Help a 3dfx newbie

IvanV · Apr 30, 2005, 01:13 PM

Today, I officially declared my ATi Rage Pro dead and purchaced a Voodoo3 for 6e. Now, I need a Win2k DX8.1 driver for it. I would like some recommendations from current users (if any still exist :-)). I tried AmigaSport 3.0 FinalbuildFull. It seems to be working, except all textures in GLXS, which I thought would be a nice trial for it, are missing. The link to the fix from the GLXS site is dead, so i'd like to know if this is an application specific issue or a global one. Help!

Judas · Apr 30, 2005, 08:06 PM

I think i recall this issue....

And as far as i know, no, it isn't a global issue...

IvanV · May 1, 2005, 04:58 AM

Thanks! It seems like that to me as well. Can anyone recommend me a nice driver set for Win2k? I don't mean to use it for gaming too much, but I tried the old UT, and I can't say it works much better than with my old RagePro at the same settings (IQ is much better though), which is strange since UT documentation says that UT should run great with a Voodoo3 and a K6-2 3DNow! (which is what I have now), while recommanding software rendering for RagePro.

Judas · May 3, 2005, 05:27 PM

Without drivers built for the voodoo, it uses a very simple d3d driver that is mostly all forwarded to the cpu anyways, meaning the voodoo isn't doing much of any of the work....

IvanV · May 5, 2005, 03:17 AM

Thanks for the reply. Apparently, the AmigaSport drivers are ok, I narrowed it down to the mainboard AGP driver (mobo is ACORP 5ALi61, ALADDIN5 chipset). Only the latest version seems to be doing anything, but there's obviously something wrong with it as well, as I couldn't boot to Win2k after installing it, not even to safe mode (it's meant to work in that os, but I kept getting "tried to deallocate memory that doesn't belong to it" mesage, finally got rid of it through recovery console, tried reinstalling, redownloading...). It does show some signs of life under 98SE, with GLXS working fine and scoring about 1400 in 640*480@16 and UT working nicely in 800*600@max detail. DXDiag still reports that AGP texture acceleration is off, though (don't really know if it should work with this card and mainboard that have AGP 1.0 specification).

*Raff_3DC* · May 22, 2005, 11:52 AM

Are you familiar with the german language? I created a driver comparison just yesterday. If you don't, just look at the performance graphs.

Link: http://www.voodooalert.de/de/content/view/145/25/

Greetings from Germany,
Raff

IvanV · May 23, 2005, 10:50 AM

Thanks Raff! I mostly did just watch the graphs and I can't believe it was done on a Voodoo3! Unfortunately, I can't make it work under Win2000 (I tried AmigaSport 3.0, with awful performance, and AmigaMerlin 3.1 R6 which wouldn't install at all) can you recommend me a nice Win98SE driver? AmigaMerlin 2.9 works well with Glide and OpenGL, but DX compatibility and performance is terrible (under 500 points in 3DMark01SE 640*480@16bpp). (though it probably also has something to do with my clocks, which are I believe lower than your 190/190, and only 8MB onboard)

*Raff_3DC* · May 23, 2005, 05:08 PM

Only 8MB VRAM? Are you sure that it's a Voodoo3? AFAIR only the low-cost-series of V3, the "Velocity", uses these specs. Hmm ...

Anyway. The Amigamerlin 3.1-R6 won't install under Win98 because it's an XP driver -- no way.

The Amigamerlin 2.9 is the best driver for Win98 in my opinion, but you could also try the 3dhq 1.09 beta 10: http://www.3dfxzone.it/dir/3dfx/voodoo3/win9x.htm

Greetings,
Raff

IvanV · May 24, 2005, 04:04 AM

Yeah, it's a Velocity.
I know AM 3.1 is for XP/2k, I've got a dual-boot system. Apparently AGP driver's killing me under 2k, so I added 98 to see what could be done with it. I'll try those you named.
Thanks!