#3dfx voodoo

[retrocgads]

UK 1998

[techturd]

[themajortechie]

got some kind of voodoo nonsense in the mail today

[56k-modem]

1999

[dimalink]

Restore legendary Pentium 2 and Voodoo 2 computer

New Year is already begun. Now we have 2024. New space cycle. And few space cycles ago, I started to restore some of my old computers. Part of them were mine since school days. Part of them, I buy for a low price. It is interesting for me, to restore some computers, and I was growing up with them, it is interesting. Or some systems from the past, which are very interesting to try out and look. It is not necessary to be a strong powerful systems. It can me middle or not powerful, let’s call it slow or weak systems. Everything is interesting.

So, from time to time, I am restoring old systems. I do it as episodes, not regular. So right now, I want to talk about my legendary Pentium 2. With system of three dimensional acceleration 3DFX VOODOO II. It is most coolest system ever. And it is also has a Sound Blaster Awe 64. It is very cool sound card. And as idea, as I remember, it has two hard drives. One is about 5 gigabytes, and second is about 50 gigabytes. As a rule, you can set to system a CD Rom, or DVD rom, even which can write discs, writeable.

At this moment system is already done. Everything is inside a strong metal case. So, computer has a big weight in result. I think it is because of metal case has a big weight, it is a big metal case. And it has a something like this system inside – Pentium 2 350 mhz with technology MMX, 3d graphic accelerator Voodoo 2, 64 mb Ram.

So, I find all the bolts, and tighten the bolts. Everything is done. My brother helps me to do that. Brother is very good in such things. And he reacts fast about some technological solutions. And it is opposite to me, in such questions. Some specific wires format. And more, if it is not enough some details. Every time my brother helps me with that. So, for example, I give myself a try to launch computer without cooler. This is like I do. My brother told me that it will not start up.

Pentium 2 processor has a form factor of cartridge. But no 8 bit. And it is like a cartridge. And cooler is going with him, on a cartridge. But it is good to set up with a wire between cooler and processor. Some connectors are very tight. So, I even don’t get what place to connect them. Again, my little brother helps me. So, for example, as for me, I never find out that at the border of motherboard, at the side, it is so little wires like power supply, reset, hdd ready, like indicators and buttons are there. At the mother board.

So, process of making this setup was interesting. It is very interesting to find out new things. And it was going in a different step. First, I collect all the parts. It was so long time ago, when it was working last time. So, I need to find the parts and to put them at the box. And later, to set it all at the motherboard.  And the idea that plus minus everything is ok about details.

Second step it was before New Year. It is about to setup all the parts into the case. Everything is all right. I give myself a try to start it up. Power is ok. But nothing happens. So, it is about a situation you need connect with wire a cartridge with second Pentium and cooler. But it can start. Computer makes a noise. And that’s all.

Next step is at celebrating times, already in new year 2024. It is about to setup bracing for processor Pentium 2. So, it is happening, that you need to setup a special bracing at the processor. Like a direction parts. So, we find these parts. And open the case with computer, replace all the details. To remove everything from motherboard. To screw everything off.  Because of bracing is set from the downside of motherboard. And then they rise up. And at the top you put into this bracing a processor.  As a cartridge slot it works. For example. Unusual system.

Today, it is clear, that there is no way to find little wires. As brother said 3 pin – molex. To setup cooler and processor. Plus, to this there is no wires to setup motherboard and cd rom. Atapi format or something like that. It is good to gather wires. Right now, there is no wires. But it can be without cd rom, for some time. There is a network card 100 mbits, instead.

System is almost restored. And it can be one more try to start it. It is interesting what it is about hard drives. Is it still installed Windows Millennium or not. Last time it was Windows Millennium.  It is interesting what games it has installed. As idea it should everything at their place. So many years passed. So, I am restoring slowly my school system. For me it is a legendary system. I spent with it so much time.  

So, lots of games I launch with it. I tried visual basic there, for example. And played a lot in Arcanum, Fallout 2. Doom 2 I played a lot too. In Half Life when it was released. In a different Need For Speed 3,4,2,2 special edition. In GTA 1,2. In GTA London – I and my bro played a lot. Carmageddon 2 it was a cool cd. My brother is a big fan of Blade of Darkness videogame. And it was a first time to play it in Pentium 2. I remember how much I played in Grandia 2. It is such a cool Japanese role playing game with good graphics, port from Dreamcast.  And I played in emulators too, of first Sony Playstation.  

So, this way I first to play in Gran Turismo, Final Fantasy 7,8,9. My brother likes a lot game Final Fantasy 8 for PC. I am talking about a PC version of the game. He played a lot. So, for some time it was his favorite game. Here we played a lot in Heroes of Might and Magic 3, Heroes of Might and Magic 4.  So here we launched first time Might and Magic 6,7,8. My brother likes a lot shooter Sin. It is also a good game.

At first this system has installed Windows 98, and later Windows Millennium. It was a short time, it was installed Windows 2000. So, at this moment I run into Quake 3 CD.  Brother buy this game. And bring home. It was exciting graphics! It is bad one thing, it has no casual levels, no story, episodes. But graphics is cool, and action is good!

With this system I get the idea what emulators are. With modem. When a game for NEs to download about half an hour, for example. If you are lucky then 20 minutes. Or maybe it was a time for Sega game it is. It happens about 40 minutes.  So, this details a I don’t remember already. Nes games should to download faster, as a rule. And Sega and Super Nintendo more long time.  I opened for myself emulation of MS DOS. Using DOS BOX. I try some isometrical Ultima. It is about island, forest. First time I played in Sega, Snes. First Sonic, for example. I played it with all the time making save files. I like a lot to setup scanlines.

First time I try out what is it Ultima Online. World of online is very exciting thing. So many deals to do for a schoolboy there! Such a nice memories. To grind, upgrade skills, explore world. To build a little house, to collect resources. So, I remember that, I learn skill animal taming. And I can tame ostrich.

Nice soft it was, as I remember. Windows Media Player with such beautiful interface. Windows Media Player classic with standard interface for style Windows 95/98. WinAmp is a cool player. And I remember, from time to time I have installed Kaspersky antivirus. Good thing. But system was loaded, that’s for sure, for some time. And it makes a system to freeze, slow working, and you need to wait. It happened like that. Without it - it everything works fast. Of course, I used program Word, a little Excel. Notepad.

And at this system, I see for the first time Video CD. Interesting format. And I remember I was impressed when I play in Command And Conquer 2 about a video sequences. Such a cool graphics, and also a cinema movie. Strategy and action movie. And later I and my brother played a lot in Red Alert 2 Yuri’s revenge. It was a game for a long long time.  And playing in Counter Strike with bots. And I played with my brother at this system. In counter strike, Rage of Mages 2. And I remember how we dig maps (explore maps slowly). So, we take a big map and clear it from monsters. Try to find new items. Brother played with a new pc. And I with this machine.

It is amazing, and at this Pentium 2 machine. A pne as I called it, stump, as a joke. I played in a second Dune. It was very good game. It was launched easily, without any problems.  But it is for MS DOS. Here I played a lot in F 22 Lighting 2. It is something like simulation, but arcade too, it can be played nice. Lots of time for Duke Nukem 3D.  I remember how my brother brings CD Atomic Winter.  What a game! It is winter and a new levels! It was interesting! Video quest X files, I like a lot. It goes as a video! It is very amazing investigation! Rainbow 6 by Tom Clancy. So, it is very serious game. So, it is like shooter and something more.

So, yes, it is connected lots of good memories with this system!

By system. So, I am without wire to connect cooler. And there is no wires to connect CD ROM. And everything else is restored. Case is complete. Strong metal. Every part is setup.

From time to time i like to play videogames. And write about it. Dima Link is making retro videogames, apps, a little of music, write stories, and some retro more.

WEBSITE: http://www.dimalink.tv-games.ru/home_eng.html ITCHIO: https://dimalink.itch.io/ GAMEJOLT: https://gamejolt.com/@DimaLink/games

BLOGGER: https://dimalinkeng.blogspot.com/

[nicolemakes]

Today I did some furniture arranging, so behold my 1997 win98 rig and ALPS micro dry MD2010R from 1996. Both getting a full strip and clean with retrobrite and a custom external psu for the printer (the R is for ressurected)

[maverickuk]

3dfx Voodoo 3 3000 + Noctua NF-A4x10 fan = overclocking

Or at least, it'll run a little cooler and hopefully add a few more years to the old girls life.

It's not that I need to overclock an old video card when I can easily use a newer card if I'd like more performance. It's more that by enhancing the cooling and seeing how much more performance is hidden in the device takes me back to my younger years when it became a way to saving a good chunk of money by investing in a cheaper CPU or video card and then squeezing out more FPS through some TLC.

The Voodoo 3 range runs pretty hot by default and don't feature any active cooling. So back in the day it was fairly common for people to slap on a fan in a basic way in order to try and cool down the card a little.

The Voodoo 3 2000 ran at 143Mhz (GPU & RAM) by default which typically gave it quite a lot of headroom for speeding up. Where as the Voodoo 3 3000 running at 166MHz was normally running close to it's limit. Those with a Voodoo 3 3500 were already at 183MHz and would be unlikely to squeeze much more out.

From research it seems that typically it's the memory on the cards that give out before the GPU. With memory chips being used with speed ratings ranging from 6ns, 5.5ns to even some 5ns. Those with lower ratings having more headroom to run at higher speeds.

So what could I get some my card? First up, let's attach that fan

The stock 3000 heatsink features two little holes at opposite ends which I thought would be perfect to looping a cable tie through. The first one went in without too much difficulty.

Unfortunately with the second I just couldn't squeeze the damn thing through. After much frustration I instead put a screw through the fan and used some pliers to squash the metal of the heatsink onto the thread of the screw.

Not as elegant as I would have liked, but it's held in place securely enough for my needs.

Once in the Pentium III mainboard it fits in nicely and thankfully doesn't hit the PCI header next to the AGP slot (Of course I checked this prior to securing the fan...)

So after all that, how much more performance does this card have to give?

I turned to Unreal, as it was already installed and felt like a suitable game for the era of the hardware and ran a timedemo at 1024x768 and 1280x1024 resolutions

An extra 14MHz gives an additional 6.5% performance at 1024 with a higher 1280 resolution giving a higher 9% uplift. Not earth shattering, but certainly a nice little bonus.

Unfortunately if I pushed the card any further Unreal would get a little psychedelic

Yay for overclocking!

[nhaneh]

n o s t a l g i a

[datamattsson]

Got cash?

[nhaneh]

Played the original but on the PC lmao

Well, it has been a mixed decision to not put FFVII on the poll for favorite final fantasy games.

I gave my reasoning as it was more recent, by which I meant, between the nostalgia for the original and the new fans brought in by remasters remasters it would probably dominate, and while other games have remasters, VIIs are significantly different to be a new category for me.

As I only had 12 spots on the poll, I decided not to include it on that particular poll,and include it in a future one if the poll was popular. And I'm amazed at how popular it was, and how many nice things people have said in the reblogs.

I was going to do this later, but the time seems right for now. So, throwing in everything but the movies-

*I know that the later games come out on more systems, I'm just keeping it simple and sticking to play stations and mobiles.

*Oh yah, I now remember why I was going to wait. I meant to include Rebirth. Oh well, that can go in a future poll about spinoffs/ sequels and the like

Feel free to give reasons or fond memories in the notes or reblogs.

If you haven't voted already, here's the poll for favorite final fantasy game. (Its the first. Other games like tactics will show up in future polls)

[virtualgirladv]

When she makes your GPU heat up even though you have like no processes running >~<

when youre still running a 3dfx Voodoo so even just thinking of her smile at 720p crashes you

[retrocgads]

UK 1998

[techturd]

Never have I needed a sticker so badly

Found these here:

[foone]

Me: so I've got a lot of work to do today. I better get to the office and get on it.

Also me: but what if I wrote a program to display pride flags on 3dfx Voodoo 3D accelerators from the late 90s?

Me: shit you're right

[not-radioshack]

The S3 ViRGE Minecraft Thing

(Article originally posted on TheRetroWeb)

Have you ever wanted to play Minecraft? Have you ever wondered “how terrible can I make this experience”? No? Well too bad. You’ve clicked on this article and I’ve gone this far already, so let’s just keep going and see what happens.

A Little bit of history…

The S3 ViRGE, short for Video and Rendering Graphics Engine (alternately, Virtual Reality Graphics Engine), was first introduced in November of 1995, with an actual release date of early 1996. It was S3 Graphics’ very first 3D-capable graphics card, and it had the unfortunate luck of launching alongside… the 3Dfx Voodoo 1.

It became rather quickly apparent that the ViRGE was terribly insufficient in comparison to the Voodoo, and in fact even picked up the infamous moniker of “graphics decelerator”, which poked fun at its lackluster 3D performance.

The original ViRGE would be followed by the card that this article focuses on, the ViRGE/DX, just a little under a year later in the waning months of 1996.

The ViRGE/DX was a welcome improvement over the original release, lifting performance to more acceptable levels and improving software compatibility with better drivers. Mostly. And while native Direct3D performance was iffy at best and OpenGL support was nonexistent, S3 did have one last trick up their sleeves to keep the ViRGE line relevant: the S3D Toolkit.

Similar to 3Dfx’s Glide API, the S3D Toolkit was S3 Graphics’ proprietary low-level graphics API for the ViRGE. Unlike 3Dfx’s offering, however, S3D, much like the cards it was intended for, fell flat on its face. Only a small handful of games ever natively supported S3D acceleration, and by my own admission, I haven’t ever played any of them.

But wait, this article is about playing Minecraft on the ViRGE, isn’t it? The block game of all time is famously written in Java, and uses an OpenGL rendering pipeline. So, how can the S3 ViRGE, a card with no OpenGL support, possibly play Minecraft?

Wrappers!

This is where a little thing called “OpenGL wrappers” come in. Shipping in the form of plain OpenGL32.dll files (at least, on Windows) that you drop into a folder alongside whatever needs OpenGL acceleration, these wrappers provide a way to modify, or “wrap”, OpenGL API calls.

In our case, we are interested in the category of OpenGL wrappers that translate OpenGL API calls to that of other APIs. For a more modern equivalent of these wrappers, the Intel Arc line of graphics cards uses DXVK in order to translate older DirectX 9 calls to Vulkan, which is a natively-supported API.

For this experiment, we will be using a wrapper called “S3Mesa”, made by Brian Paul of the Mesa project. Though open-source, this wrapper never made it to a completed state, and is missing certain features such as texture transparency despite the ViRGE itself being supposedly capable of it. However, this does not affect gameplay much beyond aesthetics.

The S3Mesa wrapper, on a more technical note, translates OpenGL 1.1 calls to a mix of both S3D and DirectX API calls.

The System

At last, we arrive at the system hardware. As of writing, I am currently benchmarking a plethora of low-end (or otherwise infamous) cards for my “Ultra Nugget Graphics Card Roundup”, and so the system itself is likely a liiiiiittle bit overpowered for the lowly ViRGE/DX:

AMD Athlon XP (Palomino) @ 1.14GHz

Shuttle MK32 Socket A motherboard

256MB DDR-400

S3 ViRGE/DX (upgraded to 4MB of video memory)

Windows 98SE

Why Windows 98SE? Because S3 never released 3D-accelerated graphics drivers for non-Windows 9x operating systems in the consumer space.

For Minecraft itself, KernelEX 4.5.2 and Java 6 are installed as well, and an old version of the launcher dating back to early 2013 that I personally refer to as the “Minecraft 1.5 Launcher” is used for compatibility purposes. Also because no launcher that can work on Windows 98 is capable of logging into the authentication servers anymore.

Setting up the game

With Windows 98SE, KernelEX, and Java 6 installed (in that order, of course), we can turn our attention to the game itself. As mentioned before, no launcher to my knowledge that runs on Windows 98 is capable of logging into the auth servers. This results in two additional problems: starting the game itself and downloading game assets.

Using the 1.5 launcher solves this first issue by means of relying on a little thing called the lastlogin file. This is an old way that the launcher was able to allow players to keep playing offline when disconnected from the internet, but more importantly, unlike the modern launcher, it doesn’t expire. 🙂

And because of that, our login problem is solved by middle school me’s old .minecraft folder backup, from which I’ve extracted the lastlogin file for use in this experiment.

As for game assets, there is no longer any way to easily download the game files for use on Windows 98SE directly, and so I’ve instead pieced together a folder using that same backup. The most important thing is that instead there being a “versions” folder, there is now instead a “bin” folder, where both the natives and the game’s jarfile both reside.

Now that our .minecraft folder is acquired, take that thing and plot it right down into the Windows folder in Windows 98. Why? Because on Windows 98, the 1.5 launcher ignores the “application data” folder entirely. The launcher itself can go anywhere you’d like, so long as you’re using the .exe version and not the .jar version.

Finally, to wrap things up, place the OpenGL to S3D wrapper in the same location as the launcher exe. Make sure it’s called OpenGL32.dll!

The Game

You just lost it. 🙂

The S3 ViRGE, by my own testing, is capable of running any version of Minecraft from Classic up to and including Indev version in-20100110. However, it is EXTREMELY unstable, and has a tendency to crash mere seconds after loading into a world. This is on top of some minor rendering errors introduced by the aformentioned incomplete state of the S3Mesa wrapper. This video was recorded with Windows ME rather than Windows 98, but this does not impact anything regarding performance or compatibility (and in fact, at least from my own experience, the game is more stable under ME than 98).

Below are the desktop/game settings used in testing:

“Tiny” render distance

Desktop resolution: 640 x 480 (don’t fullscreen the game)

Bit depth: 16/24-bit color (32-bit can cause the ViRGE to run out of memory, and 16-bit can cause strange issues on Windows 98)

And last but not least, some gameplay. This came from some scrapped footage originally intended for my “UNGCR” video, and was only intended for personal reference in collecting performance numbers. As such, the audio is muted due to some copyrighted music blasting in the background.

Further reading/resources

Vogons Wrapper Project

Original video that this article is based on

VGA Legacy MKIII’s ViRGE/DX page

thanks for reading my walking natural disaster of an article kthxbaiiiiiiii

[dimalink]

State 89

Three-dimensional scene based on videogame Interstate 76. It is excellent game about car theme. With shooting. In genre of combat racing. Open space. Story style of action movie 70s-80s. Excellent 3d graphics, which easy to start with 486 Dx2 computer. Later it was a versions 3DFX of this game. Ride a car about free space. And shoot.

And this is my three-dimensional scene based on this game. Style of retro action movie. I remember a square based graphics of Interstate 76.  It is such a firm style. I have done it much more simple way. But something like the way – characters of this game. It was a Groove Champion, character in game. I dedicate it to Groove Champion. As I can say. And car Lincoln or Jefferson. As I remember, it is Jefferson. I like a lot this car. So, you can select a game mode – ride a desert. At any car, if I am right.

Let’s move to 1989. Very end of 80s. Style of retro action movie. Retro graphics. Retro characters.

Somewhere in desert. It is going a stylish car. Yacht on wheels. Desert. It is hot in day. And cold at night. Though all the desert it is going one single car.

Racer Disco is going to a secret point. Point of meeting. Disco with nickname at the road track – master. Disco Master, also, a policeman, which investigation a strange car modifications. Strange car transporting. Someone here is moving cars, take a race, makes wrong modifications. Dark story.

Early at the morning. Sun is only starting. It is yet cold. He takes his pistol. And he has reached the house. Amongst the desert. Somewhere, computer master is waiting for him. He will show him with newest computer Ibm pc xt new variations of the car. And help to modify car for a race. With building into it a computer. But it is good to be careful. Opponents can to know about this. It is very dangerous!

In a little house. Computer master is waiting for a long time. Hesitation. And paranoid. It is better to finish it faster. Nothing to do. Program is already written. Loaded to a diskette. It is good to make a debug and install into Disco`s car. And that’s all. Disco can win the race. And to get to know what is wrong with other`s modifications. It is good to press Enter and go into State 89. Secret car modification. Computer and machine -  no one see this before.

It helps to know what is going on. And catch intruders.

Dima Link is making retro videogames, apps, a little of music, write stories, and some retro more.

WEBSITE: http://www.dimalink.tv-games.ru/home_eng.html ITCHIO: https://dimalink.itch.io/ GAMEJOLT: https://gamejolt.com/@DimaLink/games

BLOGGER: https://dimalinkeng.blogspot.com/