Voodoo 4 mod from 32 to 64 MB RAM: finaly, succes!

Started by Komponent, 21 April 2006, 10:01:55

Previous topic - Next topic

Komponent

Before:

After:

Post-screen (bootscreen):

Big thanks for Hanksemenec and Mikulaish, this project could never finalized whithout them helping and supporting. Mikulaish provided the extra 32 Mb RAM chips and the BIOS-hacking; Hanksemenec provided tech-info's; I just provided the Voodoo 4 4500 AGP and soldered the memory. After flashing to hacked BIOS I got myself to be the proud owner of this long waited 64Mb RAM single chip VSA 100 video card!
The card is perfect working; all 64Mb RAM are being used. I will post more details as soon as I can spare some free time (I am at work right now...).
 

Nightbird

Wouah !
Finally somebody did it ! :D
Hope that you will post soon screenshoots and tests ! :)
______________________________________________

In-ter-ac-tive :
The way video games were always meant to be played
______________________________________________

Welcome to 3dfxzone.it Community
_____________________________

Voodoo5

@Komponent,

Excellent, now if somebody can just figure out a way to get a 5500 to use 128 mb of memory ;)
 

m14radu

Well done !

Congratulation .... this was the news i expected !
The Project "V5 with 128Mb" and  "V56K with 256Mb" is not far from reality ... It could be done !

Regards.
Radu.

Follow your dreams !

Komponent

#4
Hello again!
As I promissed, I'm back with some benchmarcking with Voodoos:
For starter, let me say that all the testing was done using 1024x768 resolution with 32 bits colour compressed textures.
The platform for all the tests was:
MB Syntax Via KT 266A ("crap") + CPU AMD Duron 1100 Mhz + 256 Mb RAM Sycron DDR @ 200 Mhz ...
... plus some great toys: enter the Voodoos: Voodoo 4 AGP 64 Mb (recently moded from 32 Mb), Voodoo 4 AGP  32Mb, Voodoo 4 PCI 32 Mb and Voodoo 5 5500 AGP 64 Mb.
No overclocking was used; sorry for the small scores; I'm seeking for a better CPU but I'm preety low on money now...
I was runing MS Windows 98 SE + UnOfficial SP 2.1A and for benchmarcking I used 3DMark 2001 SE 330.
I tested the performance of the 3DFX cards with and without FSAA. The driver used was Raziel64 Evolution 1.01.16 for Voodoo 4/5 and Windows 9x/Me. The DirectX verssion was DirectX 8.2 .
The Voodoo 5 AGP was runing in AGP 1x mode; for Voodoo 4 AGP I used AGP 4x mode and, of course, Voodoo 4 PCI was runing in PCI 33 Mhz mode.
There are the results:

Voodoo 4 AGP 64 Mb AGP4x :
No FSAA : 1576 3D marks

2x FSAA : 803 3D marks


Voodoo 4 AGP 32 Mb AGP 4x :
No FSAA : 1471 3D marks

2x FSAA : 661 3D marks


Voodoo 4 PCI 32 Mb PCI 33 :
No FSAA : 1358 3D marks

2x FSAA : 624 3D marks


Voodoo 5 AGP 64 Mb AGP 1x :
No FSAA : 1950 3D marks

2x FSAA : 1401 3D marks

4x FSAA : 602 3D marks


Feel free to comment on the results I got!
 

Nightbird

In short ;)

Voodoo 4 AGP 64 Mb AGP4x :
No FSAA : 1576 3D marks
2x FSAA : 803 3D marks

Voodoo 4 AGP 32 Mb AGP 4x :
No FSAA : 1471 3D marks
2x FSAA : 661 3D marks

Voodoo 4 PCI 32 Mb PCI 33 :
No FSAA : 1358 3D marks
2x FSAA : 624 3D marks

Voodoo 5 AGP 64 Mb AGP 1x :
No FSAA : 1950 3D marks
2x FSAA : 1401 3D marks
4x FSAA : 602 3D marks

The extra memory is used specially with 2x FSAA and the difference with a Voodoo 4 PCI becomes important.
______________________________________________

In-ter-ac-tive :
The way video games were always meant to be played
______________________________________________

Welcome to 3dfxzone.it Community
_____________________________

Komponent

#6
The BIOS that I used for testing on my moded Voodoo 4 with 64 Mb had a few changes oposed to the standard 3DFX 1.15 original BIOS, other than the necesary change of the bit that controles the number of memory banks. Those differences occured not intentionaly and they were fixed into the latest "relese" of the 4800's BIOS. This last one, publicaly available by the courthesy of Mikulaish, has only one change made to the original 1.15 BIOS, as described above. The rest is identical, including RAM timings. Today I flashed my homemade Voodoo 4 4800 64Mb with this release and I have done the exact same testing work as previous, to be able to compare the results with those I got yesterday.
Here are the numbers:

Home-made Voodoo 4 4800 64 Mb @ AGP 4x :
No FSAA : 1578 3D marks

2x FSAA : 804 3D marks
 

Nightbird

No FSAA : 1578 3D marks
2x FSAA : 804 3D marks

identical, i would say
______________________________________________

In-ter-ac-tive :
The way video games were always meant to be played
______________________________________________

Welcome to 3dfxzone.it Community
_____________________________

ahavasi

AMD Athlon64 3200+@4200+, MSI K8N Neo4-F, 1gb Supertalent 480mhz, VooDoo 5 5500 Mac@PC

ahavasi

@Komponent

did you try to OC your AMD Duron? I think you can reach more points when your CPU FSB is higher

I had Barton 2600+ OCed 11.5x187 FSB, And I got 3000ponits in 3D mark, whit amigamerlin 3.1 R11 [Voodoo 5]
AMD Athlon64 3200+@4200+, MSI K8N Neo4-F, 1gb Supertalent 480mhz, VooDoo 5 5500 Mac@PC

Mikulaish

#10
@ahavasi: Köszi! ;)
 

ggab

congratulations!

it is an excellent news!  now you have a great modded card! i wanna have one or 2 too [:P]
 

charly204

WOW!!
that is amazing!
how do you make the ram chips on the board??
 

Hiero

@Komponent: I'd like to talk to you via msn or icq:
Hiero86(at)Hotmail.com  173-968-464

Hiero
< We`ll change the face of 3D graphics... again > 3dfx

Hiero

Look I got a lot of 5ns ram available....
< We`ll change the face of 3D graphics... again > 3dfx