I've had a hunch about the Voodoo 5 BIOSes available online for a while now...so I checked it out...

To duplicate the experiment you'll need... :P

1. ViceVersa - file comparison program (quite easy to find)

2. The following 4 BIOSes: -

a) V5500 1.8PCI
b) V5500 1.6PCI
---------------------
c) V5500 1.8AGP
d) V5500 1.6AGP

Go here for BIOSes: - http://welcome.to/3dfxbios

Create two temporary folders and extract the PCI BIOSes to the first one and the AGP BIOSes to the second.

Now make sure that both the AGP and PCI BIOSes have identical filenames for each BIOS...
(i.e. M55K118.ROM for the 1.18 BIOSes and M55K116.ROM for the 1.16 BIOSes)

Now use ViceVersa to compare the directories and you'll find that the files are TOTALLY IDENTICAL!!! :o

The conclusion to this is that there is NO DIFFERENCE between the AGP and PCI versions of the Voodoo 5 BIOS (at least for the 5500). :o

Therefore there's no real point to separating AGP and PCI BIOSes if they are the SAME! (so no need to mirror two sets of files!) :o

This brings the question "Does the same thing happen with other Voodoo BIOSes?" ???

The mind boggles!!! :P

(of course this would mean that the PCI and AGP versions of the card have very little difference in actual hardware specs, which would also explain why the Voodoo 5 5500 is only an AGP 2x card!) :-/

Now if there were only a way to get it to run at 4x... ;D

(smart BIOS hacking types, were talkin' to YOU!) 8)

This topic should prove interestintg... :D

I was reading somewhere that there actually was no 1.8 PCI or 1.6 AGP, and this was caused by a mixup somewhere, and they were distributed wrongly.

Dunno, tho.

Well, I also heard that is was no catastrophy if one accidentally flashed a PCI Bios onto an AGP card an vice versa...

Anyway, the AGP 4x wouldn't help the Voodoo5 anything, lacking AGP Texturing :-/

And as we know, the AGP 8x exceeds most existing System Memory's performance by a fair margin, and is virtually useless.

Hmm...maybe someone should take the time to investigate the BIOS structure for the V5500 and check which ones are the 'real' AGP and PCI BIOSes... :P

I get your point Falconfly, without AGP texturing on the V5500, AGP 4x is all for naught. :'(

Still, if we had BOTH of these features, it'd be cool! 8)

Hmm...and patience speculates on the existence of a 1.19 BIOS, VERY interesting...wonder if anyone has one of these or could find one... ;D

Although it does kinda' make you wonder WHY 3dfx didn't have 'proper' separate BIOSes for the AGP and PCI versions of the card. ???

Like, say other cards (even other Voodoo's) will say AGP in the BIOS at boot if they are an AGP card! ???

Weird isn't it? :P

One thing I forgot :

If you make a binary File comparison, you should still note at least some difference between AGP and PCI Bios Versions.

Otherwise, would be really strange ;)

And of course, the Voodoo5 would need the 1.5V Pinout to work on AGP 4x (or 8x) Motherboards :-/

Hiya Falconfly!

Is there an App. I can use to do a 'binary file comparison'? ???

I'd really like to continue investigating the BIOSes. ;)

Preferably an App. that SHOWS the differences, and not just tells you that there are differences! :D

Cheers...

Sure, just use the MS-DOS fc Command.

Enter fc /? for details and command switches....