Can anyone help me???  I am looking for drivers for my Voodoo3 2000 PCI 16meg Vid card that are better than the one I got now.  I am currently using the Voodoo3 1.07.00b  It manages to work well with directx8 and that but is there one that'll work with dx8.1???  I have a game that actually will run  with my current driver but not quite right.  It is a racing game and the car is all one colour andthe windows don't show.  It says it needs a dx 8.1 compliant driver.  

our driver-section here at the board...

http://www.falconfly-central.de/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=drivers

use the latest SFFT @ www.3dfxzone.it

That one is dx8.1 compliant?  I will try it and report back.  Thanks.  

What is SFFT anyways?  

Ok...I looked at the SFFT...I don't think I can use it.  I am running Win98se.  I don't know if it will run on Win98se, but if you know of a slightly earlier version let me know.  

Then have a look around in the Archive :

http://www.falconfly.de/voodoo3.htm

Be aware though, that there is no fully DX8.1 compilant Win9x Driver existing. An upgrade to Win2000 or a better Video Card will likely be the only means of getting you there.

1.07.00b is as good as you can get if you are running win9x,and yes,it is dx8.1 compliant (so your problem may be elsewhere,a lacking feature such as large texture support for example),this can be seen when running a game that requires a dx8.1 compliant driver for proper function-such as age of mythology,the game displays bad graphics artifacts when using the last 1.07.00WHQL dx7 driver but runs fine when using 1.07.00b (check the driver version to see the difference-its 4.12.xxx for 1.07.00WHQL=dx7,and 4.13.xxx for 1.07.00b=dx8.1).

if you want to use the SFFT driver (the latest voodoo3/4/5 DX8/9 driver for win2000/xp),you will have to change your OS as mentioned already,but it should be noted that this step wont give you a big game compatibility boost anyway-I dont really remember a game that works with SFFT under win2000/xp and doesnt work with 1.07.00b under win9x at the same time (when using a voodoo3).

if you need to get a particular game running,either post your problem here with all the details,or you can check the game guide in my sig,the fix may already be there.I can even test the game for you if necessary,I have two voodoo3 test machines sitting in the corner,one with xp and one with 98se..

The game in question id Hot Rod: American Street Drag.  It runs, actually.  The background is great and the surroundings and other things look awesome.  The cars however aren't ass good. The cars look right as far as shae and all but instead of the decals and paint jobs showing up, the car is just the main paint colour all over, even the windows.  Only the outline of the lights and windows sho up otherwise.  It is just a little thing but it still gets annoying when you can put work into the look of the car and it doen't show in the game.  

..gave it a little spin,same behaviour both under 98se and under xp.my guess would be the texture size limit of the voodoo3 (max 256*256 textures,and some textures are apparently larger,and therefore not displayed).not much you can do..

this is one last thing I would really love to see in some thirdparty driver-D3D texture rescaling (resizing)=support for larger textures.and its definitely doable,since it works so lovely under opengl (mesafx)..

That would be really cool.  It'd sure make give these older cards more life.  

I would upgrade but the comp is too old.  I can add some ram but that's about it other than a minor cpu upgrade or used 20gig hd.  I could add two pc 100 SDRAM cards and maybe get a used 733 or higer celeron but that's about it.  I could get a 733 celero (my bro's old CPU but I'd have to buy it off of him and I am currently broke.  I like XP and all but my comp is old enough that ity won't run on it.  

My system is:  
Celeron 533mhz
96 megs SDRAM
2.37gig hd
1.50gig hd
3.01gig hd
17' CRT monitor
3 button wheel mouse
KTX keyboard
52x CD-rom
internal sound with dual outputs (cool)
3dfx Voodoo 3 2000 PCI 16meg vid card
internal 8meg SIS vidcard (disabled)
two sets of powered computer speakers.


EDIT May 17/2007

IF anyone hears of any newer or better drivers for Win98 can you let me know?  It'd be appreciated.  

Thanks.  

wrote on 13.05.07 at 21:18:46:

1.07.00b is as good as you can get if you are running win9x,and yes,it is dx8.1 compliant (so your problem may be elsewhere,a lacking feature such as large texture support for example),this can be seen when running a game that requires a dx8.1 compliant driver for proper function-such as age of mythology,the game displays bad graphics artifacts when using the last 1.07.00WHQL dx7 driver but runs fine when using 1.07.00b (check the driver version to see the difference-its 4.12.xxx for 1.07.00WHQL=dx7,and 4.13.xxx for 1.07.00b=dx8.1). if you want to use the SFFT driver (the latest voodoo3/4/5 DX8/9 driver for win2000/xp),you will have to change your OS as mentioned already,but it should be noted that this step wont give you a big game compatibility boost anyway-I dont really remember a game that works with SFFT under win2000/xp and doesnt work with 1.07.00b under win9x at the same time (when using a voodoo3). if you need to get a particular game running,either post your problem here with all the details,or you can check the game guide in my sig,the fix may already be there.I can even test the game for you if necessary,I have two voodoo3 test machines sitting in the corner,one with xp and one with 98se..

Would #d Analyzer from www.tommti-systems.de on the #dfx Tolls page in the archive be a good program to pick up?  Would it help with anything?

not really.there are only very few games where this tool actually makes the difference.generally,its good for 3 things: skipping dumb hw id checks (some games check for radeon/geforce ids and wont launch if not detected,even if the hw is capable of running the game,example: dawn of war and vsa-100 cards),cubemap emulation (if this feature is used in the game it almost always results in invisible/broken textures,3da will replace the cubemap with a simple texture,producing much more acceptable results.example: chaser),and emulating hw T&L (again,fooling dumb hw checks).

rest of the stuff is really just for testing/fooling around purposes.

interesting note: seems like there was some unreleased beta of 3da that was actually capable of doing d3d texture rescaling.unfortunatelly,it is MIA..

Quote:

interesting note: seems like there was some unreleased beta of 3da that was actually capable of doing d3d texture rescaling.unfortunatelly,it is MIA..

Yes, I suggested the implementation and tested it, actually worked quite well, except for distorting some Menus (if they were setup as a large Texture) and somewhat reduced quality (no Texture filtering, just plain Pixel reduction)

But ever since Thomas broke off all communication for no apparent reason, never heard anything about it anymore.

I'm not sure if he still answers to EMail, but AmigaMerlin had an identical Set of Alpha Releases for testing. Maybe he retained a copy of the sessions we did back then.

That'd be really cool.  If anything develops with the D3D texture rescaling or whatever let me know.  I would also like to know if any newer drivers for my card on Win98se are available, please let me know as well.  

Thanks.  

..I'll send him a pm via the 3dfxzone message board,lets hope he likes to back up his old files a lot.

..seems like Amigamerlin has some old files backed up,unfortunatelly he has no idea which one could it be.

FalconFly,did that special beta release have some kind of name or number?

Hi.  It's been a while since I posted something here.  I still am lookign for newer or better WIn98se drivers for my Voodoo3 2000 16meg vid card.  However I also saw something on here recently that piqued my interest.  I read something about flashing the bios of my card.  What is this?  How do I do it?  Can it be done on my card at all?  I ask this becaus I recently saw something about altering the bios with a better/newer one to in effect make the card to be a Voodoo 3 3000. If it is possible, what is better about the 3000 version than my current 2000 model?  Are there better drivers for the 3000?  

The only difference would be the higher clock speed.
V3-2000 run at 143Mhz stock, V3-3000 run @ 166Mhz.
Drivers are exactly the same.
So there is no real benefit ( except higher speed ) from flashing the card.

BTW, any news on that unreleased beta of 3D-Analyze ?

Oh, ok then. I probably wouldn't want it to run faster, cause then it'd run hotter and it doen't have a fan currently.  

Still, I am looking for drivers for WIn98se.  Is anyone out there still working on them at all?