I need help: Voodoo 3 Era Build

[MotoRacer]

I'm beginning to think the SoundBlaster Live! card will simply not work with my configuration. I finally got Win XP to recognize the damn thing is there in slot 3, but the Live .exe driver program doesn't understand that it's even something it can talk to, thus refuses to bother to update the driver.

 

Is there a good sound card that isn't too pricey that would work well with a voodoo 3, win xp, and games from the late 90s early 2000s?

[boxpressed]

Creative Labs Audigy 2 is a good card for XP.

 

Turtle Beach Santa Cruz has its fans too.

 

Tons of info over at vogons.org.

[Asaki]

I'm thinking about trying to install an older version of Q3A in a few and seeing how that goes (my retail version is 1.30+, so no A3D).

Holy pewp! I tried out a copy of 1.11 (retail and demo both work), and A3D 2.0 sounds AMAZING. You really can tell where someone is in a room just by listening to their footsteps. I don't know if it's because of my PCI slot issues, but as soon as I try upgrading Q3A to 1.16, the 3D audio totally breaks =(

 

Going to have to try out Thief 2 tonight, if I can manage to pull myself away from this other game that I've never even liked very much =)

 

Is there a good sound card that isn't too pricey that would work well with a voodoo 3, win xp, and games from the late 90s early 2000s?

Well if you don't care about DOS, your mobo's integrated audio should be good enough. Or is it still not working?

Edited February 26, 2017 by Asaki

[MotoRacer]

In reply to the last post, I got the onboard audio to work. In fact I got the computer to work in general. You have no idea how many hours I've poured into this, and I can't thank all you enough for your help so far. I haven't tried more than Moto Racer, but it's running beautifully, the sidewinder controllers are being recognized, direct 3D works in the game, and it sounds wonderful. A far cry from it erroring out pre-boot, like I had before.

 

Turns out I had two faulty pieces of hardware.

 

As I showed before, xp showed me my disc drive was bad. I found a new DVD lightscribe one at goodwill and installed it.

 

And the big daddy. The reason for all of my woes. Whether it was faulty or not, I gave up on the Asus motherboard and switched it out for another donor I had laying around.

 

Sure as rain, as soon as xp was done reinstalling, I had sound pouring out the speakers and volume controls bestowed to me once again!

 

It's a pity I had to go to this board as now I don't have a game port, but I'm sure I can find something that adds that support via a pci add on.

 

I also gave up on the sound blaster card. I have a couple dos games I want to play eventually, so that'll need to be resolved. I appreciate he suggestions of what cards to get.

 

It's late at night, but here are some pictures. Thank you once again, and I'll post more questions if I come across them while I install more games.

[Flojomojo]

Cool, glad you got it going. Bummer about the faulty equipment, but old stuff is like that. I admire your courage in buying old components from Goodwill, since I'm sure all sales are final from that place.

 

You've got me wanting to boot old Moto Racer again. I'm just going to do it the easy way and run my GOG version, though. I don't like bringing pain on myself.

 

https://www.gog.com/game/moto_racer

[Keatah]

Maybe there was/is corruption with CMOS? You'd have to take out the battery and possibly short a jumper to reset it.

[MotoRacer]

Cool, glad you got it going. Bummer about the faulty equipment, but old stuff is like that. I admire your courage in buying old components from Goodwill, since I'm sure all sales are final from that place.

 

You've got me wanting to boot old Moto Racer again. I'm just going to do it the easy way and run my GOG version, though. I don't like bringing pain on myself.

 

https://www.gog.com/game/moto_racer

 

Yeah, I remember playing that version. At first it didn't work, and then a couple years later someone made a patch that fixed it for newer hardware. Glad I could inspire you to play it again!

 

Maybe there was/is corruption with CMOS? You'd have to take out the battery and possibly short a jumper to reset it.

 

Possibly. The battery had been replaced during the course of the build, but I didn;'t reset any jumper. There's no convenient button to do so on this board, unlike the one I have running in this computer now.

[MotoRacer]

I'm beginning to realize 3DFX cards were little fussy b****es back in the day.

 

Something about Moto Racer was bothering me. As per my screen name suggests, I've played the game quite a bit. Colors were off all over the place, from shading of the "Enter your name" letters, the buttons "Back" "Options" etc being too light in grey color, and more noticeably the tires of the street bikes being VERY light grey, compared to the charcoal-like color they're supposed to be. Which is odd, as other blacks, mainly on other menu options and in other in-game assets, were fine. However, color depth in general was low, and things had a washed out feeling to them.

 

I had an ATI 128 Rage Pro I had originally taken out of the machine, due to me favoring the Voodoo 3 capabilities (potential capabilities...) and simple nostalgia for it's name plate. I ended up slapping it into the build, and low and behold!... Moto Racer looks like it should, through and through.

 

Additionally, the 3DFX Voodoo 3 card has been a complete pain to work with on nearly every other piece of software I've tried since then. Need for Speed 1 SE won't boot up, giving an error message "Application Error: D:/INFSW.EXE.....The instruction at 0041a004 referenced memory at 000b0000 the memory could not be written". Unreal simply won't start, with an error given "General Protection Fault!....History:Uviewport::lock <-UWindowsViewport::LockWindow<-UGameEngine::Draw <-UWindowsViewport::Repaint............UGlideRenderDevice:: Init <-TryRenderDevice.....". Need for Speed 2 SE, despite doing all the tricks I've found online, won't run in anything but software mode.

 

Now, I haven't tried these last three games with the Rage yet, but clearly the Voodoo 3 is awfully picky. My ram is checked and fine, HDD fine, mobo fine, sound fine....

 

I've also tried some of the third party Voodoo 3 drivers you guys recommended on page one (the user who has a guy in bandages over his eyes?). That made the in-game parts of Moto Racer run at a million miles an hour, essentially meaning there was a lack of a CPU speed block of some sort. And then, like clockwork, all the other games above worked just as terribly (ie: didn't work).

 

Ironically, I can run Unreal just fine in safe mode. Easily flipping between options, and the graphics on the test screen looked fine.

 

Ah well. I know I won't get Glide graphics with this thing, but let's see how this ATI card does with the lot...

Edited February 26, 2017 by MotoRacer

[MotoRacer]

Hmm, I wonder if a glide wrapper would work...

[Keatah]

3DFX never really had inherent windows support. Everything was patchworked on top of the OS by 3DFX themselves. Today you have DirectX, D3D, OpenGL, and OpenCL..

 

Additionally there were more hardware reliability problems than other graphics adapters. Not in the 3DFX chips, but in the supporting and connecting chips. Just what I heard over the ages. I didn't experience any 3DFX fails or that many driver issues.

 

Regarding clearing the CMOS. Take the battery out for an hour and put it back. Also disconnect the power. That should ensure a solid reset.

Edited February 26, 2017 by Keatah

[MotoRacer]

3DFX never really had inherent windows support. Everything was patchworked on top of the OS by 3DFX themselves. Today you have DirectX, D3D, OpenGL, and OpenCL..

 

Additionally there were more hardware reliability problems than other graphics adapters. Not in the 3DFX chips, but in the supporting and connecting chips. Just what I heard over the ages. I didn't experience any 3DFX fails or that many driver issues.

 

Regarding clearing the CMOS. Take the battery out for an hour and put it back. Also disconnect the power. That should ensure a solid reset.

 

Thanks for the help, I know i've been a pain with all these questions.

 

I'm currently going to put the voodoo3 back in, as I found some things I might be able to do to get NFS2SE off the ground. We'll see. I'm also thinking it might be wise of me to have an XP and a W98SE set of hdds ready to go, as some games like Daytona USA and NFS1SE seem to not want to work (NFS1SE) or install (Daytona USA) at all, even in compatibility mode. I had a w98 laptop that installed Daytona USA just fine, and I'm thinking it might just not like XP for whatever reason. Spent all day on this crap, oh the joy of PC gaming...

[Keatah]

Vogons.org is what I believe to the be the "gold standard" in pre-xp gaming support. Lots of knowledge there, but it is also very "Linuxy".

 

I used to be pretty good myself at sniffing problems with DMA/IRQ and shifting com ports, but have since developed interests and concerns elsewhere.

[Asaki]

I never had those sorts of issues with my Voodoo 3 (although mine is PCI and not AGP, and I didn't try the same games). Did you try deleting/renaming any Glide DLL files that came installed with the games?

[MotoRacer]

Vogons.org is what I believe to the be the "gold standard" in pre-xp gaming support. Lots of knowledge there, but it is also very "Linuxy".

 

I used to be pretty good myself at sniffing problems with DMA/IRQ and shifting com ports, but have since developed interests and concerns elsewhere.

Yeah I need to sign up there. I'm encountering so many issues, it's not even funny.

 

I never had those sorts of issues with my Voodoo 3 (although mine is PCI and not AGP, and I didn't try the same games). Did you try deleting/renaming any Glide DLL files that came installed with the games?

 

Probably the games you played, to be honest. I've looked up the list of games with Glide support, and it seems many just "work". However, my favorites just "don't", haha. Seriously though, I've tried putting DLL files in the root folder (none were there to begin with), along with a plethora of other "solutions" such as patches and what not that were "guaranteed to work". Nothing. Still can't play NFSIISE in 3DFX mode to save my life. If I use the nfs2sea.exe, it just freezes the black. If I use the other patch it says to use if it goes to black, ..... it goes to black. I can't win.

 

Through in basic games like Daytona USA that refuse to even install once hitting nearly 100%, and it just feels like an uphill battle. In fact, all I've gotten to work so far in optimal modes is Moto Racer. Which is fine.. but... common!

[boxpressed]

Your 815E board should be quite compatible because most Intel boards are. The V3 is a fantastic product that shouldn't be giving you this much trouble. I still didn't see whether you did a fresh install of 98SE with the BIOS settings I mentioned. Until you start at square one, you'll be spinning your wheels trying this or that. Setting up a working V3 system is extremely easy IF you start from scratch.