QuoteOriginally posted by m14radu

@goriath: did you try to use both the VGA and DVI port at the same time (dual display port) ?
The release 04 should do this

Nope, I didn't. My VoodooMAC 5500 is not working anymore so I can't at the moment.

Did you try these bioses? On my Voodoo5 5500 AGP I get a strange behaviour at the VGA Bios Setup; timings and clock rate are hidden until you try to move selector through the arrow keys, so they suddenly come out but they aren't setted at default values, they all start from 0 instead. You have to recall the correct values for the SDRAM and set them again, otherwise if you don't the screen will get corrupted.

BTW, I found that if you increase the clock rate inside the bios, only one VSA100 will be overclocked.

I already informed Rainbow about that (and other). I don't know if he's still working on these bioses. I'm waiting for his answer anyway.

QuoteOriginally posted by m14radu

@goriath: I install and launch quake3 timedemo in loop as you told me.
The sistem hang after about 24 minutes, i did the test 2 times.
I get an error image, lines and broken texture -> only a hard reset helps.

Sorry it tooks me so long

I know exactly what you mean.

I found to be a problem of the glide libraries, to be precise the glide3x.dll that comes with the driver.

The blinking black lines in the game menu seem to be due to Mesa 6.3 instead.

You could try to mix the two drivers.

Here you go:

1) After installing the game, download and install the latest Quake3 PR: ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/quake3/win32/q3pointrelease_132.exe

2) In the SFFT Voodoo Tool (or whatever control panel you are using, as the V-Control or the original 3dfx Tools) set alpha-blending on smoother (this will enable 22bit post filter when the game is setted in 16bit mode)

3) In the game select best graphic options available and set the resolution up to 1024x768x16

4) Then open the console and launch the timedemo as follow:
timedemo 1
demo four.dm_68

5) After the game is back to the main screen, go in the option menu and look at the bottom right corner of the screen and check for strange black blinking lines (you can point the mouse cursor over that area or simply try to change option to bring up the ACCEPT button; this will make it easy indentify this strange behaviour if present)

6) Now restart the game; let's stress the card. Open the console and give the following commands:
timedemo 1
set demo1 "demo four; set nextdemo vstr demo2"
set demo2 "demo four; set nextdemo vstr demo1"
vstr demo1

This will launch the timedemo in loop mode. Let the timedemo runs as long as possible, some hours if you can...unless it lockup first.

P.S. You can try to disable alpha-blending if you want and test the card as is with its default options.

P.P.S. Thanks

Nice, but what I would like to see is a stress test for the card.

The best way AFAIK is launch a good old quake3 timedemo in loop and say if it will hang or not;)

Testing with Q3A is going on...

QuoteOriginally posted by goriath
P.S. I forgot to mention that I got a freeze during a timedemo session; it forced me to reset.

For those which are interested, I'm inquiring further about SMP (Symmetry MultiProcessing) capabilities of Q3A[8D] (yes, my Pentium4 is HyperThreading ready).

Quake3 Arena was updated with the last point-release (1.32).
The executable is launched with RealTime Priority Command and var r_smp is setted on 1; xp compatibility mode box is checked (Win2k is selected)

The gain at 1024x768x32 (AA off) is about 1FPS:D with SMP ON (63.3FPS in timedemo four.dm_68 vs 62.2FPS with SMP OFF)

At 1024x768x16 (22bit post filter ON - AA off) I get 102.5FPS and 102FPS with SMP respectively ON and OFF.

The SMP is really bad implemented in Quake3 and sometimes make the game run unstable; after 40 minutes of timedemo running in loop, I got a lockup displaying only odd lines on screen.

I don't know if that happens because of bad SMP or drivers, I will check that in the next days running quake3.exe w/o SMP.

EDIT: I tested my system launching a Q3A timedemo session in loop w/o SMP support, at 1024x768x16 (22bit ON - AA off). The screen lockup after about 40 minutes (I think, honestly I didn't clock it)

I must check my components, but AFAIK they are OK.

Could someone try doing the same tests I did?

I'm testing 1.90 release right now.

I was benching with Quake3 when I found a strange behaviour. After a timedemo, I was in the config menu to change some video settings and I noticed strange blinking black horizontal lines at the right bottom corner of the screen, where usually you see appearing the ACCEPT button. The lower is the resolution, the more black blinking lines you will see across that area of the screen.

1) Whatever you are doing, playing a match or a timedemo, the blinking black lines are never present during the game, but only in the menu and only at the right bottom corner of the screen.

2) They appear on screen only after you run a timedemo benchmark. If you play or run the demo maps as normally (timedemo 0), no problems occur after.

3) Then they disappear if you start a new match, play a demo as normal (timedemo 0) or simply if you restart the game.

I'm under a fresh up to date installation of Windows XP SP3.

The rig I assembled is:

Pentium4 3.06GHz
2x 1GB DDR400
SiS 645DX
Voodoo5 5500 AGP
Seagate Barracuda ATA IV

P.S. I forgot to mention that I got a freeze during a timedemo session; it forced me to reset.

Awesome!!

Thanks;)

I would strongly suggest the admin to put these files online and store them at 3dfxzone.it once for all before they vanish again, with all the needed credits that Rainbow deserves.

I talked with the author and he agreed.

Here you go:

http://205.196.122.209/1cxaisv628wg/fakafofsyb1ezyu/rainbow+stuff.zip

Archive contains:

spbiosb03.rar
spbiosb04.rar
flash217.rar
tdfx_bioseditor_1.62.7z

Thanks to Rainbow who sent me the spbiosb04 release:)

EDIT:

spbiosb03 archive contains bioses primarily for AGP and PCI Voodoo4/5 cards (+ early bios for VoodooMAC 5500)

spbiosb04 archive contains the 03 release for the AGP/PCI cards + latest bioses for the Mac cards. So this one is the definitive release. The main difference between 04 and the previous build is the possibility to use both the VGA and DVI port at the same time (dual display port)!

I should have backed up them somewhere.

Let me check.

In the meanwhile you can retrieve tdfx editor and 3dfx flash (latest release) here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?ueh75itrbfvs6i6

http://www.mediafire.com/?yzajfio5ohs89ox

EDIT: OK, forget the links, they have expired.

I asked Glide to upload these files at 3dfxzone but looks like He forgot to do it.

I hope to come back with good news

I love people who behave in weird ways, coming back after 4 years, worried to edit the whole thread for unclear reasons, making it absolutely useless for the community, wasting the time of those who tried to help them and don't care nothing about sharing the solution of their problem.

http://www.ocaholic.ch/xoops/html/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=688&sel_lang=english

Christian Ney reached an outstanding score with RipJaws DDR3 from G.Skill. Taking a look at the hardware he used, I spotted a nice Voodoo3 3000 PCI!

If bearing is the problem, it isn't so much you can do about that. Ball bearing device is prone to wear time.

I can try to make a little tutorial that shows how you can access to the bearing mechanism to do some maintenance. You have to completely disassemble the fan, not just the blades.

In the meanwhile you can simply try to lubrificate the rotor blades, could be enough.

With Radeon cards (maybe with Geforce cards too) you should use special glide libraries.

Have a look at: http://helppage.3dfx.sk/#SLI