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http://www.falconfly.de/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl 3dfx Section >> Tech Talk >> Who uses tdfx bios editor? http://www.falconfly.de/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1060208437 Message started by fin on 05.08.03 at 16:32:26

Title: Who uses tdfx bios editor?
Post by fin on 05.08.03 at 16:32:26

The author of tdfx bios editor, Rainbow, wants to know is his program useful & helpful or not. So that he doesn't speak English (he's Russian as I am), I have to ask all of you and then tell him the results :).
Your good response will encourage further development of the tdfx bios editor. And you can tell me what improvements do you want from this program - I will surely transmit them to Rainbow ;).

Title: Re: Who uses tdfx bios editor?
Post by DenisF on 05.08.03 at 19:47:08

I think he should get some decent hosting for it, cause at the moment all i see is a big 404 error in a language that i didn't read for over 10 years :)

Title: Re: Who uses tdfx bios editor?
Post by fin on 05.08.03 at 20:10:34

I'll move to a decent hosting up to mid-October.

Download mirrors:
http://www.donapex.net/~voodoo/files/bios/tdfx_bios_editor.rar
Update: latest version always here http://download.overclockers.ru/video_bios/3dfx_bioses/utils/tdfxbioseditor.rar

Title: Re: Who uses tdfx bios editor?
Post by PHOENIX on 05.08.03 at 21:09:39

Hi !

I use tdfx BIOS editor. I think it's better than the original 3dfx BIOS editor shipped with Banshee BIOS 1.00.10. Great work ! :)

By the way, I sent you an email about 3dfx source code which contains BIOS source code. I hope you received it.

It would be interesting to compare V3 1000 BIOS or Velocity BIOS with Banshee BIOS for the second TMU issue . All are 32 Kb BIOSes ! Is Banshee in fact a Voodoo3 ?

Regards

Title: Re: Who uses tdfx bios editor?
Post by FalconFly on 05.08.03 at 21:15:00

Hm, he sent it to me just recently (today actually ;) ), and I'll put it online for those that like to use it.

(readme is in russian though, he said, so I might need to attach an online translated (ugh!) english version of it ;) )

Personally never edited a Bios though, so I don't know what's to gain by doing it (?)

Title: Re: Who uses tdfx bios editor?
Post by PHOENIX on 05.08.03 at 21:25:03

@ FalconFly

I used BIOS editor to edit dramInit0 and dramInit1 values in the BIOS. I found out that Gigabyte Banshee (aka GA-630) has got the best/fastest timings for SGRAM !

dramInit0 0x001698e9
dramInit1 0x00200031

The gain in Quake 3 Arena Demo V1.11 from ~30 FPS to ~35 FPS (with defaults settings), but only after also tweaking VIA MVP3 registers (4-way interleave, ...)

Regards

Title: Re: Who uses tdfx bios editor?
Post by FalconFly on 05.08.03 at 21:40:32

Ah okay...

The SG-RAM Cards, I always wondered about, since they did have much more bandwidth potential (in theory), but 3dfx never seemed to take advantage of it (?)

Still, feels like a dangerous business to flash the Cards with modified DRAM-init's (is there a way to test the timings before flash ? )

Title: Re: Who uses tdfx bios editor?
Post by PHOENIX on 05.08.03 at 21:49:42

Yes !

You'll find the info here
http://wave.prohosting.com/~pa3pyx/voodoo3.html

BTW the SGRAM Write-Per-Bit feature is disabled by default. It may provide better performance.
The Disable Dead Bus Cycle feature is also interesting.

Regards

Title: Re: Who uses tdfx bios editor?
Post by PHOENIX on 05.08.03 at 22:55:14

Quote:

The gain in Quake 3 Arena Demo V1.11 from ~30 FPS to ~35 FPS (with defaults settings), but only after also tweaking VIA MVP3 registers (4-way interleave, ...)

This is true for latest Banshee BIOS 1.00.10-SG with these SLOW timings
dramInit0 0x0017A16A
dramInit1 0x00548031

The fast timings are better ;D

Regards

Title: Re: Who uses tdfx bios editor?
Post by PHOENIX on 06.08.03 at 17:08:21

off topic
http://www.gigabyte.co.jp/support/temp/630_032.zip
http://www.gigabyte.co.jp/support/temp/630_100031.zip
http://www.gigabyte.co.jp/support/temp/630_101.zip
http://www.gigabyte.co.jp/support/temp/630_102.zip
http://www.gigabyte.co.jp/support/temp/630_103.zip
http://www.gigabyte.co.jp/support/temp/630_104.zip
http://www.gigabyte.co.jp/support/temp/630_110.zip

Gigabyte GA-630 Voodoo Banshee AGP 16 MB SGRAM EliteMT. It's a clone of the 2nd version of Guillemot Maxi Gamer Phoenix (without cooling fan). First version of Phoenix was with EtronTech SGRAM (4 chips on each side).

Regards