Voodoo 5 5500 AGP on Windows2000

[justin]

Hi all,

I'm having problems running games with my voodoo5 on win2k. I've tried amigamerlin 3.1 drivers and 3dfx 1.04.00 whql drivers. When I start a game like diablo 2 all i get is a black screen or a "!" in the upper left corner of the screen. Only directdraw works. When using glide or direct3d the whole pc freezes and i have to restart. I've reinstalled windows and left directx at 7.0 but this doesnt work either. I've also reverted the cards bios back to 1.06 (used 1.15 first).

Also tried playing Myth 3 (opengl i think) on win2k and this doesnt work, the screen is all green. On windows 98 myth 3 plays fine although a bit slow.

One more thing: low resolutions (veery old dos games which use cga graphics or vga) never worked with this card, i get strange lines and the mouse cursor has trails. other games always worked fine.

PC:
Asus cuv4-x
Intel pentium 3 800
512 mb pc133 sdram
3dfx voodoo 5 5500 agp
soundblaster pro 2.0 (disabled in win2k)
soundblaster live! value
400 watts psu (i think).

So can anyone help me please? I already gave up on the low res dos games but i'd like to get it working again under windows2000 with 3d games.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

hmm I see you have two Sound Blasters,since one is disabled, why not remove it, that might fix some issues.

For win2K the best drivers I used were the following:

AmigaMerlin 3.1 R11:
http://www.3dfxzone.it/files?object=3dfx&objid=220

SFFT Modified by ps47:
http://www.3dfx.cz/download/sfftalpha41_custom.rar

If the V5 is your main card you could use this as your control panel:
http://www.falconfly.de/downloads/3dfxtools-v261110.zip

if it's a secondary card like my 5500 PCIs are I went for this one instead from KoolSmokey:
http://www.3dfxzone.it/koolsmoky/vctrl.html

Try this man, after you removed the disabled sound card.

The reason why I use SFFT Alpha 41 Modified by ps47, is because I need it for my Descent I & II games that are rendered in OpenGL ES 1.2 with DXX-Rebirth, which is an OpenGL 1.2 ES Conversion of the game, so it's playable for old like new-gen Operating Systems

[justin]

Thanks for the reply Obi-Wan Kenobi!

I actually got Diablo2 on win2k to work yesterday by putting AA mode to "single chip only". Thought maybe 1 vsa chip is broken, however when I grabbed a different PSU I noticed it had more "AMPS" for the 3.33V (AGP I think?). The old psu had 12 and the new one 20 amps. Maybe 12 amps isnt enough for the card. I wasn't able to test Diablo on win2k again, but Unreal 1 under win98se worked with 4xAA. Kinda sure the videocard is fine then, no? (except for old dos programs). Maybe the other psu fixes something, i dunno.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestions. I'll try them monday when i have time.

Justin

[justin]

Just tried the other drivers and removed the sound card;

Doesn't work, funny I found a forum post from 2001 with someone having exact the same problem as me.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=473261

Too bad he never posted how he fixed it (if he ever fixed it).

I'm sure everything is fine under Windows 98. I can play Unreal with 4 x aa without problems but nothing works on windows 2000.

-Justin

[goriath]

Originally posted by justin

One more thing: low resolutions (veery old dos games which use cga graphics or vga) never worked with this card, i get strange lines and the mouse cursor has trails. other games always worked fine.

Originally posted by justinI actually got Diablo2 on win2k to work yesterday by putting AA mode to "single chip only". Thought maybe 1 vsa chip is broken

Originally posted by justin

Just tried the other drivers and removed the sound card;

Doesn't work, funny I found a forum post from 2001 with someone having exact the same problem as me.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=473261

Too bad he never posted how he fixed it (if he ever fixed it).

I'm sure everything is fine under Windows 98. I can play Unreal with 4 x aa without problems but nothing works on windows 2000.

-Justin

You can test your V5 on win98 for a comparison...but I think that all these problems are SLI related (the strange lines, turn off the second VSA100, ...), this would explain the reason why you can play Diablo2 in "single chip mode". Dunno if is just the case but remember that some DOS application (if even all the DOS apps) don't support SLI properly.

[justin]

Thanks for replying,

I'll try the single chip only for dos applications later but if I can run everything with 4x aa on windows98 and nothing on win2000, it's a windows2000 problem right? More help is appreciated of course .

[m14radu]

There could be a problem with the card itself too.
I had a v5 with a damaged VSA, and i got unexpected freezes and strange lines.

Check if the card is working in the single chip mode.
Also a fresh drivers install could solve the problem.

[justin]

Well I tried 3 different motherboards, many drivers and it still wont work properly. Only amigamerlin's drivers on windows 98 don't crash with 4xaa. I think I have to admit that it's broken, I noticed a capacitor has a tiny dent in it but I doubt that's whats causing the lockups. Maybe I'll buy another v5 when they show up on ebay for cheap.

Thanks for the help though guys. It's nice to see you can still get help with old hardware like this .

Happy new year btw!