are near the range of desired frequency, and you need to just slow it a little. So C3 + Throttle / CPuSpd is really the ideal combination for DOS games.

Regarding C3 processors, there are two options: Ezra-T 1.0 GHz, or Nehemiah 1.2+ GHz. The Ezra-T is better for DOS games as it has 15 speed steps, but also has a borked FPU that limits it's performance in Quake. The Nehemiah is much faster, has a better FPU, but it doesn't have as many steps. The Nehemiah is also more expensive, but if you want both DOS and Win98, Nehemiah is the way to go.

Hope that helps!

enaiel wrote on 2021-11-30, 21:10:

Hey, […]
Show full quote

Hey,

It's a great little motherboard! It just lacks an AGP port, and any ability to lower the FSB. Without the ability to lower the FSB it won't work with a Voodoo 1, but otherwise it's pretty solid.

The C3 processor is required for the speed steps. I did try to use a P3 and Throttle (or CpuSPD) with a different motherboard in my first DOS PC attempt, but it really only worked for late DOS games. The P3 could only go too fast, or too slow (with L1 Cache disabled). Throttle didn't give enough control to get older games to work. I feel Throttle works better when you are near the range of desired frequency, and you need to just slow it a little. So C3 + Throttle / CPuSpd is really the ideal combination for DOS games.

Regarding C3 processors, there are two options: Ezra-T 1.0 GHz, or Nehemiah 1.2+ GHz. The Ezra-T is better for DOS games as it has 15 speed steps, but also has a borked FPU that limits it's performance in Quake. The Nehemiah is much faster, has a better FPU, but it doesn't have as many steps. The Nehemiah is also more expensive, but if you want both DOS and Win98, Nehemiah is the way to go.

Hope that helps!

Thank you enaiel. It is indeed very helpful. Have requested the seller for a 1 Ghz Ezra. Just curious as to whether we require 1 Ghz as a minimum or could we achieve the speed steps using a lower clocked C3 733 or 800 Mhz Nehemiah as these seem to be the only ones available on ebay (which have shipping to my country). Thank you again!

All ezras speed step nicely.

kolderman wrote on 2021-12-01, 02:33:

All ezras speed step nicely.

Thanks kolderman. However, only Nehemiahs are available on ebay for shippping to my country. Some listings don't specify whether Ezra or Nehemiah. Any idea how to differentiate as both types look similar on the cap?

stealthjoe wrote on 2021-12-01, 03:23:

kolderman wrote on 2021-12-01, 02:33:

All ezras speed step nicely.

Thanks kolderman. However, only Nehemiahs are available on ebay for shippping to my country. Some listings don't specify whether Ezra or Nehemiah. Any idea how to differentiate as both types look similar on the cap?

If there is a long id string and you search for it, cpu-world might have it registered and tell you.