Hey guys, a friend of mine was testing two 8164s he was willing to sell me, but he tried them on a QDI 440BX P3 mb and an Asrock 775 DUAL-VEST and a POST card gives errors related   to video.. and we're sure that the two boards aren't dead since they are brand new, pulled off an AA system  several years  :-/

From your personal experience, which motherboards have you used with aalchemy boards that were working great with them??

I imagine there might be bios issues with cards like this because of the 66 mhz bridge (just like what happens with the v5 6k) being the reason why not every mb posts with 'em  :-/

Greetings!  :D

The AAlchemy cards are 3D parts only, so you need an additional "mastercard" for Boot/Windows.

Boards I used:
- Asus K8V Deluxe
- Asus P5N32-E SLI
- Tyan Thunder K7 and Thunder K7X
- AsRock AM2NF3-VSTA

With all boards a single AAlchemy worked without problems. Best performance was on Asus K8V Deluxe (Athlon 64 3200+), it looks like it has the best PCI controller.

By the way, the AAlchemy is only capable of running PCI 33MHz... Hank noticed this during a chat. The internal PCI bus is crappity smacked up and does not work stable with 66MHz, so Q3D went for 33MHz.

Dou you have the needed powersupply and powerboard to run two AAlchemy cards?

Excellent! Thanks for the reply dom ;) So that's why Gary's screenshot of the Q3D aalchemy panel says Default Monitor on Cirrus Logic 5480 instead of ""AAlchemy 8164"  :) At first I was thinking... how the hell can Gary have 2D without even a single 2D card on any of the 8164 motherboard pics.. but then I remembered 440GX+ motherboard Quantum3D used on their AAlchemy machines had an integrated Cirrus Logic chip. Everything makes sense now :D


About the dual 8164, they are not in sli, they are two separate bricks heh. He doesn't have the SLI fingers and I don't think these can be made by your own(?) Don't even know if the standard AKpower AAlchemy power supply is enough for two of these suckers  8-)

subhumangarbage wrote on 14.12.12 at 14:28:19:

Excellent! Thanks for the reply dom ;) So that's why Gary's screenshot of the Q3D aalchemy panel says Default Monitor on Cirrus Logic 5480 instead of ""AAlchemy 8164"  :) At first I was thinking... how the hell can Gary have 2D without even a single 2D card on any of the 8164 motherboard pics.. but then I remembered 440GX+ motherboard Quantum3D used on their AAlchemy machines had an integrated Cirrus Logic chip. Everything makes sense now :D About the dual 8164, they are not in sli, they are two separate bricks heh. He doesn't have the SLI fingers and I don't think these can be made by your own(?) Don't even know if the standard AKpower AAlchemy power supply is enough for two of these suckers  8-)

Loeszch, If it doesn't matter,I'll make you one more question because I'm still waiting mine to arrive :P

Can you also run Glide2 Games & Apps on it or are you limited to just Glide3 & OpenGL?

The AK power supply provides 70A on 2,9V rail, that's far enough for the two AA5 :)

Unfortunately Glide2 is a no go at the moment, we are stuck with Glide3 and bad OpenGL support.
I'm sure Glide2 support could be added very easily if we would have access to the source code.

Loeschzwerg wrote on 21.01.13 at 07:15:56:

The AK power supply provides 70A on 2,9V rail, that's far enough for the two AA5 :) Unfortunately Glide2 is a no go at the moment, we are stuck with Glide3 and bad OpenGL support. I'm sure Glide2 support could be added very easily if we would have access to the source code.

Perhaps it would be a matter of contacting Q3D and see if they ever give it to us  :-X

MMM But now that I remember... isn't the Bouncing ball 60 vs 30 fps demo Glide2? I swear the very same person who sold me the 8164 sent me a screenshot of it along with other demos running on the hardware.

However, when it comes to openGL I imagine that 3DFX's openGL icd is a no-go am I right?

Great that the PSU has enough juice for it  :) I would have liked to go with dual 8164s but I didn't know if the sli fingers can be made by yourself.. besides hearing that SLIed AAlchemys won't run any games :-/

Well it would be worth a try.

I don't know if the Demo is using Glide, could be OpenGL also or it is supporting several APIs after all.

The OpenGL ICD the AAlchemy driver comes with is from 3dfx -> Version 1.0.0.648 from mid 2000

This is a very nice hint, the last ICD is 1.0.0.761 and maybe works with the AAlchemy! I will try this as soon as possible  :)

What I can say is that MeasFX doesn't work.

Loeschzwerg wrote on 21.01.13 at 07:15:56:

The AK power supply provides 70A on 2,9V rail, that's far enough for the two AA5 :)

Hank indicated that the AK power supply was actually spec'd out for three boards.

So Q3D had plans to put three cards in a single system? Crazy stuff  8-) :D

Loeschzwerg wrote on 21.01.13 at 18:40:58:

Well it would be worth a try. I don't know if the Demo is using Glide, could be OpenGL also or it is supporting several APIs after all. The OpenGL ICD the AAlchemy driver comes with is from 3dfx -> Version 1.0.0.648 from mid 2000 This is a very nice hint, the last ICD is 1.0.0.761 and maybe works with the AAlchemy! I will try this as soon as possible  :) What I can say is that MeasFX doesn't work.

Give it a try :)

Sadly, it seems that 60/30/15hz demo uses Glide3x, thus being the reason it ran on it  :(


But damn, if I'm right, 70a on a 2.9v line is 203w in total. How can that be enough for so many AAs?  :o Do they also feed from the 12v line?

Loeschzwerg wrote on 22.01.13 at 07:50:38:

So Q3D had plans to put three cards in a single system? Crazy stuff  8-) :D

Been temped to rig up three cards in a system and see what happens, perhaps it is supported by the drivers?

Three channel output like my Iron system.

@Gary: Give it a shot :) Maybe it works when you use those SLI connections.

@sub: A single AA5 works 100% fine with 23-25A on 2.7/2.9V rail. It needs additional 3.3V power to supply the memory and several other parts of the card. 70Amps should be fine to run three AA5s.

gdonovan wrote on 22.01.13 at 11:00:05:

Loeschzwerg wrote on 22.01.13 at 07:50:38: So Q3D had plans to put three cards in a single system? Crazy stuff  8-) :D Been temped to rig up three cards in a system and see what happens, perhaps it is supported by the drivers? Three channel output like my Iron system.

Why not? Doesn't the manual say something about AAlchemy systems being configurable with 8 up to 32 Rasterizers via SLI?

subhumangarbage wrote on 22.01.13 at 11:06:48:

Why not? Doesn't the manual say something about AAlchemy systems being configurable with 8 up to 32 Rasterizers via SLI?

Well there are also those two external RJ45 uplink ports on an AA5 card. Not sure if the internal SLI is limited to something.

Loeschzwerg wrote on 22.01.13 at 11:10:06:

subhumangarbage wrote on 22.01.13 at 11:06:48: Why not? Doesn't the manual say something about AAlchemy systems being configurable with 8 up to 32 Rasterizers via SLI? Well there are also those two external RJ45 uplink ports on an AA5 card. Not sure if the internal SLI is limited to something.

Perhaps, but if I'm right those were for swaplock multi-channel syncing :-/

Loeschzwerg wrote on 21.01.13 at 18:40:58:

This is a very nice hint, the last ICD is 1.0.0.761 and maybe works with the AAlchemy! I will try this as soon as possible  :)

AFAIK the latest 3dfx OpenGL ICD works with AA5 boards.

Loeschzwerg wrote on 21.01.13 at 07:15:56:

The AK power supply provides 70A on 2,9V rail, that's far enough for the two AA5 :) Unfortunately Glide2 is a no go at the moment, we are stuck with Glide3 and bad OpenGL support. I'm sure Glide2 support could be added very easily if we would have access to the source code.

I sent an email to Quantum3D gently asking them for it, explaining our reason. Who knows what will happen ;D


BTW, is UT99 Glide3 or just Glide2?

I hope after so many years they will provide us with the sourcecode.

UT99 is Glide2.

There are just very few games that use Glide3.

Loeschzwerg wrote on 04.02.13 at 13:37:25:

I hope after so many years they will provide us with the sourcecode. UT99 is Glide2. There are just very few games that use Glide3.

And making games trying to use Glide3 instead wouldn't be possible, no?

I have just received mine 8164, it was a very tight fit on a Thermaltake armor case :D, better not talk about installing the psu..

Let's just hope that the vsa 100 chips won't get too hot..

Put a fan and be sure the heat flow away; AAlchemy boards are meant to be used under thermally controlled environment.

goriath wrote on 05.02.13 at 00:24:11:

Put a fan and be sure the heat flow away; AAlchemy boards are meant to be used under thermally controlled environment.

That was what I originally thought, but the issue I have is that I don't have enough space to even put a single 8 cm fan  :-/

Just put a top blowing fan on the heatsinks. You could use very slim once like those from Scythe:
http://geizhals.at/de/333844

Oh, didn't think of that. But wouldn't the Powerboard trap a lot of the airflow? Now I see that I can put a slim 12 cm antec tricool fan between the hdd cage and the card/powerboard, but I don't know if this will be enough  :D

You mean the chassis of the AAlchemy and the Powerboard? Yes, this could be a problem if the airflow is very bad.

A possible solution would be to mount the powerboard directly without the metal chassis. This way you don't have to fight hot spots.

Loeschzwerg wrote on 06.02.13 at 09:36:15:

A possible solution would be to mount the powerboard directly without the metal chassis. This way you don't have to fight hot spots.

This help to prevent overheating of the backside of the card indeed.

With the aluminum cage I noticed the AA5 board gets very warm on the backside :-X

I get a Glide3xb.dll & Glide3xr.dll missing erro on c:\Winnt\system32\obsidian2 & program files\Q3D after trying to run a game or the spinning q3d logo test. I tried to rename a copy of Glide3x and Glide3xb and copy the needed ones to their respective directories but it still complains about missing glide drivers  :-X

AIDA64 & other programs also only detect just a single vsa-100 out of 8  :'( I guess I'll have to try it on another motherboard, shouldn't I?

Well, I have put it on my AN7 and it still shows a single vsa 100 only. I don't think the board or the power supply are damaged, since I was able to touch three heatsinks and they were a bit hot. Could you help me with this one?


EDIT: The error doesn't appear anymore, however, all i get when running the glide test is a garbled screen :'( And AIDA still shows only a single vsa

EDIT2: Here's a picture of what the screen shows when that happens:

http://i.imgur.com/6sq8pFr.jpg?1

I guess the PSU came bad, even though the card was tested with it before shipment. Perhaps it isn't supplying the card with enough voltage and thus the reason it's not working and why not all 8 vsa-100 are shown in AIDA. I also hear a strong squealing coming from it. I just hope that the card isn't damaged, since the control panel reports it as a 8264SB.

Dom and guys, may you give me a hand with this one?  :). Thanks

What drivers did you install and what OS are you using? My advice would be W2k SP4 / XP SP3 and of course the latest 4.6 drivers.

Can you see the driver panel? -> http://www.abload.de/img/xp2xhw4.jpg

Try to use FSAA 4x or 8x, no FSAA often causes image issues when running games.

About the squealing noise -> I've got those too in some scenarios.

Can you also make a picture of the hw setup?

Loeschzwerg wrote on 12.02.13 at 11:08:19:

What drivers did you install and what OS are you using? My advice would be W2k SP4 / XP SP3 and of course the latest 4.6 drivers. Can you see the driver panel? -> http://www.abload.de/img/xp2xhw4.jpg Try to use FSAA 4x or 8x, no FSAA often causes image issues when running games. About the squealing noise -> I've got those too in some scenarios. Can you also make a picture of the hw setup?

Of course:

http://i.imgur.com/eCxnxjg.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/zn3MihV.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/RFw9a8D.png

http://i.imgur.com/DmJGd0j.png

http://i.imgur.com/eiygMlm.png

http://i.imgur.com/hX2RZ5D.png

My system is starting to reboot. I suspect this is, once again, because of the psu. Happened the same both on this AN7 and on a DFI ad75, no overclocking.

Also notice how aida 64 only shows a single vsa100? I think the card isn't receiving the full 2.9volts needed