VOGONS

Voodoo 3 PCI (PowerColor EvilKing 3 rev_1.0 ) with faint vertical lines only in 3D

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First post, by B24Fox

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Hey all!

I got this card (radiator and metal bracket are custom)

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It works just fine, except for these weird vertical lines that appear ONLY on top of 3D SCENES that are HARDWARE ACCELERATED, and no place else (so NOT in desktop; NOT in the 2D menu of a 3D game; NOT in a 3D game that is run in Software Renderer)

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- A weird behavior is that the lines seem to only be on the left side, and are perfectly static and fixed in space in relation to the screen. So for example, if I run a 3D game in a window, the lines DO NOT move with the window, and also DO NOT go over the window borders, into the desktop.
- Another behavior, is that they change appearance depending on the resolution, but not really depending on the refresh rate.
- And also they change appearance depending if the game is run in a window or fullscreen, even if the window & fullscreen & desktop are all at the same resolution/color/refresh.

This behavior is identical on both my CRT & LCD, each with their own vga cable.
Also, I have pulled out the 3 electrolytic capacitors, and tested them with an ESR meter, and have replaced the one next to the bios chip, which tested kinda bad; but with no improvement afterwards.

Any input would be greatly appreciated!

Last edited by B24Fox on 2026-06-29, 02:26. Edited 4 times in total.

Reply 1 of 2, by wiibur

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These types of vertical or diagonal lines are fairly well-known issues on voodoo card video output. You can find more posts by looking for vertical "banding" or similar terms. These can usually be fixed with a low-pass filter on the video signal. I bought one from user maxtherabbit here on vogons, which I like because it's inline and the filter is configurable. You can also find some other posts about inline LPFs that other people have developed if you search around.

Reply 2 of 2, by B24Fox

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I've searched & found these two threads:
Re: Voodoo 2 banding issues in 640x480 only
and here, you even gave an example of "vertical banding" that looks somewhat similar to what I have: Re: 3Dfx Voodoo flimmer?

I'm not dismissing the low-pass filter ideea, but I am kind of intrigued by the fact that in my case it's a Voodoo3 (which also does 2D, but the banding doesn't manifest there), and also that the banding always seems to be on the left side of the screen (i've changed the 2nd photo to better reflect this), and also looks identical on both CRT & LCD screens.

Though it's not impossible that when the 3D part of the GPU engages, it generates extra "noise", which would benefit from better filtration on the output... But then, why would the banding be visible only inside the window of the game, and not continue outside the window, onto the desktop?!

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