Voodoo 4/5 SLI chain

[Dan]

since the voodoo 5 cards are already set up as a 2 chip sli, is it possible to chain voodoo 5 cards together, say with multiple pci cards, with some modifications to allow them to run at or beyond the v5 6k setup?

[amp_man]

At the moment, no. This has been a dream for many people over the years, but so far, nobody has been ambitious enough to actually look at the technical documentation and find out if it can be done and how.

[lecram25]

Actually, people have looked into this...

[amp_man]

well, yes some people have looked into it, I think Hank Semenec, a former 3dfx engineer, actually stated that it was impossible, yet other sources *claim* to have done such things. Then again, certain sources wanted to produce a video card in 3dfx's honor, that was being created by only one person...long story, basically a bunch of BS.

[lecram25]

Originally posted by amp_man

well, yes some people have looked into it, I think Hank Semenec, a former 3dfx engineer, actually stated that it was impossible, yet other sources *claim* to have done such things. Then again, certain sources wanted to produce a video card in 3dfx's honor, that was being created by only one person...long story, basically a bunch of BS.

tisk tisk...you had to go there didn't you...

[amp_man]

yep

my point was, you can't believe everything you hear, because there are ppl here who will say, "Oh yeah, I've done that, it ran awesome...oh sorry, I can't tell you how it was done, you'll just have to believe me that I did it", although I think hank has really debunked a lot of that crap.

[Dan]

do you know of any place where i can find the technical documentation?  it's obviously possible to set the chips up in SLI because the voodoo 5 5500 and 6k along with aalchemy boards use the multiprocessors.  if somebody can pull  some schematics for a 5k or something, or pin layout of the VSA100 it may be possible to make a completely new 4/6/8 proc board with as much ram as we see fit, only needing to sacrifice voodoo 4 and 5 boards for chips.

[amp_man]

well, see, the issue is wether or not the PCBs will allow this sort of connection. I don't know where you might find this info, you can start at Falconfly's Archive, although I don't know if there's anything there. As for building entirely new boards, are the VSA-100 really worth it? Sorry to be so pessimistic, but first off, you would probably have to recover the VSA-100 chips from existing boards, as I doubt you can purchase just the chips, then design an entirely new PCB for all the chips (which remember, 3dfx never entirely succeeded in doing this with more than 2 VSA-100, even the V5 6ks that have been modified to be more stable are still somewhat buggy). Also, the memory "sharing" that doesn't exist between the GPUs makes this an extremely inefficient gpu. And finally, you probably couldn't market such a board anyways since NVidia now owns most of the technology from 3dfx cards, although I don't know if Q3D has some sort of exception to this.

[Val_Parthen]

The best bet here was talked about by Hank Semenec over at the x-3dfx forums -- which would be adding an extra 64 megs of ram to a normal V5 5500 -- making a 128 meg V5, with 64 megs/chip. 4xFSAA would run better, I think we decided, but that was about it.

you'd still have a buggy card with old drivers, heh. And you'd need someone to make you a bios.

[lecram25]

Seb made a DVI bios for the voodoo5; but I doubt he'll make anymore...

[amp_man]

well, I think any bloke with a little idea of what they're doing can fuk around with the BIOS tools and come up with something that recognizes the full 128mb, if they had the time and patience

[lecram25]

Ok, then be my guest...

Understand that it is not easy to make a BIOS...

Seb basically made a BIOS so that MAC voodoos with dvi can run on the PC with DVI; he'll deny every one bit of it, but he did in fact make it. So all you people buying/who have bought MAC voodoos and flashing/have flashed them, thank seb...

[amp_man]

Well, IF I had a modded V5, or had the equipment/kinowledge to do the hardware mod, I would probably try it. but whereas hank still hasn't come back with that piggy-backing method, and I don't know what happened with the ambitious people who were getting the ram order together or whatever, I think this will end up just like lots of 3dfx project have, down the tubes

[lecram25]

*sigh*

This has been "done" already at x3dfx. Back in 2002, we were all eager about "upgrading" our Voodoo 5's to 128mb, total (14 page thread I believe)...so the fact that it would start up over here and be successful, is simply hilarious. It could have been done over at x3dfx seeing that most of us reside in the US, but this forum is way too international.

[amp_man]

yes, very true, this forum is much too global. What has happened to the thread on x3dfx? Is it still there somewhere, or was it cleaned out? Not that I have the resources to do it, just that it would be interesting to read.