3dfx Archive - Regarding faster memory

NitroX infinity

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Regarding faster memory
21.08.06 at 12:22:07

I just spotted this link:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=15962

What we see here is the following:
SDR EtronTech 4ns @ 265
SDR EtronTech 3.3ns@300mhz

Yes, 3.3ns SDR-SDRAM memory Grin

Related;
Explanation of EtronTech memory codes:
http://www.idhw.com/textual/guide/noin_ram_chip_etron.html

Edit: Gainward MX400 seems to be equipped with this memory:
http://www.digit-life.com/articles/gf2mx400gainwardcardxpert/index.html

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« Last Edit: 21.08.06 at 12:53:57 by NitroX infinity »

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TM30 God Member Offline Posts: 1108 Germany Gender:	Re: Regarding faster memory Reply #1 - 21.08.06 at 13:31:24 yes i can confirm that, i own this gainward gf2mx400 card and it has 3,3ns RAM... but whats the point? using this memory for voodoo cards? i think that the VSA100 will be limited... you'll have to do a volt mod to them...
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NitroX infinity YaBB Moderator Offline Posts: 1936 The Netherlands Gender:	Re: Regarding faster memory Reply #2 - 21.08.06 at 13:56:24 Uhm, VSA-101 cards perhaps? 128bit SDR bus vs. 64bit DDR bus.
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Voodoo_Freak YaBB Newbies Offline Affordable Reality Posts: 44 Berlin/Germany Gender:	Re: Regarding faster memory Reply #3 - 21.08.06 at 19:56:24 Quote: Uhm, VSA-101 cards perhaps? 128bit SDR bus vs. 64bit DDR bus. I am not familiar with technical things like that. But I know that it has been discussed a lot of times to equip a V5 with faster memory. Nobody succeded.
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TM30 God Member Offline Posts: 1108 Germany Gender:	Re: Regarding faster memory Reply #4 - 21.08.06 at 20:19:32 Quote: Nobody succeded. Who tried this?
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Voodoo_Freak YaBB Newbies Offline Affordable Reality Posts: 44 Berlin/Germany Gender:	Re: Regarding faster memory Reply #5 - 21.08.06 at 21:17:30 Think we discussed it nearly a thousand times on VA. When it comes to a conclusion, we agreed that it is nearly impossible to equip a V5 with faster memory. But, you are right, nobody actually tested it.
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Komponent

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Re: Regarding faster memory
Reply #6 - 22.08.06 at 12:50:54

Quote:

[...]
But, you are right, nobody actually tested it.

Just to swap the RAM for a Voodoo 4/5 is easy enough to do. It has been tested before. Mikulaish has a Voodoo 5 5500 with 200+Mhz SDRAM, but the VSA-100's don't make too good overclockers and the gain in performance is too low. My bet is on more RAM rather than faster. Any info on 16Mb/32bit/86pins compatible SDRAM?

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NitroX infinity

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Re: Regarding faster memory
Reply #7 - 22.08.06 at 13:06:32

Quote:

I am not familiar with technical things like that. But I know that it has been discussed a lot of times to equip a V5 with faster memory. Nobody succeded.
Embarrassed

The 64bit versus 128bit bus is not so hard to understand.

You can compare it to a 2 lane road (64bit) vs. a 4 lane road (128bit).
The 4 lane road can handle far more traffic at once.

At lower resolutions (average traffic density) it doesn't matter much but at higher resolution with higher details (rushhour) it does matter.

And it doesn't matter if DDR memory works at twice the speed of SDR because it's not part of that road, it's at one end of it (the VSA-101 being on the other end).

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paulpsomiadis God Member Offline -=3Dfx still rox!=- Posts: 2011 Newcastle U.K. Gender:	Re: Regarding faster memory Reply #8 - 23.08.06 at 00:48:48 Now WHY can't other tech. sites have an analogy about GFX card bus that is THIS easy to understand? ??? Oh right...this is the Falconfly 3Dfx forum - so it makes sense that we would make more sense! LOL!
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gamma742 God Member Offline 3Dfx Gamer Posts: 1668 San Diego, CA USA Gender:	Re: Regarding faster memory Reply #9 - 23.08.06 at 03:43:34 Someone here did add more memory to a V4 right?
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Komponent

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Re: Regarding faster memory
Reply #10 - 23.08.06 at 05:46:16

Quote:

Someone here did add more memory to a V4 right?

Yes. I am the one who performed the modding to a Voodoo 4 AGP from 32Mb to 64Mb, with Mikulaish's help. It was a total succes. I currently plan to research the possibility of adding more RAM (double) for Voodoo 4 PCI and Voodoo 5. Let me just say by now that modding to 64Mb video memory per VSA-100 chip can be done by two ways; the easyest one is to swap the RAM to double-sized chips (16Mb per chip/32bits/86pins SDRAM) but I have no possibility no get a suitable donner video card for transplant. The other way to add extra memory to VSA-100 based cards is much more complicated and requires hard-wireing and PCB-reworks but is almoust sure guaranteed to work fine once performed. I might research that last possibility someday into the future.
If I would have faster RAM I would also give it a try; but the ideal would be more and faster at the same time... but we would need (4M x 32), 86 pins SDRAM 5,5 (or less) ns chips...

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gamma742 God Member Offline 3Dfx Gamer Posts: 1668 San Diego, CA USA Gender:	Re: Regarding faster memory Reply #11 - 26.08.06 at 22:04:14 Does anyone here know of a suitable donor video card?
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NitroX infinity YaBB Moderator Offline Posts: 1936 The Netherlands Gender:	Re: Regarding faster memory Reply #12 - 26.08.06 at 22:44:08 As mentioned in my openingpost: Quote: Edit: Gainward MX400 seems to be equipped with this memory: http://www.digit-life.com/articles/gf2mx400gainwardcardxpert/index.html
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gamma742 God Member Offline 3Dfx Gamer Posts: 1668 San Diego, CA USA Gender:	Re: Regarding faster memory Reply #13 - 27.08.06 at 06:30:56 So 2 of these donor cards could fix up a V5 with 128MB of ram. @Komponent What do you think? Can you do it?
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Komponent

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Re: Regarding faster memory
Reply #14 - 27.08.06 at 07:57:31

Quote:

So 2 of these donor cards could fix up a V5 with 128MB of ram.
@Komponent What do you think? Can you do it?

2 of those cards could only help transplanting way too fast RAM to a Voodoo 5, because each one only has 32Mb SDRAM in 4 chips, so a total of 64Mb, not 128Mb. It might be very nice for overcklocking, but not the right choice for double the amount of memory...
Quote:

The Gainward CARDEXpert GeForce2 MX400 Golden Sample VIVO has AGP x2/x4 interface, 32 MBytes SDR SDRAM located in 4 chips on the right side of the PCB.

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