New driver set for Voodoo2 and Voodoo4/5 on WinXP

[Web Staff]

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edit : moved and sticky

[Raff3DC]

AMAZING NEWS! Koolsmoky, are you planning further development? It's good to see. Maybe you could coop with SFFT. And then ... fix the V56k SLI ****up and stuff.

Greetings and thanks,
Raff

[ggab]

thanks a lot!!!

super GREAT news!!!!!

thank you

[Raff3DC]

I don't know whether it's my mainboard again (ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA), but my V5 5500 PCI doesn't like this driver. Some internet pages look like this sometimes:

http://img76.imageshack.us/my.php?image=buglk0.jpg

I'll test the driver with my Voodoo machine (AGP) on the weekend.

Greetings from Germany,
Raff

[Raff3DC]

Do you want some feedback? Well, here it is.

I've tested some games on my V5 5500 AGP that work fine with newer SFFT's. I focussed on Direct3D, because that's what interested me the most. Here I encountered a bug that disturbed me already on my V5 6000 – driver-independant. Every (approximately) 32 pixels a bright line is shown. Koolsmoky, did you change anything that concerns the SLI scanlines? This does not happen in OGL or Glide. Concerning the games:

- FlatOut 2: Perfect
- NFS Underground: BSOD with reference to 3dfxvs.dll
- UT2004: On some maps the strange bug with "flying" transparent textures of older drivers is back
- Dungeon Siege 2: Crash after loading
- Max Payne 2: Runs fine, even in 1920x1440 (nope, not fluent )
- Postal 2: No errors, nice fps

Conclusion: SFFT's Direct3D part is more advanced. The Koolsmoky seems to contain some brand-new Glide-DLLs, but I don't know which improvements were made.

SFFT and Koolsmoky, I'd really appreciate if you two could do some "SLI": Work together, 'cause four eyes see more than two! A new driver package, named "KoolSFFT" or "SFFTmoky" would be nice.

Greetings and thanks,
Raff

[Xasd]

I have intalled this driver for Voodoo2, but how I can make work a game based on DirectX? There is any way to force a game to use a Voodoo2?

For OpenGL & Glide seems to work well, but I must prove more games

[osckhar]

Hi,
I tried the driver and It can not handle the DVI-out from my Voodoo4 AGP.

Thank you,
Oscar

[koolsmoky]

Hi guys,

First of all, there is some important information missing in the file description. The following assumes you have read the "about.txt" included in the driver set.

Voodoo4 and 5:
1. This release is a fix for V4 V5 DVI output, V56K + AGP2PCI, Glide/OpenGL multi-monitor support. You must use the supplied "3dfxvs.dll (5.01.2600.0003)", "3dfxvsm.sys (5.01.2600.0003)", and "3dfxvs.inf" to get it to work.

2. A new "glide3x.dll (3.10.00.22217)" has been supplied which includes a number of fixes and additions made by the glide.sourceforge.net crew. It is recommended that you replace this file over any previous glide3x.dll installed. Although I have released it with the Voodoo5 WinXP/2k driver set, it fully supports Banshee, V3, V4, V5 and will work on Win95, 98, 98se, Me, NT, 2k, XP. If you just need glide3x, extracted it and copy it to the appropriate folder.

3. The V4 V5 DVI fix is more of a hack to enable DVI output for people who are having trouble with hot-plug detection with their flat panel displays. After you have set "ForceDFP" to "1", be sure to reboot. The V4 or V5 BIOS must have DVI support built in otherwise you are screwed.

4. All prior VSA windows driver has a problem of not being able to run Glide or OpenGL on secondary and beyond VSA card if you have multiple VSA cards installed. This has been resolved.

5. The windows display driver "3dfxvs.dll" is DX7 based. If you need a more advanced D3D driver, I would recommend the excellent SFFT driver. You should, however, use the newly provided "glide3x.dll".

5. Be sure you do not have any old registry setting left from prior drivers under "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services
\3dfxvs\Device*" or under its subkeys.

Voodoo2:
1. I have not included directx or minigl drivers. If you need them please obtain it from other driver sets. All files provided are newly built drivers with the latest "glide2x.dll (2.56.0.22217)" and "glide3x.dll (3.3.0.22217)" from the glide.sourceforge.net crew. The "glide2x.dll" and "glide3x.dll" support V2 including the Quantum3D Obsidian series and will work on Win95, 98, 98se, Me, NT, 2k, XP.

2. Be sure you do not have any old registry setting left from prior drivers under "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\3Dfx Interactive\Voodoo2" or under its sub keys.



To Raff3DC: for your V5 PCI, remove SSTH3_VIDEO_REFRESH_OPTIMIZATION if you have any set. As for including my changes in the SFFT driver, I'll leave that up to SFFT. He has a strict policy of working alone and keeping his work clean. I would like to respect his style.

To Xasd: I did not include the files for directx. Mainly because I believe that the only reason someone will still use a V2 is because they want Glide.

To osckhar: Does your V4 BIOS have DVI support built in? I presume it is a prototype?



And last but not least, don't forget to thank the dev crew over at glide.sourceforge.net

-KoolSmoky

[osckhar]

@KoolSmoky
I have tried differentes Voodoo cards with DVI-out without luck. The 3Dfx tools shows the DVI option but it does not detect the flat panel when I active it.

Would be nice if SFFT introduceS in his driver the fix FOR V6k AGP2PCI.

Thank you very much,
Oscar

[Raff3DC]

Aye smoky!

Originally posted by koolsmoky
To Raff3DC: for your V5 PCI, remove SSTH3_VIDEO_REFRESH_OPTIMIZATION if you have any set.

Does this remove the visible lines?

Originally posted by koolsmoky
As for including my changes in the SFFT driver, I'll leave that up to SFFT. He has a strict policy of working alone and keeping his work clean. I would like to respect his style.

Ok.
But: Do you have a good knowledge about the SLI functionality in the driver? Primarily the 4-way SLI. As I've written many times, the V5 6000 suffers from a severe bug when using Windows XP and Direct3D. Resolutions up to 1024x768 run fine, everything above is unplayable. Something really disturbs the communication between the GPU's. Look at this: http://3dcenter.de/artikel/voodoo5-6000/index14.php

In 1024x768 the 4-way-SLI works fine and can even compete with a GeForce3. But in 1600x1200 even the single-chip-V4 is faster than our goddess. Please, talk to SFFT, if you can, and try to fix this bug. It's hard to see the 6000 losing so much of its power. The Win98 drivers work, but they aren't as advanced as the SFFT is.

Originally posted by koolsmoky
And last but not least, don't forget to thank the dev crew over at glide.sourceforge.net

-KoolSmoky

Yeah, thanks! Could you make a list of what's been improved? I'll have a look at the glides on the weekend.

Greetings and thanks,
Raff

[koolsmoky]

Hi guys,

Originally posted by osckhar


I have tried differentes Voodoo cards with DVI-out without luck. The 3Dfx tools shows the DVI option but it does not detect the flat panel when I active it.

To use DVI you need to do what I have written in the "about.txt" and also in my previous post. I have had the same symptoms with my V5 5500 PCI mac flashed with pc bios which is why I made the fix. If you don't know whether your V4 is use "Device0", "Device1", etc, set them all.

Originally posted by Raff3DC


Does this remove the visible lines?

SSTH3_VIDEO_REFRESH_OPTIMIZATION sets the memory optimization for desktop and overlay requests. Try it and let us know if it resolves your problem.

Originally posted by Raff3DC


But: Do you have a good knowledge about the SLI functionality in the driver? Primarily the 4-way SLI.

The Amigamerlin driver set was the first ever to support all SLI/FSAA modes with the V56k on win2k/xp. Until then it was unfinished business by 3Dfx and would only run in single chip mode. Every one thought that the king of 3Dfx card would be crippled forever on win2k. Guess who provided the cure? The basic SLI setup routines currently reside in the 3dfx windows miniport driver and both D3D and Glide (we all know that OpenGL wraps around Glide3x) use it. Since my main focus has always been on Glide and OpenGL, I really haven't looked at D3D much. I know that the 3dfx windows display driver does extra work to support SLI in D3D so I'm guessing that's where it gets all complicated. Anyway, according to your V56k article, Serious Sam SE runs fine with 4-way SLI in OpenGL mode.

Originally posted by Raff3DC


Could you make a list of what's been improved? I'll have a look at the glides on the weekend.

Well, lots of bug fixes have been made, and additions to support multi-monitor. If I have time, I'll show you a demo using the new feature.

-KoolSmoky

Edit: Ah fu**, all my post gone. Have to write everything again...

[Raff3DC]

Originally posted by koolsmoky
SSTH3_VIDEO_REFRESH_OPTIMIZATION sets the memory optimization for desktop and overlay requests. Try it and let us know if it resolves your problem.

K, thanks, I'll try it.

Originally posted by koolsmoky
The Amigamerlin driver set was the first ever to support all SLI/FSAA modes with the V56k on win2k/xp. Until then it was unfinished business by 3Dfx and would only run in single chip mode. Every one thought that the king of 3Dfx card would be crippled forever on win2k. Guess who provided the cure? The basic SLI setup routines currently reside in the 3dfx windows miniport driver and both D3D and Glide (we all know that OpenGL wraps around Glide3x) use it. Since my main focus has always been on Glide and OpenGL, I really haven't looked at D3D much. I know that the 3dfx windows display driver does extra work to support SLI in D3D so I'm guessing that's where it gets all complicated.

Hmmm. Could you please have a look at the problem? Maybe you see what's f****d up. Turn the king into the king of all classes.

I'm not familiar with driver programming (I'm just testing them ), but I assume it's not a "big thing", 'cause the 4-way SLI works fine in low resolutions ... It seems as if something can't handle the growing work. OMG, slower than single chip ...

Originally posted by koolsmoky
Anyway, according to your V56k article, Serious Sam SE runs fine with 4-way SLI in OpenGL mode.

Ya, sorry, I've forgotten to mention that. Glide and OpenGL run fine in 1024x768+.

Originally posted by koolsmoky
Well, lots of bug fixes have been made, and additions to support multi-monitor. If I have time, I'll show you a demo using the new feature.

Just if you have time.

_____

By the way: The arcticle is currently being translated into English, you guys can have a closer look at it in maybe some weeks. And I promise that if the SLI works fine we'll make another update with new benchmarks and maybe some more "enemy" cards!

Greetings from Germany,
Raff

[roflkopp]

Hi koolsmoky,

I really appreciate your great work. But there is a big problem concerning all newer glide drivers:

A modification of the texture LOD bias affects only the first VSA100. For example if you use 2xAA and a default LOD bias, the mipmaptransition of the second VSA100 is at LOD -0.5. If you change the bias to -0.75, the other transition is still at -0.5 instead of -1.25 - which leads to crappy imagequality.


Oh, and plz also fix the SLI-****up.

[osckhar]

To use DVI you need to do what I have written in the "about.txt" and also in my previous post. I have had the same symptoms with my V5 5500 PCI mac flashed with pc bios which is why I made the fix. If you don't know whether your V4 is use "Device0", "Device1", etc, set them all.

koolsmoky,
You are right. It works perfect on my V4 4800 64Mb AGP card.

Oscar

[koolsmoky]

Originally posted by roflkopp

A modification of the texture LOD bias affects only the first VSA100. For example if you use 2xAA and a default LOD bias, the mipmaptransition of the second VSA100 is at LOD -0.5. If you change the bias to -0.75, the other transition is still at -0.5 instead of -1.25 - which leads to crappy imagequality.

Hmm, are you talking about glide3x or glide2x? What application and VSA card are you using? The glide2x.dll included in the driver set is the original driver from 3Dfx and I have not touched it. You can download a newer glide2x.dll from my website (http://www.3dfxzone.it/koolsmoky) but it still needs more work done. As for glide3x, I cannot reproduce your problem with my V5 5500. Could you post some screenshots? BTW, "FX_GLIDE_LOD_BIAS" takes an integer value between -8 to 8.

Originally posted by osckhar
You are right. It works perfect on my V4 4800 64Mb AGP card.

I knew it would work.

-KoolSmoky