3dfx Archive - hardware photo thread

paulpsomiadis God Member Offline -=3Dfx still rox!=- Posts: 2011 Newcastle U.K. Gender:	Re: hardware photo thread Reply #330 - 23.01.10 at 21:50:57 Quote: I'm certain it's not that, that was the NEC PC 3DEngine. It's definitely different. http://www.yjfy.com/images/oldhard/video/pc_3dEngine-7.jpg So it was kinda like a PowerVR version of the Voodoo 2 - except it was multi-scalable, so you could use more than two...? BTW - I'm just guessing here...
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Tim

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Re: hardware photo thread
Reply #331 - 24.01.10 at 09:16:40

G1nX, you were right!

Quote:

That's a Midas 3 card, which pre-dates PCX1. It was shipped with some Compaq machines. The chip to the top left is the ISP (polygon/hidden surface processor), top right, TSP (texturing and shading), and the bottom is the PCI bridge. The original plan was for an arcade system with multiple ISPs, hence separate chips.

These all got merged (with additional improvements) to become PCX1.

And on the NEC PC3DEngine :

Quote:

That vaguely rings a bell. I would guess PCX1

I learn something new everyday, even now!

Very nice bro! Congrats. Cool

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« Last Edit: 24.01.10 at 10:04:50 by Tim »

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Tim God Member Offline Posts: 1065 Gender:	Re: hardware photo thread Reply #332 - 24.01.10 at 11:47:45 Quote: Midas3 was only produced in small numbers, initially as a development platform, but it was also shipped in some Compaq machines as PCX1 hadn't quite come back from the fab at the time Compaq wanted them. I think it was only a few thousand but it meant extra driver revisions.
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G1nX

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Re: hardware photo thread
Reply #333 - 25.01.10 at 00:17:25

Thank you Tim.
I was also intrigued about the card when I found it in an old computer warehouse. The only other photo of it was on www.yfjy.com and few details about the specs that were in the links in my previous post.
It's very handy that you know someone from Videologic as it clears up that being produced in limited numbers the CPQ part numbers don't turn up much details nor any other labels on it.
From what I gather they didn't get to use this chip set into arcade machines but if they made a few prototypes does the person at Videologic know of any examples; perhaps with more than 1xISP,1xTSP?
Cheers,
G1nX

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Tim

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Re: hardware photo thread
Reply #334 - 25.01.10 at 17:34:07

No problem at all G1nX, you're very much welcome, here is his reply :

Quote:

There were some with 2 ISPs. The board supported up to 4 (but I never saw any with more than 2) but the design only allowed for 1 TSP which, in all honesty, would have quickly been a bottleneck unless you had lots of shadows.

It was driven by a MIPs 5000 and also had slave daughter cards that each had a MIPs 5000 with local memory for offloading T&L. A long time ago I did have pictures of these on the web.

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G1nX

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Re: hardware photo thread
Reply #335 - 28.01.10 at 14:56:53

Tim wrote on 25.01.10 at 17:34:07:

No problem at all G1nX, you're very much welcome, here is his reply :

Quote:

There were some with 2 ISPs. The board supported up to 4 (but I never saw any with more than 2) but the design only allowed for 1 TSP which, in all honesty, would have quickly been a bottleneck unless you had lots of shadows.

It was driven by a MIPs 5000 and also had slave daughter cards that each had a MIPs 5000 with local memory for offloading T&L. A long time ago I did have pictures of these on the web.

Thank you very much Tim.
Those 2 ISP boards must be nice and very rare.
While searching for the part numbers I found the Compaq names for the Midas3 card
240111-001 ASSY POWER VR 3D 3 CHIP
240113-001 SPS-BD GRHCS 3D V1 NOT AVAIL FOR REPLMNT
I think these got replaced in the Compaq portfolio by the Diamond Monster3D Voodoo Graphics card.

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Tim

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Re: hardware photo thread
Reply #336 - 28.01.10 at 18:57:27

G1nX wrote on 28.01.10 at 14:56:53:

Tim wrote on 25.01.10 at 17:34:07:

No problem at all G1nX, you're very much welcome, here is his reply :

Quote:

There were some with 2 ISPs. The board supported up to 4 (but I never saw any with more than 2) but the design only allowed for 1 TSP which, in all honesty, would have quickly been a bottleneck unless you had lots of shadows.

It was driven by a MIPs 5000 and also had slave daughter cards that each had a MIPs 5000 with local memory for offloading T&L. A long time ago I did have pictures of these on the web.

Thank you very much Tim.
Those 2 ISP boards must be nice and very rare.
While searching for the part numbers I found the Compaq names for the Midas3 card
240111-001 ASSY POWER VR 3D 3 CHIP
240113-001 SPS-BD GRHCS 3D V1 NOT AVAIL FOR REPLMNT
I think these got replaced in the Compaq portfolio by the Diamond Monster3D Voodoo Graphics card.

Hmm very interesting, that must be the case then. Seems that they went from PowerVR to Voodoo, probably because the Voodoo was so popular.

Thos two ISP boards would indeed be very rare.

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RaverX God Member Offline Voodoo2 fan Posts: 533 Oradea, Romania Gender:	Re: hardware photo thread Reply #337 - 28.01.10 at 22:35:49 Here's another card made for Compaq. I love sandwich cards
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masterj85 Full Member Offline 3dfx collector Posts: 132 Blackforrest Germany Gender:	Re: hardware photo thread Reply #338 - 28.01.10 at 23:47:02 Nice, a Matrox Mystik from Compaq with Rainbowrunermodule
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exxe God Member Offline ^^ Posts: 1316 germany	Re: hardware photo thread Reply #339 - 29.01.10 at 17:27:42 Mystique
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masterj85 Full Member Offline 3dfx collector Posts: 132 Blackforrest Germany Gender:	Re: hardware photo thread Reply #340 - 29.01.10 at 20:27:03 Ohh, youre right. My fault
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G1nX

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Re: hardware photo thread
Reply #341 - 29.01.10 at 23:44:11

Nice sandwich Raver Wink

Same reseller Compaq different card Diamond FireGL4000

A few technical details
"The Fire GL 4000 is powered by the Mitsubishi 3Dpro/2MP chipset. It features 31MB of 3DRAM/CDRAM and a RAMDAC speed of 220 MHz. It will provide CAD/CAM, simulation and visualization using OpenGL and HEIDI."

http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/graphics-cards/C-D/DIAMOND-MULTIMEDIA-SYSTEMS-INC-VG...
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-20460796.html
http://www.yjfy.com/images/oldhard/video/FIREGL4000.jpg

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exxe God Member Offline ^^ Posts: 1316 germany	Re: hardware photo thread Reply #342 - 06.02.10 at 15:41:32 3Dlabs Oxygen GVX1, Permedia 3 32MB and Gamma T&L and another i740
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Tim God Member Offline Posts: 1065 Gender:	Re: hardware photo thread Reply #343 - 06.02.10 at 17:34:13 The i740 looks like NFR.
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Thandor Full Member Offline What's the fuzz all about? Posts: 226	Re: hardware photo thread Reply #344 - 06.02.10 at 17:57:51 But the i740-chip doesn't state 'Intel secret' so I'm not sure if it's NFR . The card looks cool, though .
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