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That is certainly a great deal of information, and very usefull! I knew that there are things in which using a magic wound (Hex edit), you discover that the thing actually runs! The hard part is all the time, where to edit, and how. Some of this things work by luck, others no.
I will check this figure, since I own a Banshee. I wonder how much might affect this some of the games and tests already done? Maybe NFSHP2 could work, maybe Unreal Tournament 2003, maybe 3dmark2003.... But all have to be tested.
Also, I don't know what impact might be, and if a game like "Blood Rayne" could work on this card. On a ProSavage DDR, it halts before it starts. Usimg 3dAnalyze, the problem seem to be Hardware TnL. Also inside the game, some of the textures fail to appear (seems that the game wants either a 3 textures/pass, which Geforce2 and 4Mx handles, or a special type of bumpmapping: dot3 or environment). However, looking more closer, the bumpmapping seem to appear, and it's emboss. So, might be 3textures/pass necessary.
Why this thing? Banshee might at it's best support 2 textures/pass (which I doubt), but I don't know how it would handle the multipass texturing, and more, the problems regarding heavy bumpmapping, multitextures and lights. Not to mention, the limit of 16Mb Video Ram, and the imposibility of using texture compression.
This might seriously hurt performance (6-10fps expected in 800x600 resolution on an AthlonXP 1700+).
I heard that the voodoo's (before 4th generation) have a YAB narrow channel texture compression. But I never saw a game or anything to activate or use this thing. More, I don't know if there is anything in the drivers itself. S3 or DXT compression, might be a nice help for the Voodoo Banshee/Voodoo3, but the real problem would be: who will handle this? CPU or Voodoo, but most important, how it will, and how fast...
I saw inside the glide3x file, sections which might reffer to testing purposes: show polygons, fps, but I don't know how to activate them.

Very nice, I will try it soon. This deal of information is great! It is one of the very few circumstances in which you can find so much things, and so well explained.
If you are an experienced user of Hex edit and other figures on computer technology, as it seems, it is very good, and you might be one of the few to release new drivers and solve problems with video cards, in the way that few can actually do.
As I've seen, in most of the test that regard the newer games, the big problem with Voodoo's is the limit of the polygons output. Tests with GTA3 and GTA3 Vice City, proved that with or without textures is a matter of 2-3 fps on average faster. But when looking at the way in which the game is designed (geometrically), you can see tons of triangles, polygons, lines. All of these must be drawn by the videocard even if they can be seen or not. For instance, the tunnel under the other part of the city in Vice City is viewable (in wireframe mode, so it is computed), but you can't see it normally from the air, when playing the game normally. More, the water is always drawn under the street!!! and the waves are also drawn!
So, generally, most of the happy users of 3dfx, must be given a help, by using an algorithm oposed to true-form, one that drastically reduces the polygon number in games. And I've seen a program that has a function like this, and handles quite well, unfortunately you can't use models from 3DSmax, to see other type of 3d models.
Designing such a fast algorithm, combined with the SSE, 3DNow! instructions, might give a 3dfx Voodoo cards a giant step into the future, and a more than fair approach to their true value.
The first to include such functions in a d3d or an opengl part of the drivers, would surely be more than praised for what he has done...

The guys who made 3DMark2000 did help me. 3DMark2000 gives us many infos on 3dfx32vb.dll, especially on DirectX Flags i.e. Texture operations 0x00001A4F (HEX 4F1A0000 in 3dfx32vb.dll). After Fill-Rate Benchmark click on "Show Details".

By the way, I am the one who send you (FalconFly.de) the Creative MiniGL patch.
HEX value is in fact 3D0211000074
----------------------------------------------------
3D02110000              cmp eax, 00001102
74xx                    je xxxxxxxx
----------------------------------------------------
Program reads SubVendorID and compares the returned value with the expected value. There are 6 occurrences. You can simplify by only seeking for HEX 0211.

Trust me, 3Dfx Banshee isn't dead !

Regards

PHOENIX!!!!... you're a genious man, thx for all the info....
I'll try to make an experimental beta driver set now with all this info.
But I have a question for you: it's possible to enable multitexturing in glide too?, how?

Additional info: in this last month finally I can obtain a compiled version for Banshee users of the libs mesa 5.0.1. Currently all the OpenGL features are present in this new opengl dll, but most of them are not supported well by the drivers yet... I think that all can be implemented in soft mode to compensate these limitations (for now)...

Well, since under Linux, the Banshee Driver is the same as the Voodoo3 Driver, that would support this statement.

I still believe some internal differences exist, considering the long timespan inbetween the release of the 2 cards.
(that would explain the inability to simply use an unmodified Voodoo3 Windows Driver on the Banshee)

But whatever these differences are, they were treated accordingly under Linux, so it can be done.

It might be any chance to use Voodoo4,5 drivers on a Banshee? Most of the newer games are having serious problems with the Voodoo3, so upgrading from a Banshee to a Voodoo3 driver would only solve a little part of these problems.
For instance, GTA3 and Vice City, both have serious problems with the Banshee/Voodoo3 cards in terms of compatibility. The well-known problem with the game that stucks after a random period of time, helped heavily, is certain to occur if you are watching a huge are (you are on top of a building, and you see lot of things around), not to mention the slow speed of rendering (mostly caused by the geometrical overusage of the game).
A clear solution would be to use Voodoo4/5 drivers on the Banshee. Also, this would permit the card to run 3dMark2003 and Unreal 2003, with good chances to run even Blood Rayne...