Before:
(http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/2905/initial0wm.jpg)
After:
(http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/9708/final1cc.jpg)
Post-screen (bootscreen):
(http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/3166/bootscreen8tx.jpg)
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...).
Wouah !
Finally somebody did it ! :D
Hope that you will post soon screenshoots and tests ! :)
@Komponent,
Excellent, now if somebody can just figure out a way to get a 5500 to use 128 mb of memory ;)
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.
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
(http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/5339/v4agp64mbnoaa8cb.jpg)
2x FSAA : 803 3D marks
(http://img173.imageshack.us/img173/3887/v4agp64mb2xaa5uc.jpg)
Voodoo 4 AGP 32 Mb AGP 4x :
No FSAA : 1471 3D marks
(http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/19/v4agp32mbnoaa6lq.jpg)
2x FSAA : 661 3D marks
(http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/8343/v4agp32mb2xaa2dv.jpg)
Voodoo 4 PCI 32 Mb PCI 33 :
No FSAA : 1358 3D marks
(http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/251/v4pci32mbnoaa2tg.jpg)
2x FSAA : 624 3D marks
(http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/8592/v4pci32mb2xaa1vb.jpg)
Voodoo 5 AGP 64 Mb AGP 1x :
No FSAA : 1950 3D marks
(http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/7663/v5agp64mbnoaa3ci.jpg)
2x FSAA : 1401 3D marks
(http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/2763/v5agp64mb2xaa7gi.jpg)
4x FSAA : 602 3D marks
(http://img184.imageshack.us/img184/2820/v5agp64mb4xaa5mc.jpg)
Feel free to comment on the results I got!
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.
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
(http://img126.imageshack.us/img126/1083/v4800agpnoaa1mk.jpg)
2x FSAA : 804 3D marks
(http://img47.imageshack.us/img47/6787/v4800agp2xaa0wo.jpg)
No FSAA : 1578 3D marks
2x FSAA : 804 3D marks
identical, i would say
nice!
@Mikulaish: szép munka :P:)
@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]
@ahavasi: Köszi! ;)
congratulations!
it is an excellent news! now you have a great modded card! i wanna have one or 2 too [:P]
WOW!!
that is amazing!
how do you make the ram chips on the board??
@Komponent: I'd like to talk to you via msn or icq:
Hiero86(at)Hotmail.com 173-968-464
Hiero
Look I got a lot of 5ns ram available....
QuoteOriginally posted by Hiero
@Komponent: I'd like to talk to you via msn or icq:
Hiero86(at)Hotmail.com 173-968-464
Hiero
QuoteOriginally posted by Hiero
Look I got a lot of 5ns ram available....
Sorry for the delay [}:)]
I don't use Instant Messenger services, no YM or MSN, but my private e-mail is not a secret: Komponent@gmail.com .
Good find the 5ns modules! What are your intentions about how to make use of them?
Good job!
How do you solder it?
A regular solder station won't work.
QuoteOriginally posted by dragoon_unit
Good job!
How do you solder it?
A regular solder station won't work.
Thanks...
Soldering 86-pin SDRAM chips with a regular soldering iron might not be impossible, but rather might take fabulous skills, so I used a heat gun a.k.a. a hot-air gun. Even so, the process demands great attention and it must be done with extreme care. I have recently killed one other Voodoo 4 attempting to perform the modding again and I am still sad about it, because of that.
An advice for everyone who want to do that work themself: never rush, allways stay focused when working with old, rare and sensitive parts like those ones.
congratulation!!!!
i am going to copy you
QuoteOriginally posted by zourui
congratulation!!!!
i am going to copy you
Hi,
Have you finalized the mod yet? Does it work fine? If you missed that out, after you solder in place the extra memory modules, you also need to edit the BIOS, to change "number of chipsets" value from 0 to 1, that is to instruct the card to use the second virtual memory bank.
Please come back with news to let us know if there is another homemade Voodoo4 with 64Mb born.
A small update for the project to add more memory to VSA100 povered 3DFX cards:
You should know that years ago HankSemenek had published the instructions about how to connect the A11 line adress from the RAM chips to the VSA100 if one were to mod a Voodoo5 5500 AGP from 64Mb to 128Mb. Here it is the picture:
(http://img482.imageshack.us/img482/8453/2xramv5ku2.jpg)
There were no datas, though, about how to do the same thing on a Voodoo4 PCI PCB, so I took off with the heat-gun the GPU out off a V4PCI, the I searched and found the points for the connections that one would need to connect to the RAM pins for doing the modding to 64Mb memory. Here is the picture, with the extra-connection-points marked:
(http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/2703/v4pcivsa100modgw6.jpg)
I hope it could be of some help to someone, someday...