Daytona (VSA-101) information

[r21vo]

recently i was checking how 3dfx bioses were made and i found interesting fact:
the latest bios versions are for Daytona cards and they seem to have 256mb support!
This is image from v4 4200 1.05 bios hex dump:

Of course this is only string reference so i can't be sure.
I've found only two bios with this feature (they are also the latest by date):
10/26 Voodoo4-2 4200 Supported BIOS - Version 1.05 (PCI)
11/20 Voodoo4-2 4000 BIOS - Version 1.05 (PCI)
In bios daytona cards are marked as Voodoo4-2, so it seems, there is not only 4200 and 4800, but also 4000 version.

Also i've found that some of bioses contain interesting parts of code (like intel boot manager's code in v5 bios with dvi support by triger recently), but they doesn't affect anything i guess, because the this spare code is located in the free space at end of bios file.

[ggab]

that's cool man

very nice research !

[r21vo]

well, i found bios release notes in 3dfx leaked source codes and there is clearly written that 256mb support is from Napalm 2 (VSA-101) bios ver 1.01.
also, i found settings for v5 5800:
"V5P901 - AGP/SD/183 MHz/No TV/No LCD/V5-5800"
maybe that is the reason why some v5 can hit over 200..

[bloodworm]

cool, I also know that the latest V5 5500 BIOS's have support for 128MB of total RAM (64M per chip) as well...... just the hardware needs the mods.  only problem is, is that the ram is next to impossible to find.

[r21vo]

bloodworm: can you name ram chips which could be used to make v5 a 128mb card?

[BFG3dfx]

You can find the ram, problem is the quantity they want you to buy and the fact they wont sell to you unless your from a company or a university, i found one guy to sell to me but he wanted 9.00 per chip fpr used ram

[bloodworm]

$9 per chip for this particular type of ram is way cheap.......

[BFG3dfx]

really, i qupted less until i decded on it and then raised price to the 9.00 mark, i thought hank posted 9.00 a ram was to much, i really dont know what the going price should be, new ram was 27.00

[r21vo]

Today i was browsing 3dfx bios sources and found an interesting thing:

ELSEIFDEF   BOARD_V4P906
%out   Building BOARD V4P906
;AGP/SD/143/No TV/No LCD | V4-4400
   BoardBusType      =      08h      ;AGP Bus
   SDRAM_BIOS         =      1      ;SDRAM memory
    MCLK_143MHZ         =        1  
   STR_OEMPRODUCT      equ      "Voodoo4 4400 "

This means there was another model planned: Voodoo4 4400! Seems it differs from v4 4500 only by clock rate - 4500 has 166mhz, but this would have 143mhz.

Also i found out that there was not only voodoo5 5000 planned but voodoo5-2 5000 (daytona version), which had 143mhz (286mhz DDR) instead of 166mhz SDRAM. Interesting that there are no 4800 daytona versions, only regular vsa100 version which seems to be the same as v4 4500 (166mhz sdram).

[Chosen_One]

i don't think so...i guess there is at least one v4-2 4800 out there coz i have a bios! Rolo01 can answer this question!

[Rolo01]

Yes, my former daytona AGP was called V4-2 4800.
It had 6ns ram and was clocked @ 143 Mhz.
Gary owns this card now.

[r21vo]

hm, did it show "4800" at bootup? This would mean bios/card was by someone else i guess.

[Rolo01]

Yes, it booted exactly like that.
Voodoo4-2 4800 LCD with 32 MB DDR.
What do you mean with "by someone else" ?
The card was a 3dfx prototype, formerly owned by Hank. At least the name "Hank" was written on the back of the paper tag that comes with various prototypes.

[Chosen_One]

bios string: Voodoo4-2 4800 TV HankSBIOS - Version 1.05a

[r21vo]

"Voodoo4-2 4800 TV HankSBIOS - Version 1.05a" or "Voodoo4-2 4800 LCD with 32 MB DDR"?
So it seems Hank made that bios (this would explain why such setting aren't found in main bios source code).