I proudly present my new baby
It's a voodoo5 with 4ns memories, swapped from a GF2 asus v7100 pro.

Many thanks to Komponent for this amazing mod !

The card in her glory !





The original cooling is very weak.
With it max overclocking was 192Mhz. Target was at least 200Mhz

The next step was to change the coolers with other ones, bigger.



Notice the black higher coolers.



The results were unfortunately the same...max 192Mhz.

Next step: removing the heatsink !
Card was cooled down in the fridge and heatsink were carefully removed. A lot of emotion in this moment  



I found a lot of nasty paste....





My aluminum cooler


Also with 2x80mm fans no better results were achieved  
Max Overclocking was 193Mhz.

The voltage was set from 2.8V to 3.2V - no change !!!

The card gets very hot, so that a proper cooling is very important !
Below the errors I get ( horizontal lines ):







The next planned step is to use 2 cooper coolers with arctic silver 5 paste
For the rear of the card, I want also to attach a heatsink. Any recommendation for the front and back coolers ?
How far can I go with the voltage rising ? Up to 3.3 V ?

Fell free to comment the project.
Any idea are welcome

L.E.

It seems that I choose not the best overclockable voodoo.

Modding is finish !

I manage to mount the cooper coolers.
With this cooper coolers the card could be pushed to 195Mhz. Even if the voltage was rised up to 3.3V, 196Mhz were not possible.



Now was time to improve the cooling on the back of the card.
The area behind the VSA get very hot.
On the back of the card I mount those tiny heatshink.



And, yes ! I reach 200Mhz stable !

Voltage must be 3.26V to run stable.

199Mhz are stable with 3.17V.
201Mhz was no stable even if I rise the voltage to 3.3V.

I got the two 128mb moded Vodoo5 cards, the agp and PCI version from Komponent.
Thanks a lot Komponent for the great modding !

So here they are:

Voodoo5 Agp





Voodoo5 Pci






The cards were testd in differents sistems, with differents OS.

Used Hardware
Tyan S2640 - tested the agp & Pci versions
Epox 8K5A2 - tested the agp & Pci versions
MSI KT3 - tested the agp & Pci versions
ECS K7VTA3 - tested the agp & Pci versions  
Gigabyte M750SLI-DS4 - tested the Pci versinos under XP and Win7, and i also test my both pci2pcix adapters that i own - same behaviour, just black screen when entering windows


Used OS:
Win 98
- Original 3dfx driver
- Amigamerlin 2.9
- x3dfx_V5_Win9X_1.08.04
- Raziel64 Evolution Driver - Expert Edition V1.01.16 (Lite)

With all drivers & boards: entering in the OS wihout problems, colours & Icons sometimes are not displayed corectly ( white icons ) and under applications the sistem freeze.
( 3dmark2001, return to castle wolfesntein, 3dmark2000, UT GOTY, 3dfx donnut demo )


Win XP
- SFFT Alpha 48
- SFFT 1.5
- SFFT 1.6
- SFFT 1.7
- SFFT 1.8
- SFFT 1.9
- Koolsmokey
- Amigamerlin R3.11

With all drivers and boards: When entering in the OS the screen is black.
- Only with the original XP driver - is entering the OS, but the driver does not allow to start any application.


Win7
- SFFT 1.9 - black screen when entering windows
- Only with the original win7 driver - is entering the OS, but the driver does not allow to start any application.


BUT.... there is a board witch surprises me :

The Gigabyte 7VKML -chipset KT266



With this board the both cards are running excelent ! No problems in win98 & XP, with all the above mentioned drivers.
I had only a xp1800+ CPU, so don't be amazed about the low scores


Here some screenshots, using the SFFT 1.9 driver:

No AA

V5 AGP-64mb



V5-AGP - 128mb



V5-PCI - 64mb



V5-PCI - 128mb




2xAA

V5 AGP-64mb



V5-AGP - 128mb



V5-PCI - 64mb



V5-PCI - 128mb




4xAA

V5 AGP-64mb



V5-AGP - 128mb



V5-PCI - 64mb



V5-PCI - 128mb




Some nice shoots @4xAA :






Btw - overclocking the cards with the VSA overclocking tool goes up to 188Mhz, after that display errors appear.

Well, the riser cards always generate the problems of card fixing in the computer's chassis.

These combinatons of risers and cards ( witch reminds me from the bremen musicians story )are always higher, and cannot be fixed anymore when a riser is used.

Of course, for Half Height Card there is no problem, but all the voodoo cards are Full Height Card.

Most of the people including me are using different improvisation, like fixing or holding with a wire, using a box as support and so on.

I come today accros to a very good ideea witch i want to share with you.



It's recommend a #6 (M3.5) 1.5 inch (40mm) or  1.75 inch long machine screw that threads into the card hold down hole in your computer's chassis.
Also is suggested to putt a nut threaded midway along the screw.
This allows you to screw down the adapter and the card firmly into the chassis.
Adjust the nut (s) so that the PCI card is inserted straight into the adapter.

The ideea is suitable for the following combinations:

voodoo4 4500 AGP + AGP2PCI riser
voodoo5 5500 AGP + AGP2PCI riser
voodoo5 6000 AGP + AGP2PCI riser
voodoo4 4500 PCI ( no DVI )+ PCI2PCIE riser
voodoo5 5500 PCI ( no DVI )+ PCI2PCIE riser

TO DO

For these combinations:
voodoo4 4500 PCI ( DVI )+ PCI2PCIE riser
voodoo5 5500 PCI ( DVI )+ PCI2PCIE riser

i have no suggestion, i have myself the problem in my PC.
The problem is that in this situation the DVI connector hit the nut position, therefore the DVI is not accesible in this case and you must use only the DSUB output.

And, as final word, the bigger the case is, the better you can install the card + riser. I recomend E-ATX cases - server cases.
( Running the PC with the open side panel is not safe )

Looking for one or two aalchemy boards. 8164 preferably
They have to be fully functional.
Thx.

Hello!

I got this kt333 mobo for my voodoo5 6000 system.
Unfortunately the mobo refuse to start with my athlon xp m 2800 when the fsb is set to 166 in bios.
With the fsb setted to 133 is running well.
The bios is F8B, the latest one.
Is there a trick to run the board @166mhz fsb?
On the x86.secrets site there is a test with a barton 2800 and voodoo5 6000. And they are working good together.
Any advice would be great!
Thanks.

I saw a lot of mixed drivers on the forum. Sfft core with amigamerlin driver, or differents installers.
So, how can this mixing be done?  the 3dfx hardware is always running with more than one driver. For d3d you should use sfft or amigamerlin. For opengl mesafx or wickedgl is recomended. Why is always needed to mix the drivers? ?? At the end you have a salat of dll files, and only a fresh install of windows will help you.
So, it is possible to create only a single driver?  a mixed one?  how is this to be done?
Thanks

Hi,

I'm building a dual pentium pro system with an voodoo3 3000 PCI. So far i have only 64mb of EDO RAM, but..
My Problem is the driver.
I tryed the SFFT 1.5 and Amigasport 3.0 but the games and 3dfx demos are not working.
I use XP SP3 .
Every game or demo that i want to start crashes.

Any ideas ?

Regards.
Radu.

Today i get my Christmas Gift :



Before:



After:






Memory are swaped from Asus V7100 pro, and are 4 ns memories - that means 250 Mhz !

Many thanks to Rolo for providing me the needed cards !

The cooler form the cards must be maybe changed, i'm thinking of using some cooper coollers, witch are far bettter.
Testing and of course hard overclocking will start soon.
Because is the winter Time, i will take full advantage of the natural cooling by opening the window.  
A voltmod is also planned, in order to bring the card to the maximum !



Look at the Bandwith and Fillrate values  

Br.
Radu.

By reading the PC Games Hardware edition 02/2006, i found an interesting article about the Dual Core Procesors.
The nvidia driver, are optimized to use the dual core processors.
Yes, the grafic card driver itself can split his job on both CPU core, in order to perform faster.
I wonder if something like this can be done in the 3dfx drivers.
I go a little bit further with the following sugestion: Every job that a 3dfx card NOT support ( pixel sharder, T&L ) should be transfered directly to the CPU cores.
@SFFT: What do u think about this ?
It's possible ?

Br.
Radu.

I have a question.
By using the 3DAnalyze together with 3DMark2001, emulating pixel shader is working very good. ( option enable )
When tryng to enable this function for a game, it's not working anymore.
The game is just exits.
A good example is Republic Comando.

Anyone has a ideea why ?
This function is needed in allmost all new games !

Hello,

Well, taking into accout the information and advices from Komponent and by reading the mod that the Italian dude did it ( on forumzone.it) , I decided to try myself this mod.
Because a Skt.939 board  and a Venice 3500+ CPU were layng around, I decided to try the mod on this platform.

Test System:
Athlon 64 3500+ - Skt.939
Mobo: MSI K8T Neo2-F V2.0
Voodoo5 5500 AGP
512 DDR RAM ( only 266 MHz FSB )
40Gb HDD
Enermax PSU


So, I decided not to Modifiy the AGP Slot on the Motherboard – Reason: if the Mobo get burned, i can change it any time on warranty  
So that the next step was to cut the noch on the Voodoo5 card.
After a closer look an the AGP pinout, the pins from 42 to 44 came into discussion.

Pin            Side A           Side B

42       Reserved            3.3Vaux      
43       Ground            Ground      
44       Reserved            Reserved
     
After a closer look at the voodoo5 card, at these pins, I found out that:

Pins 42 ( both sides ) and 44 are not connected.
Pins 43 are connected to ground – this was confirmed by measuring them !
Well for the pin 43 there is a soldering point, witch is for every situation available. ( I thought that in the worst case when the card don't start in the skt.939 Mobo, remains  the possibility to rescue the voodoo board by sodering this points to ground – luckely this step was not necessary )

The cutting operation mus be done with very much attention and patience !
Don't hurry up ! Take care to eliminate every metal pieces and any rest that can later cause a electrical shortcut.
You will need the following Tools:



In the Foto you can see the modified card:



The area for Pins 42,43 and 44 was cuted. Unfortunately I was afraid to cut deeper in the card, in order not to damage some traces.
This lead to the following problem: the card did not stay very well in the AGP Slot.
This is a problem that should be fixed . ( The AGP Slot on the Mobo can be slightly modifyed....)
So, after this operation, I tried to start the card in my old Epox 8K5A2 board with universal slot. The card started without problems... it was a very happy moment for me   . my voodoo card was alive !
Then, the Skt 939 Board must be prepare for the voodoo5.
I started the Mobo with an agp4x card. Then the AGP Voltage in Bios was modified to 1.85 Volts, and the AGP to AGP4x. ( This settings remains available with the moded Voodoo5 card ! )





Then I pluged the voodoo5 card into the Mobo and .....
The card started !!!!

It was for me a glorios moment.
See the pictures.







The board is running from about 24 hours – continuously. No freeze, no BSOD...
The K8T800Pro is not hot; no components on the Voodoo board or on the Mobo are excessively hot...everything seems to work fine.
But...

3dmark2001 is hangig up in dual mode.
In single mode there is o problem !



I manage to start some games:

Call of Duty – no problems.
Start Treck Armadia – no problems. Even 4xFSAA is working well.
Edie Hard – Nakatomi Platza – no Problems.
Flatout2 – no Problems.
The Benchmark "Final Reality" also run without Problems.

Two Remarks:

1. I did not supply the Pin A34 with 3.3Volts like the italian dude did it – I don't agreed with this. Even the card is not rock stable in all application, I'm sure that Komponent will come with a solution.
I now, that the VSA100 must now operate with 1.5Volt signals.( the AVR Pins Problems..) Now they are probably working still with 3.3V signalling.
2.I did not connect the Pin2 from the Voodoo card on ground. ( TYPEDET ).

Many thanks to Komponent for his advices / informations and to the Italian dude ( ciacara ).
With theyr support / ideas / advices  this Projekt was possible.

Please, fell free to comment my experiment.


Regards.
Radu.

Hello,

Tryng to install the V5 5500 PCI together with my 8800GTX, i encounter the following driver problem:
After voodoo driver instaling, and the usual reebot, the screen resolution and colours can not be changed anymore neither to voodoo cards or nvidia cards.
Dispite of all my attempts,the resolution remain for both cards on the default settings. ( 640x480x4 bit )
Tryng the other drivers, like SFFT 45, 46 or Amigamerlin lead to no changes on this behaviour.
After the v5 card and driver removing the 8800GTX still refuse to work like before...so only a fresh nvidia driver instalation could restore the original settings.
Any hint ?


Br.
Radu.

Hi,

Did somebody manage to play the C&C Tiberium wars on 3dfx cards ?
Minimal requirements for the Games should be a Geforce4....so that it must be playble on a voodoo 5 !
My 3dfx rig is not working for the moment ( Maitenance period ).
For those who own this game...give us a feedback.

Br.
Radu

Hi all,

It's possible for me to play Sniper Elite on my Voodoo 5 5500 AGP ?
If yes, what driver(s) I have to install ?
Tryed so far the latest drivers from AMigamerin and SFFT ( SFFT 44), but the game crashes.
Thanks in advance.
Radu.

Well, the games run smooth on my v5 6000.
Used resoution: 1024x768. All details at max.
Amigamerlin R3.11.
NO AA.



Enjoy.
Radu.