Any Voodoo3 users left?-Share personal experiences

[Gemail]

Although Voodoo 3 series are no match for modern standards, I supose there still are users out-there trying to make the most out off this wonderfull piece that is the "Avenger". I'm very happy with my V3 3500TV-PAL, although lack of suport for PAL-D TV-Tuner standard in Win 2000/XP drivers forces me to be limited to Windows Millennium Edition.
There are drivers updated to the curent days in 2000/XP enviroments (thancks for that to the wonderfull men doing this job) but for all I know, support for Windows 9x seems to have been discontinued for quite a long time, sadely ...
My questions are, so please Voodoo3/Win9x users please post here, the following:
- The latest drivers core for V3 and Win9x seems to be found in Mikepedo 1.1 release, indeed with a good DirectX 8+ compatibility, native DirectDraw Interface 8.x, but realy buggy (running for example 3DMark 2001 SE build 330 produces odd black and white textures). Why dosn't anybody develope this core? Mikepedo gave up?
- The final (and last) releases of Win9x drivers for V3 that I know about are Amigamerlin 2.9 and 3DHQ beta10 and those are 2,5 years old. Is anybody curently working at a new driver set for Win 9x or this is a lost cause? Too bad if so, Win9x seems to be the best enviroment for gaming with Voodoo cards.
- I want to ask you, Voodoo3 and Win9x users what driver release are you using, witch one gives the best results?
Thank you!

[ps47]

you are right,there are no new dx8 drivers for voodoo3 under win9x (mikepedo is the only one,but its far from perfect).the reason is simple,there are only very few games that would benefit from such a driver,so it is simply not worth doing (I guess).v3 doesnt support certain texture formats,32bit colour,large textures and texture compression,so most newer games wouldnt run anyway..but I think an experimental dx8 driver for win9x would be interesting,I was asking Raziel64 if he plans to add voodoo3 support to his Evolution Driver,but he didnt know.and unfortunately,I havent seen him around for quite a while..I'm using the latest original win9x 3dfx drivers for both my voodoo3 based systems,1.07.00 for voodoo3 2000 and 1.06.00rc1 for my voodoo3 3500tv.its perfectly enough for all games and apps I'm using.and mesafx is not dx core-dependent,so I dont really need a dx8 driver for that little voodoo magic I do from time to time..hehe.

[Nightbird]

My experience :
I tried the last beta core (31 janv. 2001) : with UT2003, was OK but with NFS, was unplayable (pictures were like ice)
So i used the AmigaMerlin 2.9, the only problem : the wheels (all white)
A DirX8 driver for the V3 more perfect ? would be interesting (i guess) if some "problems" were resolved like large textures (see here ps47'idea -> rescaling under D3D...)

Why dosn't anybody develope this core?

like i wrote elsewhere, you need the source if you want really improve the core and then time...

edit : to be sure that i'm clear : in the past, people modified the inf. inside the drivers at the max. in order to get the best but now the only way to improve a driver will be to code it...

[ernzzz]

i'm a bit dissapointed of it.. i got a v3 3K recently, and parked my good old v2.. it seems a very powerful card, and stable.. but i cant play almost any newer game than with v2.. just warcaft3 and hitman2 with a mesa patch that crashes..

with voodoo2 i could play CastleWolfenstein, Max Payne, B&W and TDR2000 as lets say "top sheit" .. but i still havent watched anything better with v3..

GTA3, Vice City, SonicAdventure, Max Payne 2, NFSHP2, Sega Rally2, Populous 3, and some others i dont remember now, all they failed for some reason or another..

if i have a better card now (and it is twice as fast..), i should be able to play some games almost at the same level as MaxPayne or around, no? but i dont seem to find the right ones..

btw i'm runnin amigamerlin new drivers for win9x, direct8.1 and latest mesa.. i have also tryed the latest oficial drivers among others.. but those seem the more balanced ones.. i also have flashed the latest official bios and i think it looks sharper now..

[Nightbird]

Max Payne 2 is "mission impossible" for a Voodoo 3 : you need 32 bits rendering and a V3 doesn't support it...

[ps47]

if you experience crashes with hitman2 and war3 try some other version of mesafx (6.1.0.9 or newer.older ones wont work correctly).

[Rolo01]

Well, there is no big difference between Voodoo2 and Voodoo3 ( let aside the 2D part of the V3 ).
Voodoo3 has similar limitations, like 256x256 textures limit and 16 bit color.
With a VSA100 card ( like Voodoo4/5 ) you are able to play at least SOME newer games.
BTW, your best bet for drivers is SFFT ( currently Alpha 35 ), so you should consider setting up a dual boot system or switch completely to Win2000/XP.

[avengerx]

Well, I got a v3 3k, and am Enjoying the 1280x1024 views from here. V2 SLI did only 1024x768. Single voodoo: 800x600. I just left a mm sli v2 mix that worked damn cool despite the -25 and -28 memory timing on them (which made sometimes the odd lines look like unsynched with the even ones). But just in some remote situations.
Ah yes, I'm under win98se, using just am2.9 and 3dhqb10 drivers as yet. I'm still making some tests to tweak it to the most like I've done with the v2s (oh they're just sitting there waiting to their day come to be used again). I particularly found lots of improvements from v2 to v3 like the max res, some framerate imp, desktop running better, movies somewhat faster (although vodoomovie did scrap to the movies -- way too blocky. better see them via soft anyway). Ah 2d movies now faster and can be played on any res (w/ sis530 I'd better take screen res to 640x480 or 800x600 16kcolor in order to watch to movies).

But I think my next evil plan is not with software: but hardware. I've already read a 'guide' for overclocking it (sorry I don't remember the link right now, just looked for 'voodoo3 overclock' on google). Now I got a Duron/athlon heatsink w/cooler and a k6/2 'better' heatsing w/out cooler. I mean to put the duron sink to the main processor, and the k6/2 maybe with cooler to the transistor in the upper left corner of the card, which heats way too much (the card is even browny in the surroundings of the transistor!).

About the transistor, I've heard sometimes that the hotter the transistor is, the better, but... Not that hot, right? I hope just a bit cooling wouldn't hit too bad (maybe I use the original voodoo heatsink in the transistor if the k6 does not fit there).

About the main processor.. Please, any hint on how I'd safely take off that glued heatsink from there? May I just pull it over? I've read on the oc' guide that it's better to do when the chip and heatsing are still hot, to imply less fierce to pull the heatsink off the chip. I am afraid I may break the card apart! But i'll cautionously check up what can I do.

Ah, My v3 is just a PCI version. Forgot to mention. This makes it slower don't-know-in-which-part. One particular difference is that the heatsink does not have the nails pressing it against the card.

Other question... Any nice ideas on how to fix the duron heatsink to the main v3 processor? I don't think the presils that come w/ the heatsink will help a thing I'd supposedly have to take them off to prevent them from bugging me . Thanks everyone!

[skinnie]

Well,yesterday I got my Voodoo 3000 and for a sad reason..my 5500 went pop before I had a 2xVoodoo 2 SLi setup with 2d from a Matrox MIllenium II 8mb AGP,well with my proc it has no more fps than the voodoo 2,the quality is much better,and it is smaller allowing me to have a decent heatsink on the proc..
COmparin to the V5500..v5500 is an awesome card..the fsaa is awesome really..I makes a lil more fps than the v3 I think and it's huge size is wonderful