Voodoo3 Drivers Version 1.08.00-XP

Introduction

These drivers will allow you to make advanced changes to the Voodoo3 hardware. A change in these settings can usually result in improved performance or improved visuals.

There is also the setting to change the Voodoo3's memory and graphics clock speed. Remember these drivers are Beta and therefore are unsupported and maybe unstable.

Who Am I

My name is Chris Airey. I am 16 years old and I'm a coder from England. I enjoy gaming as well as going out, and would love to frag anyone on Unreal Tournament. I also have made some UT levels and mods, download them and tell me what you think. I will kick you ass on anyone of my maps. Visit my website to find out more on my other projects and future projects.

Weblinks

http://go.to/cairey - My Official Home Page

http://www.realgamers.co.uk - For all the latest gaming news

http://www.3dfx.com - What do you think

Bug Reporting

I'd love to here about bugs, so please e-mail me, but I don't need my mail box filling, so a compromise please. Please read the FAQ before bug reporting. Also please check if a later version is available. This can be found on my home page! Any inquiries referring to 3dfx bugs generally will be ignored. Only report a bug, if there is a problem with my set of drivers. I am not a substitute for 3dfx support you know!

When writing your message, please give me the following details:

Operating System :

Board :

Driver Version :

cairey@totalise.co.uk

3dfx Tools

Please note: Because I did not code these drivers, but by 3dfx, it's hard for me to tell you what some features exactly do. So instead I can give you a brief description of what I think they do. This may not be accurate.

General

AGP Command FIFO : (Activate with reg fix)

Disable - Disabled AGP Command FIFO.

Auto Detect - Auto Detect AGP size.

AGP 1x - Set the AGP to 1x

AGP 2x - Set the AGP to 2x, the fastest.

Description - Change the size of the AGP. Setting this higher than your motherboards limits can cause your PC to crash. A higher AGP size can increase speed, when transferring data and textures.

Recommended Setting - AGP 1x or Auto Detect.

Refresh Optimization : (Activate with reg fix)

Enable - Enable refresh optimization.

Disable - Disable refresh optimization.

Description - Enable this for improved performance.

Recommended Setting - Enabled.

VIA Chipset : (Activate with reg fix)

Performance - May not be as compatible.

Compatibility - More compatible, but less performance.

BIOS Defaults - Selects the BIOS defaults.

Description - If your motherboard is compatible, use it!

Recommended Setting - Performance.

Direct 3D

3D Stereo Glasses : (Drivers 3 or 4 required)

Enable - Enable 3D Stereo Glasses support.

Disable - Disable 3D Stereo Glasses support.

Description - Enable this for better visuals when using this technology. There're issues; the screen can often flicker.

Recommended Setting - Disabled.

Edge-Aliasing :

Enable - Enable Edge-Aliasing for improved visuals, by smoothing out edges.

Disable - Disable Edge-Aliasing for faster performance. Don't remove jagged edges

Description - Edge-Aliasing is a technique used to reduce the "stairs effect" you can see on the edges of primitives. This can make the image look smoother. This can be seen very well when playing games at low resolutions. Enabling Edge-Aliasing is a performance hit. Disable for improved frame rates. Please note this may not work correctly with DirectX drivers above version 1.04.00 and these kits drivers exceed this version.

Recommended Setting - Disabled

Auto-MIP Mapping :

Enable - Enable Auto-MIP Mapping for improved visuals.

Disable - Disabling Auto-MIP Mapping may increase performance, but at the same time seriously harming visuals.

Description - If Auto-MIP Mapping is enabled, the drivers will automatically decide when to MIP Map and when not to. Disabling may offer an increase in frame rates, but could seriously harm visuals. E.g. Graphical artifacts on screen. It's recommended you have this setting set to "Enable".

Recommended Setting - Enabled

Guardband Clipping :

Enable - Enabling Guardband Clippping may improve performance.

Disable - This will disable Guardband Clipping.

Description - If Guardband Clipping is enabled it may improve performance. Guarband Clipping reduces the amount of clipping calculations performed by the CPU. With Guardband Clipping enabled you may experience problems, so it is recommended that this setting is disabled.

Recommended Setting - Disabled

MIP Map Dithering :

Please read the Voodoo3 help file for information on this.

Screen Capture Toggle Key : (Drivers 3 or 4 required)

Range - Various keys.

Description - Set the key to use screen capture. Hitting the hot key during a DirectX application will save image(s).

Recommended Setting - Disabled

Screen Capture Limit : (Drivers 3 or 4 required)

Range - From 1 to 999

Description - Set how many single frames to capture.

Recommended Setting - 1 or 2

Screen Capture Destination : (Drivers 3 or 4 required)

Game Directory - Usually root directory of game.

C:\temp - Create a temporary folder on the drive on which Windows is installed upon.

C:\My Documents - My Documents folder.

C:\My Documents\My Pictures - My Pictures folder in "My Documents".

RAM Disk - Mapped to Z:\temp

Description - Select the destination of where you want the screenshot placed.

Recommended Setting - Game Directory.

Rendering Color-depth :

Force 22bpp Rendering - Enable this for improved visuals.

Disable - Disable for better performance.

Description - I am not sure if this settings actually works or not, so I left it in for the sake of it. This may improve visual quality. However the Voodoo3 has a claimed 22-bit frame buffer, so when it dithers from 24-bit or 32-bit to 22-bit instead of 16-bit, it may improve the amount of colours displayed on screen. Using this setting will force the application to render in 22-bit colour, which effectively results in improved visuals, but may harm performance at the same time.

Recommended Setting - Disabled

Vertical Sync :

Please read the Voodoo3 help file for information on this.

OpenGL/Glide

Edge-Aliasing :

Enable - Enable Edge-Aliasing for improved visuals, by smoothing out edges.

Disable - Disable Edge-Aliasing for faster performance. Don't remove jagged eges.

Description - Edge-Aliasing is a technique used to reduce the "stairs effect" you can see on the edges of primitives. This can make the image look smoother. This can be seen very well when playing games at low resolutions. Enabling Edge-Aliasing is a performance hit. Disable for improved frame rates. Please note this may not work correctly with DirectX drivers above version 1.04.00 and these kits drivers exceed this version.

Recommended Setting - Disabled

Color-buffering :

Disable - Disable color-buffering. May improve performance.

Single Buffer - Use Single Buffering.

Double Buffer - Use Double Buffering.

Triple Buffer - Use Triple Buffering. May improve performance and visuals.

Description - This has been modified from Triple Buffering, so please read the Voodoo3 help file for more info on this. It's quite hard to decide which buffer to use, so if you're not sure it's best to leave this option disabled. Trible Buffering can sometimes improve performance and visuals, but can also harm performance. It takes up precious VRam, which could be used for other things like textures. Using the Single Buffer I don't think has any advantages, also it flickers on the screen update. Games that require lots of memory should have Color-buffering disabled. Unreal engine or Quake III engine games for instance. Triple Buffering might be faster for older games that don't require a lot of memory.

Recommended Setting - Disabled

Depth Precision (32 Bit) :

Disable - Disables Depth precision. May result in better visuals.

Fast - May offer better performance over disabled, but at the same time harming visuals.

Faster - The fastest Depth Precision, should be faster than the other two, but you may experience worse visuals.

Description - Please read the Voodoo3 help file under Depth Precision (16 Bit), which is basically the same.

Recommended Setting - Fast

Force 16-bit textures :

Disable - May decrease performance.

Enable - May improve visuals.

Description - This option will force 4-bit or 8-bit textures to be uploaded as 16-bit. This may improve visual quality for the cost of performance.

Recommended Setting - Disabled

Force Full Screen :

Disable - Do not force full screen.

Enable - Force full screen.

Description - Forcing applications to run full screen may improve performance due to more control over the API. However this may cause problems, which could also be slower. If an OpenGL game is only running in a window, try forcing this option.

Recommended Setting - Disabled. (Enabled if you want an application running full screen).

Force MMX :

Disable - Let the software deal with it, when using the MMX instructions.

Enable - May offer improved performance, but breaking capability.

Description - Forcing MMX can only be used on processors which support MMX, late Pentium I, II, III, Celeron and others. Enabling this option could increase performance, but may also break capability. You shouldn't use this option if your processor DOES NOT support MMX.

Recommended Setting - Disabled. (Enable if you want performance).

Force Voodoo Rush Emulation :

Disable - Do not emulate Voodoo Rush

Enable - Emulate Voodoo Rush

Description - I don't see the advantage in this, but hey!

Recommended Setting - Disabled

Graphics Clock (MHz) :

Range - From 100 MHz to 220 MHz.

Description - Please see the overclcoking section down the page.

Recommended Setting - Disabled

Guardband Clipping :

Enable - Enabling Guardband Clippping may improve performance.

Disable - This will disable Guardband Clipping.

Description - If Guardband Clipping is enabled it may improve performance. Guarband Clipping reduces the amount of clipping calculations performed by the CPU. With Guardband Clipping enabled you may experience problems, so it is recommended that this setting is disabled. You may experience more problems if you enable this option in conjunction with Hidden Surface Removal.

Recommended Setting- Disabled

Hidden Surface Removal (Drivers 3 or 4 required (or activate with reg fix when using 1 and 2))

Range - From Conservative to Aggressive.

Description - More aggressive you set HSR, the more it will carry out the HSR equation. Setting it higher can result in better performance, however it has bugs and causes weird defects to happen, like seeing through walls. HSR aim is to determine what should be rendered and what shouldn't. So anything off screen won't be drawn, increasing the performance. Use Conservative if you want and increase in performance and don't want to display as many artifacts. Aggressive will display more artifacts and increase performance much more.

Recommended Setting - Disabled

Legacy Texture Compression :

Enable - Enable texture compression.

Disable - Disable texture compression.

Description - When texture compression is used, it will generally speed up overall performance, because it reduces the amount of bandwidth. It can also improve visuals in some cases.

Recommended Setting - Enabled

Memory Clock :

Range - From 100 MHz to 220 MHz

Description - Please see the overclocking section down the page.

Recommended Setting - Disabled

Refresh Rate :

Range - From 56 Hz to 160 Hz

Description - Setting the refresh rate higher can potentially lead to higher frame rates. (Usually if the frame rate is trying to exceed the refresh rate). Other wise a higher refresh rate can usually make the display appear smoother and make visuals appear better. Warning! Setting this too high could cause serious damage to your monitor, please check if your monitor is compatible before selecting your desired refresh rate.

Recommended Setting - Default

Rendering Color-depth :

Force 22bpp Rendering - Enable this for improved visuals.

Disable - Disable for better performance.

Description - I am not sure if this settings actually works or not, so I left it for the sake of it. This may improve visual quality. However the Voodoo3 has a claimed 22-bit frame buffer, so when it dithers from 24-bit or 32-bit to 22-bit instead of 16-bit, it may improve the amount of colours displayed on screen. Using this setting will force the application to render in 22-bit colour, which effectively results in improved visuals, but may harm performance at the same time.

Recommended Setting - Disabled

Scan Line Interleave :

Digital - Sets SLI to digital.

Analog - Sets SLI to analog.

Description - Do you have more than one Voodoo3 wired up? Well this is what you need. Running a Voodoo3 in SLI is faster than not in SLI, because it's able to share TMU's, blah, blah. Bah!

Recommended Setting - Digital

Scan Line Interleave Band Height :

Range - From Big Bands to 1/4 Sized Bands.

Description - Apparently setting the bands height higher can increase frame rates for the cost of visuals. Experiment ok!

Recommended Setting - Software Controlled

Screen Capture Key :

Range - Various keys.

Description - Set the hot key to take screenshots, while playing. Usually the screenshot is saved in the root directory of the game. There is known problems with this, it can cause crashes or the screenshot may appear distorted, but usually shows the true colours displayed be the Voodoo3. This only saves 1 single frame!

Recommended Setting - Disabled. (Enabled if you want to take screenshots)

Watermark Splah Screen :

Enable - Enable to display 3dfx mini splash.

Disable - Disable to not show 3dfx mini splash.

Description - Enabling this will display the 3dfx watermark in the corner of your screen. It will be displayed when playing an OpenGL/Glide application. It's recommended that you don't display this, because it doesn't look very good!

Recommended Setting - Disabled

Z-culling :

Enable - Enabling may improve performance.

Disable - Don't use Z-culling.

Description - The Z-buffer renders from the front to back buffers, so it will only draw what is on screen. Enable for improved performance, but you may experience visual defects.

Recommended Setting - Disabled

Overclocking!

**********!WARNING!**********

I DO NOT accept responsibility for any damage caused to your hardware, use at your own risk.

It is not recommended you exceed your cards default limit. Never go over 10% of your cards default frequency.

3dfx Memory & Graphics Clock Speed Adjustment (MHz)

Memory Clock (MHz)

Graphics Clock (MHz)

The default settings are:

3dfx Voodoo3 2000 = 143 MHz

3dfx Voodoo3 3000 = 166 MHz

3dfx Voodoo3 3500 = 183 MHz

After changing these settings, you will need to restart your computer in order for the settings to take effect.

Overclocking is very dangerous. I only say this because it is. But anyway, I know loads of people that do it, and I am one of them. It can usually increase frame rates and generally better performance. If you experience problems, reset it. Issues to look out for are screen lock ups or lines appearing through the screen.

Missing Features Fix

These drivers include a fix for missing features. The problem is, if you restart your system, some features will not appear in 3dfx Features. This fix doesn't really fix that problem, but if you want certain features to appear you must open the "MissingFeaturesFix" Reg file. This must be opened every time you start your machine for the options to appear. If you have selected what value you want for the features (that don't appear), and you have restarted your machine, the values will still remain the same. There is no need to open "MissingFeaturesFix" unless you want to change the values again. I suggest you put this file on your desktop or something.

This reg file may not work on all systems, if you have had more than one display adapter installed on your system you must edit the reg file yourself. Open it up, you'll see what I mean. Just add a new line. Change where it has 0000 to 0001 or 0002 and so on.

FAQ

Q) I get this error message or something similar when I try to install the drivers on Win2K.

"Error, Subsystem Vendor ID: PCI/VEN_121A&DEV_0005&SUBSYS_1737121A&REV_01 is not listed in C:\WINNT\temp\Driver2k\Voodoo3.inf Please Update the C:\WINNT\temp\Driver2k\Voodoo3.inf file so install can proceed"

A) Download a fix for this at http://go.to/cairey

Q) When I try and run a game in DirectX it doesn't work or the graphics are messed up. It never did this with the previous drivers.

A) Try using either drivers 1 or 2 as they may solve this problem.

Q) Anti-Aliasing won't work. These drivers suck.

A) This may or may not work, some people report it works with version 1.04.00 Direct 3D drivers.

Q) These drivers suck real bad.

A) Don't use them then.

Q) Colin Marae Rally 2 doesn't work.

A) I know, some people report it works with 1.04.00 Direct 3D drivers. This is a driver bug, and Code Masters should code around this, if they wish Voodoo3 users to play the game.

To ensure best performance and compatibility please download the latest version of DirectX, get this from http://www.microsoft.com/directx

I also recommend getting WickedGL this may improve performance with OpenGL games, and gets good results with Quake engine games etc... Get WickedGL at http://www.wicked3d.com

Special Thanks

Hoe - For the WinXP DLL Hack

Chris Broom - Real Gamers, the best thing ever...

Infirno - Windows 98 SE Beta Tester.

SuperHighSpeed - For some general technical help.

Version History

---1.08.00-XP

* More stuff

---1.07.99-Final

* Final version

* Revised some more stuff

* Tracked down a problem with 'Feature.dll' and nailed it! Seemed to be a Win95 registry bug. If you get any error message, report it!

---1.07.95-BETA---

* Added lots of new features to play around with

* Better support and capability generally

* Minor changes

---1.07.80-BETA---

* Added many new features

* Added/Fixed missing features

* Minor Changes

---1.07.62-BETA---

* Fixed a problem

* Added Windows 2000 support

---1.07.60-BETA---

* Initial release

***!!---------------------A READER---------------------!!***

Thanks :)

This will be the last set of drivers, so please check out my other projects at http://go.to/cairey

WICKED!!!!!!!!!!!!

Last Revised: 19/06/01

*****Chris Airey*****