Almost 30 Years Later, Clean Mod Improves Voodoo Graphics Performance Up To 15%

[erek]

6MB Voodoo graphics mod bringing some awesome performance uplift

“Bits und Bolts mentions that he intends to create a second daughterboard to upgrade the FBI memory as well (giving the card 8MB of RAM), but that project will have to wait for a second video. For now, he tested the 6MB card in …”

Source: https://hothardware.com/news/clean-mod-improves-voodoo-graphics-up-to-15

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

I had the Miro Hiscore 3D Voodoo 1 board back then. It came with 6MB from the factory. It was the European version of the Canopus Pure 3D in the U.S. which did the same.

I never had any other Voodoo1, so I never knew how much difference that 6MB made.

 

[M76]

Yeah, I remember the 6MB Voodoo1 boards, so this is not that special. Now if they increased frame buffer instead that would be interesting, pointless but interesting.

 

[funkydmunky]

Never heard of a 6mb Voodoo card besides the banshee.
I have a feeling that 6mb wouldn't help performance but maybe allowed 800x600?

 

[M76]

Never heard of a 6mb Voodoo card besides the banshee.
I have a feeling that 6mb wouldn't help performance but maybe allowed 800x600?

No, these cards had 4MB Texture memory, the frame buffer is 2MB all the same. So technically all this does is increases the performance with games that use more than 2MB of textures at a time.

 

[michalrz]

Makes you regret ever upgrading at all, don't it. Should have hold on until the next gen Intel offering...
D:
Also I gamed on an i810 chipset. I beat soldier of fortune without textures!

 

[erek]

I had the Miro Hiscore 3D Voodoo 1 board back then. It came with 6MB from the factory. It was the European version of the Canopus Pure 3D in the U.S. which did the same.

I never had any other Voodoo1, so I never knew how much difference that 6MB made.

Yeah, I remember the 6MB Voodoo1 boards, so this is not that special. Now if they increased frame buffer instead that would be interesting, pointless but interesting.

I was told (long ago) about 6MB cards existing and should of questioned this article more

 

[horrorshow]

I was told (long ago) about 6MB cards existing and should of questioned this article more

I remember the ads for this monster in CGW back in.... '96?

So yeah, it def existed

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

I was told (long ago) about 6MB cards existing and should of questioned this article more

As I recall there were only the two cards, the Canopus Pure 3D (only available in the U.S.), and the Miro Hiscore 3d (which was a licensed copy of the Canopus, only available in Europe)

They came late in the Voodoo1's life, in 1997 I believe, and they weren't exactly the most common of the Voodoo 1 boards, so one would be forgiven for not knowing about them.

As M76, while modern GPU's just lump all the VRAM together, the Voodoo 1 had it partitioned into framebuffer and texture memory. The original had 2MB of each, for a total of 4MB. The Canopus/Miro 6MB version kept the 2MB frame buffer, and upped the texture memory to 4MB, for a total of 6MB.

I'm not entire sure what this mod does and how that compares, but it looks like he is "just" doubling up the texture RAM, so the same as the Canopus/Miro design.

Messing with the frame buffer wouldn't make much sense, as the only benefit there would be to allow for higher resolutions, which would probably require a whole host of other changes as well (chip, driver, etc.) and not really be feasible for a modder to do after the fact.

I'm pretty impressed that he figured out a way to do this at all. Too bad this wasn't a thing back in 1997 when it was still relevant

I bet we all would have been interested. Though, I'm not sure how many of us would have been willing to take a soldering iron to our fancy new Voodoo1 boards, and these memory chips were way more expensive back then than they are today. (if I recall, the memory chips were the largest single contributor to the cost of a voodoo1 back in the 90's.)

I wonder if those memory chips are through-hole or surface mount. If through hole, even I might have been persuaded to give it a try (if I knew in 1997 what I know today) but if surface mount, no way. I've tried repairing surface mount shit by hand, it is a bloody nightmare. I just do not have the fine motor skills to do it. I have the greatest respect for people who are good at surface mount manual solder repair and modification.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

View attachment 549004

I remember the ads for this monster in CGW back in.... '96?

So yeah, it def existed

I think the original Voodoo1 with 4MB was released in 1996. I don't think the Canopus/Miro 6MB models were available until 1997.

I could be wrong though. It's been a while.

 

[M76]

Makes you regret ever upgrading at all, don't it. Should have hold on until the next gen Intel offering...
D:
Also I gamed on an i810 chipset. I beat soldier of fortune without textures!

I gamed on a 2MB S3 Virge, I beat both Shadows of the Empire and Jedi Knight running at 400x300, with all kinds of flickering, missing textures and occasionally sub 5 fps.

 

[NamelessPFG]

The Voodoo1 usually had 2 MB of framebuffer/Z-buffer memory (the reason you're limited to 640x480 unless the game in question doesn't actually have a Z-buffer) and normally just 2 MB of texture memory, though this mod and certain variants double the texture memory to 4 MB, thus making 6 MB total.

By comparison, the Voodoo2 doubled up with a second TMU, 4 MB of framebuffer and either 4 MB or 8 MB of EDO texture memory, while also introducing the original SLI to double-up and also gain enough framebuffer memory split between both cards to run 1024x768. (Unfortunately, your texture memory is still either just 4 or 8 MB altogether.)

If you were spending the big bucks on an SGI Indigo2 IMPACT or Octane from around that same time period, then considered the pinnacle of 3D graphics, you got about 13.5 MB of framebuffer memory for running at 1280x1024 comfortably, and zero texture memory unless you wanted to pay up even more for 1 MB of texture RDRAM, or even more yet for 4 MB of texture RDRAM. (Yes, the same Rambus RDRAM you can find in an N64, certain Pentium III boards, or a PS2.)

Let that sink in for a moment, especially when you consider that 3dfx was founded by three ex-SGI engineers who presumably thought such technology needed to be available for the masses, not just the classes, and found an opening when the price of EDO DRAM suddenly dropped significantly.

 

[Falkentyne]

I remember that in order to use the "Canopus" boards with the 3dfx reference drivers, you had to limit the available memory to 4MB with a "SST" command in config.sys? was that it? or was it autooexec.bat? I don't remember that stuff anymore.

 

[horrorshow]

I remember that in order to use the "Canopus" boards with the 3dfx reference drivers, you had to limit the available memory to 4MB with a "SST" command in config.sys? was that it? or was it autooexec.bat? I don't remember that stuff anymore.

Discussing config.sys and batch files..

DMA, IRQ, and even atdt..

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

I remember that in order to use the "Canopus" boards with the 3dfx reference drivers, you had to limit the available memory to 4MB with a "SST" command in config.sys? was that it? or was it autooexec.bat? I don't remember that stuff anymore.

I don't recall having this issue?

I don't remember having to do anything special at all.

 

[funkydmunky]

I gamed on a 2MB S3 Virge, I beat both Shadows of the Empire and Jedi Knight running at 400x300, with all kinds of flickering, missing textures and occasionally sub 5 fps.

Sounds 100X better then the early consoles and was. Luckeeeeeeee!

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

I gamed on a 2MB S3 Virge, I beat both Shadows of the Empire and Jedi Knight running at 400x300, with all kinds of flickering, missing textures and occasionally sub 5 fps.

I went from a Matrox Millennium 2D card to a Matrox Mystique 3D in 1996(I think? Might have been early 1997) which through some miracle of fortune I got the stores extended replacement plan on (I never do that). It died like a week before the extended replacement plan expired, so I just took it to the store. They no longer had Mystique's, but the Miro Hiscore 3D, the European 6MB Voodoo 1 was about the same price as what I had paid a year earlier for the Mystique, so I got that instead.

The Mystique was pretty cool for 1996, but it didn't have a lot of game support. There was some motorcycle game that came with it which was pretty boring, but it was the first time I saw "high" framerate 3D gaming, so that was pretty impressive.

(I googled it, it was called "Moto Racer")

It also came with a custom build of Mechwarrior II that supported the Mystiques 3D capabilties, which was pretty awesome. I enjoyed the hell out of that.

The Voodoo1 that replaced it was clearly a much better product, but the Mystique was a cool early product as well.

I was in Europe at the time. The latest and greatest PC hardware was more expensive than it was here, so I didn't always have access to the latest stuff. I was probably a year behind most of you PC enthusiasts here in the U.S. until I moved back for college in 1999 and started getting access to US market stuff.

At one point I actually "borrowed" some hair ties from my mom, and used them, to ghetto mount an old 486 HSF I had from my old 486 to the main chip on my Voodoo1, which allowed it quite an impressive overclock.

In 1999 for my Freshman year at Umass I was still using an old Pentium 150 (pre-MMX) which I had overclocked to 200Mhz, and my 6MB Voodoo1. My PC was a beaten up beige ghetto-box with components in it that were 3 or more years old at that point. The kids in the dorm couldn't believe that my old shitbox was beating their brand new "my parents bought me a computer for college" PC's at Quake2, but it was because I had a Voodoo1, and they had whatever low cost video card Gateway stuck in their base model Pentium II.

I used that old ghetto system until fall 2000 when I used my summer job money to buy a Socket A Duron 650 (which overclocked to 950 Mhz), a motherboard, some ram and a Geforce 2 GTS, which was awesome!

Fond memories.

 

[The-Tmann]

wow......30 years went by quicker than I thought

 

[Falkentyne]

I gamed on a 2MB S3 Virge, I beat both Shadows of the Empire and Jedi Knight running at 400x300, with all kinds of flickering, missing textures and occasionally sub 5 fps.

The S3 Virge didn't work right with an ISA Soundblaster card unless you had BusThrottle=1 in some windows INI file for windows 95.
it would just hard lock the computer in certain programs (I remember a gameboy emulator would cause this every time).

 

[M76]

I went from a Matrox Millennium 2D card to a Matrox Mystique 3D in 1996(I think? Might have been early 1997) which through some miracle of fortune I got the stores extended replacement plan on (I never do that). It died like a week before the extended replacement plan expired, so I just took it to the store. They no longer had Mystique's, but the Miro Hiscore 3D, the European 6MB Voodoo 1 was about the same price as what I had paid a year earlier for the Mystique, so I got that instead.

The Voodoo 1 was a 3D only add in card, so what did you use for 2D then if you traded in your VGA?

The Mystique was pretty cool for 1996, but it didn't have a lot of game support. There was some motorcycle game that came with it which was pretty boring, but it was the first time I saw "high" framerate 3D gaming, so that was pretty impressive.

I remember Moto Racer, but I never had the full game only the demo. It was one of the few games that ran without major graphics glitches on the Virge. I think even at 512x384.

It also came with a custom build of Mechwarrior II that supported the Mystiques 3D capabilties, which was pretty awesome. I enjoyed the hell out of that.

My Voodoo (Diamond Monster 3D) came with no less than 7 games all enhanced to utilize the Voodoo. They should bring back that practice. Back then buying a new VGA was a momentous occasion, you felt you are getting something of value. Nowadays they make you feel like they are doing you a favor by taking your money.

The Voodoo1 that replaced it was clearly a much better product, but the Mystique was a cool early product as well.

I felt the same way about the Virge 3D, it tried at virtually no cost and with 2MB memory. It was already cool enough for me that I could even run 3D games as I got the Voodoo fairly late after nagging my parents about it for over a year I finally got it for Christmas 97.

I was in Europe at the time. The latest and greatest PC hardware was more expensive than it was here, so I didn't always have access to the latest stuff. I was probably a year behind most of you PC enthusiasts here in the U.S. until I moved back for college in 1999 and started getting access to US market stuff.

Unfortunately it is not "was" but still is.

At one point I actually "borrowed" some hair ties from my mom, and used them, to ghetto mount an old 486 HSF I had from my old 486 to the main chip on my Voodoo1, which allowed it quite an impressive overclock.

Talk about ghetto cooling, I had the full set at some point: CPU, Chipset, GPU, Video memory, are all rigged ghetto coolers:

I was especially proud of the memory cooling which used spring loaded cotter pins to hold the P2 heatsink neatly cut into 4 equal parts to cover all the memories.
This was a Sapphire 8500LE, that was special because the memory on it ran at 275Mhz from factory instead of 250, which was the normal for an LE, only the chip ran at 250MHz.
I managed to get it to 300/310 with the custom cooling and some graphite voltage modding. It worked well for a month or two, until it died during the holidays with everything closed.
And I was supposed to be writing my thesis at the time so I ended up getting a second hand "proper" LE with 250/250 clocks to replace it for the time being.

In 1999 for my Freshman year at Umass I was still using an old Pentium 150 (pre-MMX) which I had overclocked to 200Mhz, and my 6MB Voodoo1. My PC was a beaten up beige ghetto-box with components in it that were 3 or more years old at that point. The kids in the dorm couldn't believe that my old shitbox was beating their brand new "my parents bought me a computer for college" PC's at Quake2, but it was because I had a Voodoo1, and they had whatever low cost video card Gateway stuck in their base model Pentium II.

I actually did not use the Voodoo1 for that long, oh I had it for a long time in the PC, but it rarely did anything except for GLide only games as I got a Riva128 in April '98, which was a much more powerful card and could run 800x600 easily.

 

[M76]

The S3 Virge didn't work right with an ISA Soundblaster card unless you had BusThrottle=1 in some windows INI file for windows 95.
it would just hard lock the computer in certain programs (I remember a gameboy emulator would cause this every time).

I wouldn't know, the Virge had tons of variants MX, GX, DX, VX? 2MB, 4MB, 6MB? So there might as well be some variants that had those issues, but I don't remember that at all. I don't even remember if I replaced my Sound Blaster before I got the Virge, or after.