I managed to find out the PLL used in my QDI A10T motherboard - it's a Cypress CY28316 . And it's supported by CPUFSB!
Unfortunately, it only lets me overclock - it hangs when I try 100 or 66 MHz, but works fine at 150 MHz. The CPU speed went up to 1.35 GHz. 3DMark2000 score increased to 6471 from 5956 and 3DMark2001SE increased to 5276 from 4719. A decent jump in performance.

Got a replacement Voodoo 3 3000 PCI. It was slightly cheaper because it was an "arcade" version, but all that meant was that it had an extra bracket that was easy to remove. Using the bracket fan to keep it cool. Initial tests seem to indicate that is working fine.

enaiel wrote on 2022-02-17, 22:52:

Got a replacement Voodoo 3 3000 PCI. It was slightly cheaper because it was an "arcade" version, but all that meant was that it had an extra bracket that was easy to remove. Using the bracket fan to keep it cool. Initial tests seem to indicate that is working fine.

Nice find!

mothergoose729 wrote on 2022-02-17, 23:35:

Nice find!

Thanks, was just plain lucky. The card wasn't even labeled as 3dfx or Voodoo in the listing. Also, was pretty happy that I was able to switch between the Voodoo 3 and the GF4 Ti4200 without having to maintain two copies of Win98. It takes a couple of reboots for the drivers to fully switch, but it does switch.

Did some benchmarking:

The difference is to be expected of course. So what are the good games to use the Voodoo 3 over the GF4 Ti4200? Unreal, UT, the NFS series, Tomb Raider 2, MDK 2, Thief 1/2. Any others?

The Tualatin 1.26 GHz CPU had a bunch of bent pins, so it took me a while to straighten them out. Put it in today, crossed my fingers, and it booted up. Ran some benchmarks to compare against the Nehemiah 1.2 GHz CPU.

A massive jump in performance, making it obvious that GF4 Ti4200 was being bottlenecked by the Nehemiah. The 3DMark2000 scores are unusually high.

Since I already have an Ezra-T based DOS PC, I have decided to stick with the Tualatin for this Win98 PC. The Nehemiah will remain a backup option if I want to add support for DOS.

The final configuration of this PC is below:

• Motherboard: QDI Legend Advance 10T ATX Socket370 [P6V694T/A10T]
• Chipset: VIA PRO133T / 694T [VT82C694T + VT82C686B]
• CPU: Intel Pentium III-S Tualitin 1.266GHz 512/133 [SL6BX]
• Cooler: StarTech FAN3701U Cooler w/ Copper Heatsink
• PSU: Seasonic 350W ATX12V 80 PLUS [SS-350ET]
• RAM: 512MB PC133 133 MHz SDRAM
• Video: MSI MS-8894 NVIDIA GeForce 4 Ti 4200 64MB AGP [Ti4200-VTD8X]
• Video: 3DFX Voodoo 3 3000 16MB PCI
• Audio: Sound Blaster Audigy 1 PCI [SB0090]
• MIDI: Roland SoundCanvas SC-50
• FDD: NEC FD1231M 3.5" 1.44 MB
• CD/DVD: NEC ND-1100A DVD-RW 4x
• HDD: SD to IDE Adapter + 64GB MicroSD + Custom 3D printed floppy drive bay from some guy on eBay
• USB: USB 2.0 w/ HD Audio 3.5mm Floppy Bay Front Panel + 3.5-Inch to 5.25-Inch Front Bay Converter
• ZIP: Iomega Zip 250
• Case: HEC 7106BB
• Monitor: DELL 2007FP LCD
• Keyboard: Logitech Y-BE22
• Mouse: Logitech M-BE58
• Joy: Gravis Gamepad
• Joy: Saitek P880 Gamepad

enaiel wrote on 2022-02-18, 03:14:

So what are the good games to use the Voodoo 3 over the GF4 Ti4200? Unreal, UT, the NFS series, Tomb Raider 2, MDK 2, Thief 1/2. Any others?

Anything based on the Unreal / UT engine runs better and looks nicer using Glide. Rune and Deus Ex are some prominent examples.

As a general rule, if a game offers both Glide and Direct3D as possible renderer choices, you should always pick Glide. Even some later Win9x games like Diablo 2 are subject to this.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-02-23, 22:01:

Anything based on the Unreal / UT engine runs better and looks nicer using Glide. Rune and Deus Ex are some prominent examples.

As a general rule, if a game offers both Glide and Direct3D as possible renderer choices, you should always pick Glide. Even some later Win9x games like Diablo 2 are subject to this.

Thanks, going to try out some of the glide native games on this list: https://www.zeus-software.com/downloads/nglide/compatibility
Surprisingly, many games that offer 3dfx support are not actually glide native.

BTW, my 3DMark scores with the Tualatin 1.26GHz seem unusually high, considering it's not a 1.4GHz, and I'm using a VIA chipset. The scores, except for 3DMark99, are even comparable to your scores with an AthlonXP. I'm very confused. Can someone explain what's going on here?

Benchmarks run with default settings:

enaiel wrote on 2022-02-24, 03:45:

Surprisingly, many games that offer 3dfx support are not actually glide native.

Yeah, I would avoid using a Voodoo card with non-native games, simply because you can usually get an even better result on the GeForce4. I'm mostly thinking of MiniGL games like Quake 1/2/3, Half-Life and such. Sometimes there's an edge case where a Direct3D game like Thief2 renders better on a Voodoo card, but those are the exceptions, not the norm.

BTW, my 3DMark scores with the Tualatin 1.26GHz seem unusually high, considering it's not a 1.4GHz, and I'm using a VIA chipset. The scores, except for 3DMark99, are even comparable to your scores with an AthlonXP. I'm very confused. Can someone explain what's going on here?

As mentioned in that thread, I was initially running my AthlonXP 1700+ at 12.5x100 when I took those benchmarks, since my older PSU wasn't up to spec. Also, different driver and DirectX versions can impact 3D Mark scores by a few hundred points. I don't consider it a very reliable tool. Benchmarking actual games like Quake 2/3, Draken and Unreal is a much more reliable performance gauge.

I redid the benchmarks, with my AthlonXP 1700+ now running at its default 11x133 settings. There's quite a bit of difference, thanks mostly to the increased FSB, I think.

I wish I had some CL2 PC133 SDRAM sticks, so that I could push the system even further. Alas, those seem to be pretty scarce in my neck of the woods.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-02-24, 04:04:

As mentioned in that thread, I was initially running my AthlonXP 1700+ at 12.5x100 when I took those benchmarks, since my older PSU wasn't up to spec.

Ah, that makes sense.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-02-24, 12:24:

I redid the benchmarks, with my AthlonXP 1700+ now running at its default 11x133 settings. There's quite a bit of difference, thanks mostly to the increased FSB, I think.

Yeah, much better. Though, I'm still pleasantly surprised on my scores with the Tualatin 1.2GHz.

I wish I had some CL2 PC133 SDRAM sticks, so that I could push the system even further. Alas, those seem to be pretty scarce in my neck of the woods.

Going to keep an eye out for a Tualatin 1.4GHz and some CL2 RAM myself, but they have become scarce over here as well.

Continuing on my luck of finding an "arcade" V3 3000, I lucked out on some sweet upgrades for less than what they usually go for:

I'm going to stop now while I'm still ahead!

I've never used an Aureal Vortex 2 before. I have a lot of questions:

• What features are gimped in the Dell OEM version?
• What are the best drivers to use in Win98 considering I have a VIA chipset?
• Can I use the Vortex 2 along side my Audigy?

Thanks in advance!

enaiel wrote on 2022-03-21, 15:40:

I've never used an Aureal Vortex 2 before. I have a lot of questions:

Nice score! I think I have the same card, though I rarely use it.

What features are gimped in the Dell OEM version?

As far as I know, OEM cards didn't ship with the quadzilla daughterboard, so you miss out on SPDIF and 4 speaker support. Not a huge deal, IMO.

What are the best drivers to use in Win98 considering I have a VIA chipset?

I haven't used my card much, but from what I gather, it depends on the game. I've had good luck with the Turtle Beach drivers from the official CD. Those worked perfectly with Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force. Other people recommend 2041 drivers as the gold standard, so that might be worth checking out as well.

Can I use the Vortex 2 along side my Audigy?

I never tried this myself, as I'm a bit worried about A3D conflicts between Creative and Aureal drivers, but I think that some people have been successful with using both cards together.

Thanks. BTW, is it considered bad form to change the title of the topic? The build has evolved into something quite different altogether, and I was wondering if I should change the topic title to reflect that.

enaiel wrote on 2022-03-21, 18:40:

Thanks. BTW, is it considered bad form to change the title of the topic? The build has evolved into something quite different altogether, and I was wondering if I should change the topic title to reflect that.

I've done this myself in the past, when my builds changed significantly.

It's unlikely that anyone would take offense, but you can add a note to the initial post which explains the changes that have occurred.

3 wire fans made for Dell computers does not have RPM output. It is a non-rotation alert that pulls up normally low signal pin high to alert the motherboard of fan failure.

Cheers,

pentiumspeed wrote on 2022-03-21, 20:43:

3 wire fans made for Dell computers does not have RPM output. It is a non-rotation alert that pulls up normally low signal pin high to alert the motherboard of fan failure.

Cheers,

I think you replied to the wrong thread of mine, but that's really useful information. Thanks!

Upgraded the RAM to CL2 and the CPU to Tualatin 1.40 GHz and ran the benchmarks again. The 3DMark99 benchmark is FPS capped at 75 FPS, and there is no way to remove V-Sync for DirectX using the NVIDA 45.23 drivers, so not much difference. A decent bump to the 3DMark2000 and 3DMark2001SE scores, but surprisingly, very little improvement to actual game benchmarks.

Going to now backup this SDCard before I do any more shenanigans like installing the Aureal Vortex 2 along side my Audigy.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-03-21, 18:01:

I haven't used my card much, but from what I gather, it depends on the game. I've had good luck with the Turtle Beach drivers from the official CD. Those worked perfectly with Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force. Other people recommend 2041 drivers as the gold standard, so that might be worth checking out as well.

Oh, I remember reading that the Vortex 2 drivers have problems with certain versions of DirectX. Which driver version works best with DirectX 8.1?

enaiel wrote on 2022-03-22, 03:03:

Upgraded the RAM to CL2 and the CPU to Tualatin 1.40 GHz and ran the benchmarks again. The 3DMark99 benchmark is FPS capped at 75 FPS, and there is no way to remove V-Sync for DirectX using the NVIDA 45.23 drivers, so not much difference.

I think you need to apply the Coolbits registry tweak in order to expose VSync options under the "More Direct3D" tab. Phil has that tweak on his website.

Oh, I remember reading that the Vortex 2 drivers have problems with certain versions of DirectX. Which driver version works best with DirectX 8.1?

Not sure, but @swaaye might know.

I installed the Turtle Beach drivers from the CD together with DirectX 7.0a and didn't encounter any issues, but I haven't used the card very much so far. The only game that I played through all the way using A3D 2.0 was Elite Force. IIRC, Aureal went bankrupt around the time when DX7 was the norm, so their latest drivers are probably optimized for that version.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-03-22, 06:42:

I think you need to apply the Coolbits registry tweak in order to expose VSync options under the "More Direct3D" tab. Phil has that tweak on his website.

Thanks, I did not know that! I get a much more respectable score in 3DMark99 now.