Voodoo2 was my first 3d Accelerator. My father never saw the need for one until my brother showed him Quake II on an original Voodoo. 3DFX changed gaming forever for us.

@leemar1978

Жыл бұрын

I went to Orchid in my home town Basingstoke in the UK in 1997/8, cannot remember the exact year?They where kind enough to demo their new Orchid Riotous 2 Voodoo 2 running Quake II before it was released. I will never forget being absolutely blown away. I had never seen a pc game look that good before, absolute game changer at the time. I still have my Orchid Voodoo 2 cards in an SLI setup with a Pentium 233 MMX.

@voided76

Жыл бұрын

when the voodoo banshee came out I was immediately in. :) And that dood carried me for a long time

@shelterbloodfallen8851

22 күн бұрын

Quake1 i think the map was DM4. In the Wather you could see with the Voodoo the enemys in multiplay. that was a must have!!

An absolute BEAST in its day. I am fortunate to be old enough to remember the birth of 3d acceleration in PC's. Excellent nostalgic content.

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks very much! 🙂

@Fiilis1

4 ай бұрын

Reading this "Old enough to see birth of 3D acceleration" makes me feel old af. Time to start browsing coffinbrochures.

wow, thats fantastic. The industry I'm in used some of those cards in production level arcade games. Many of those cards are failing now and NO ONE will touch them. I now have a new weapon in my arsenal thanks to your video!.

Awesome work. Nice to see a beautiful 3dfx get fixed instead of ending up in a landfill.

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks!

Happy ending! That is the exact card I had for Quake 2 along with a pentium 200mmx. Happy memories from those days. 👍

I had a rough day and needed a good video like this. Thank you and keep'em coming! =)

@harrycanyon6061

Жыл бұрын

You and I both.

I remember The Game Turok with a Vodoo card back in the 90's...Mindblowing for the time

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

One of my favourite early 3D accelerated games from back in those days!

i bought one 12mb 6 months ago that was damaged, fixed it and i felt in love with it, its my 1st ever voodoo card, i cant believe how well it runs on my pentium od 180 mmx, gta2 and tomb raider 2 is smooth as butter, much better than the playstation ports

playing starsiege tribes on a 3dfx voodoo graphics card. take me back man, this current era is absolute balls.

Awsome video. I think I still have my old Diamond Voodoo 2 lying somewhere in the adict. Remember borrowing a friends Creative card and they worked right of the bat together in sli. if I remember right it could run Everquest in 1024x768 in 80Hz with 2 cards in sli. Was pretty awsome on my Phillips 21" CRT that needed half of the desk size, tugged all the way in the corner to have room for mouse and keyboard... those things was HUGE compared to todays flat screens. 😊Was a big fan of Diamond cards back then. Remember having a rather pricy Diamond Viper 2Mb 2d Card because of the high quality Ramdac's used. Not completely sure why those things ment so much for the quality of the picture back then. Today you never hear about Ramdac's anymore.

I worked for an importer of Voodoo cards in 1997/8. I will never forget seeing Quake running for the first time via the Voodoo on a 60MHz Pentium so smoothly and how much better the graphics were - the Pentium MMX 166 without the card was an absolute dog in comparison! It was a great year and a half there testing every possible hardware config with all the latest games. I had friends buy the cards and "report bugs" with games that I wanted to be paid to play! I do remember having to change out some caps and resistors on the boards due to some issue - 25 years later I can't recall specifically where or why... I'm glad this popped up in my feed and brought back some memories. Thanks!

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks very much for sharing! Always love hearing these first hand experiences from back in the day.

Still can't believe I sold my boxed Diamond Monster Voodoo 2, luckily saved my Voodoo 3 and using it to this day

I really appreciate how repairable old electronics seem to be! You get debug tools, schematics, relatively simple board components, just fantastic.

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Very true. The more modern stuff is intimidating to me. Way more complex and the miniaturization just makes everything harder. The introduction of more BGA components also made things a lot less accessible for the average hobbyist.

looking forward to seeing the fix on the train wreck one, glad this one was such an easy fix

11:17 for a quick test you can "strum" the pins a dodgy solder joint will sound different.

So my dad bought me a Voodoo 2 8MB back when they first came out. A creative Blaster model and it arrived DOA brand new. This makes me wonder if the 8MB cards in particular had some sort of manufacturing defects. I was beyond gutted. At that time the mail order place we got it from sent out a replacement next day and it was a 12MB as way of an appology. If you weren't there back then words can not describe how mind-blowing a step forward it was for PC gaming back then. Still have a boxed and working 12MB card and the nostalgia feels for it are off the charts for me.

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

That's awesome that you got a 12MB replacement! Thanks for sharing :)

@MatSpeedle

Жыл бұрын

@@vswitchzero thanks for the video it’s seriously helpful in troubleshooting some of my dead cards 👍

Whoa! that made me super excited. I have a non working Voodoo 2 by diamond sitting on the top of my shelf for at least 22(+ 2 years). And i just watched this, as a hobby solder skills made me think i can look up the problem maybe with your videos dude! Awesome! Thanks! :)

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks! I hope you are able to repair your Voodoo 2! Best of luck to you and be sure to let me know how it goes :)

Great video. That was the first accelerator I bought. Still have the card, the games and the IBM Stealth. Thank you.

one of the best troubleshooting video I've ever seen

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks so much! :)

Awesome stuff! Very satisfying. Thanks for taking the time to make a video for the repair.

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks! It's always an amazing feeling when you see it working for the first time after a repair, that's for sure :)

Nice repair. I would never suspect low power resistor to fail like that.

Awesome video, it's so satisfying to narrow down and fix a problem like this. I love the Voodoo 2, such a legendary card.

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks so much! It really is. That moment when you finally see a broken card launch a 3D game is just awesome :)

Its great another VooDoo 2 card is alive

I really need one of those microscopes. This video shows just how accessible fine repairs like this are to any of us if we have the kit, the confidence, and the information needed to investigate. Great job finding the fault and truly amazing that we have such a great community to help with such things. Huge congrats!

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks very much! Yeah, these microscopes are an excellent investment if you do even occasional electronics repair. I don't have the best eye sight to begin with and using a magnifying glass can be frustrating. I got this one as a gift last Christmas but seems they are becoming much more affordable these days. Totally agree about the retro community - so many helpful folks out there willing to share their expertise and time. Thanks again.

@nalinux

Жыл бұрын

Even a cheap 30$ one helps a LOT !

Great video, very nostagic. OMG you have all the greatest Glide games on the PC!!

This video helped me repair a dead A-Trend Voodoo2 12MB! Thank you!

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Awesome! Really happy to hear it 👍 .. what was the issue with your card in the end?

@mikebeutler84

Жыл бұрын

@@vswitchzero Just loose pins on the FBI and TMU chips. But the tools you highlighted clued me in to that.

Great video! I bought one of these off eBay back in high school that behaved exactly like the one you have. If only I was more knowledgeable at the time...went back and forth with the seller, spent days troubleshooting drivers, etc. And to think it could have been just a pesky DOA resistor...

This is good news. Been trying to get a hold of a decent voodoo 2 card for my win98 pc, without paying for it in blood. I may attempt a repair on a broken one instead for cheap.

I remeber advert : Diamon Monster x2 = Mega Monster :) Yes, it brings memories, but S3 Virge 3D is "the one" for me. P60 + S3 Virge in MDK benchmark faster than P200 MMX O.o Monster truck madness + Descent... mind blowing graphics and frame rates xD

That was my first 3d card used with S3 Virge. Quake, UT, Turok and Tomb Rider on Voodoo2 if I remeber, then Riva TNT, good old memorys :)

Thanx so much Remeber the day playing outlaws with the voodoo 2

Awesome troubleshooting and amazing explanation and detail of the process. Loved the cable through the hole.

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thank you very much! 🙂👍

it's really nice to see people still care about this nice old legacy hardware!

3dfx videos are my the best !

Thank you. Today I got an InnoVision Voodoo 2 with perfect looking condition behaving the same way (not detected after driver install). I hope I can narrow down the source of failure and having something similar fixable issue. One day I will report back but I am glad I found your video. :)

@atomeec

2 ай бұрын

I have sent it to guy who has equipment and experience with soldering (and microscope). TMU legs were simply deattaching when tested soldering, so he re-soldered the legs. Now it gives picture but freezes the PC under load. Quake 2 timedemo runs without issue, but only that, 3DMark and other game freezes after 1-2 seconds...No clue. Mojo gives proper data reporting TMUs, memory...

My first ever PC had this card and i will always remember it. I spent so much time playing Unreal and UT99 on it, it was great. Voodoo 2 gave me a proper taste of 3D gaming, all i had before was Sega Genesis.

Very nice job there!!! So rewarding my friend, that voodoo2 still working! Mine also makes some glitches, so I will use all the info you provided. Thanks a lot!

Very cool. Voodoo 2 live again

Loved the Voodoo2, I had a 12MB Creative Labs version and I wish I'd never gotten rid of it.

Awesome repair! While I never owned a V2 I did have a Voodoo Banshee which was awesome in both 2D and 3D back in the day! Also, I always love to see the original Unreal intro. Brings back good memories! I've been playing Digital Extreme's current game Warframe for over 7 years now!

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks! 👍 The Banshee was a great card too. Very underrated in my opinion. I hope to do a video on it one day soon

Great video. Love to see success like that and thanks for going through the voodoo sdk tools and how you worked through it.

Awesome work! I bought a pair of Voodoo 2 cards on a forum in the late 2000's, they were well outdated but I just liked the idea of two video cards 😅. A friend had to help with drivers and such to get them working. A couple years back I tried them again and only one of them was working. I spent some time making sure the tiny pins weren't shorted on the chips, they had a rough life in storage and some did look bent. Maybe the PC bug will bite again and I'll make another attempt. It was awesome to follow along with the repair, great job on the video! Best of luck with the train wreck version 😀

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks very much! I appreciate it 🙂 .. best of luck getting your second card to work. Please let me know how it goes 👍

Really good detective work and a lot of useful info here that might come in handy for me in the future, and definitely for others.

@mistermudpie

Жыл бұрын

Hey, Nathan! Eagerly awaiting more content from you as well!

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks very much, I appreciate it! :)

Another valuable video, thanks!

Thanks very much for these informative repair videos. It gave me the info I needed to have a crack at solving the problem my faulty Diamond Monster voodoo 1 has got. I've so far narrowed it down to bad ram attached to the FBI chip as reducing it to 1MB got Tomb raider Dos working although with occasional glitching. I have put a post on Vogons in the video section.

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Best of luck with your Diamond Monster 3D!

Perfect fault detection and fix. 👌

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks very much! :)

Superb investigation and fix, Always nice to see anything regardless of what it is been brought back to life and full working order, Subbed :)

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks very much! :)

Excellent outcome, well done!

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thank you! :)

Great job. Really think the problem solving is super cool. Wish I had the patience for doing that.

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks! :)

Fantastic video, what a great job you did on the repair! I learned something too, now I know what resistor arrays are. 👍👍

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks very much! 🙂

Very nice! Yeah, those thin-film resistors do have failure-modes like that. If thermal cycles build up mechanical stress, the ceramic can get microcracks, cutting the conductive film in the process.

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks! Yeah, RA40 is quite close to the frame buffer, which can get beyond 75'C at load. It definitely makes sense that it could be related to thermal cycling (especially considering that this card is in pristine condition.) Cheers!

+1 for the sticker under the screen :)). Also, very nice troubleshooting job with the card

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Haha thanks! Courtesy of Geekenspiel (geekenspiel.com/collections)

Thank you, this is exactly what I needed. I've got a Voodoo2 that detects correctly but displays Black and blue bars. I'm going to try that mojo tool. Excellent info.

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Best of luck! Let me know how it goes.

Great video, the trouble shooting was very informative.

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks very much! :)

Beautiful work Mike!

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks so much! :)

Amazing work! Now I have some ideas for repairing my own Voodoo2 cards!

Bloody love your content. Brings back the nostalgia of when I built my First system. Love to see you using some of the components I had in my collection when I was cutting my teeth in pc building/gaming. Keep it up mate

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks very much, I really appreciate it! :)

Great video and great repair! Absolutely love it!

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks so much, I really appreciate it! :)

Dude i wached your channel a couple days ago because i wanted to see if you made any more gpu repairs. Thank god i did that becuase youtube realised i like these and put this in my reccomended.

Great fault finding and fix as usual, I like that you show your process, it goes to show patience, determination and good knowledge and research and we can fix anything (well almost😁), really enjoy your videos, keep em coming. 👍

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks so much, I really appreciate it! :)

Superb work well done!

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks a lot! :)

Nice fix! valuable information too, every little fix that people share on KZread undoubtedly helps others. Important to keep these cards going so good job! sad I lost all my old hardware long ago, would have liked to play with some of that stuff again.

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks very much! :)

Nice fix! Enjoyed the video :)

I really enjoyed the video. I particularly liked the in depth repair and soldering. I would like to learn to solder like that! I might pick up some of the flux you mentioned.

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks very much! It wasn't very long ago that I knew next to nothing about soldering. Getting lots of practice is the key. They sell practice kits on Amazon for very cheap that include a PCB and lots of SMD components, which is a great way to learn. Using scrap boards for desoldering practice is also great too. And of course, good quality flux is also important. Cheers!

Lovely video, looking forward to see how train wreck goes, good luck!

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks so much! Working on that video now actually, stay tuned! :)

Really useful video! I have a pair of 12mb Voodoo 2's that I never had any luck getting working, this gives some great places to start.

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks! Best of luck to you with your 12MB cards. Let me know how it goes :)

Great video! Great cards! I have three of them, I love them!

I ran 2 voodoo2 in SLI mode (in combo with an ATI Mach32) on my 486DX2-66. The combo allowed my old 486 to outperform Pentiums for years.

@nalinux

Жыл бұрын

Strange. I tried a Voodoo 1 on a 486 100 Mhz, and even with Quake 1 the fps with really slow.

Great vid. Lots of useful info here.

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks very much! :)

Excellent video!!

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks very much! :)

Welcome back, buddy. Keep that memory upgrade promise, yeah?

Nice work Mike, those debugging variables for the 3Dfx are good to know, thanks. You are a wizard at this now btw, your troubleshooting skills with this old tech are fantastic, great video again. Putting in the time on amazing resources like VOGONS is how the craft is mastered, and you have put your time in sir. If only we had all these resources back then.

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks very much for the kind words, I really appreciate it! I definitely don't consider myself an expert as I'm still learning as I go. But with the right tools, information and especially determination - it's amazing what you can accomplish :) .. so true about Vogons. It is a huge wealth of knowledge on the subject, that's for sure.

@spladam3845

Жыл бұрын

@@vswitchzero You are modest though, the engineers like yourself usually are (I almost said old there ;) Your bench skills say many years of experience and you wield an iron on PCB like a surgeon. I've learned some great tricks watching your honestly impeccable work.

Excellent repair! I have recently picked up a 12MB Monster 3D II that's not working, so will be an interesting troubleshoot I think! Thanks for highlighting Phil's Voodoo2 benchmarks in your previous video as well - I was originally thinking of pairing it with a P233 MMX but now I might shoot a bit higher!

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Best of luck with your Monster 3D II. Let me know how it goes! .. Yeah I was pretty surprised just how drastic the difference can be with more CPU power available. Even a 400MHz K6-3 is quite bottlenecked in SLI. I've heard that V2 cards will get quite a bit hotter with faster CPUs too, so cooling is important. Cheers.

Well thanks to you, I figured out that my "arcade" Obsidian2 90-2440 reports framebuffer = 0 MB when I put it in a Win98 machine. Since it's a weird 10MB card, I believe I have also identified which are the framebuffer RAM chips: the ones without memory on the back. The 2 other memory banks are doubled from the back so 4 512K chips on each side = 4MB each. Chips on only one side = the missing 2 MB of framebuffer. On the arcade, the output is inverted and mirrored, displaying only text in orange. also, I tested for a monster 2 8MB and the game does work, but is missing 2MB so there are some grfx artefacts. Not wanting to boost the memory card count to 12 MB yet, since your video talks about checking the microscopic resistor arrays, I'm looking into buying a microscope for soldering now. I think I am ready and at that stage! Hopefully I'll be as lucky as you and find something bad...

@vswitchzero

10 ай бұрын

Thanks for your comment! Happy to hear that the video was helpful for troubleshooting. That's really interesting that it's a 10MB card. I've never run into an arcade board like that one before. Best of luck getting it repaired.

@Mrhideqc

10 ай бұрын

@@vswitchzero I think I've identified a RA that looks broken! it's in my digikey basket... it's pretty darn small though but I have nothing to loose!

So satisfying

Great video

So Great.I love Voodoo2

One word -. Suscribed. Thanks youtube algorithm.

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks very much 🙂👍

Very interesting video, like!

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks very much! :)

In Quake 2 and 3 engine games if you press ~ you can see how many TMUs are working / active. Most probably you already know that :). Excellent video!

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks very much! I forgot about that actually, good tip! Btw, I subscribed to your channel recently - love seeing all the gaming footage from those days! :)

@3dfxvoodoocards6

Жыл бұрын

@@vswitchzero Thank you, nice to see that there still are many retro-enthusiasts who did not forget those great times :)

@nalinux

Жыл бұрын

I think it's better to test with Quake 1. Quake 2 and Unreal are sometime quite sensitive to the driver version you use, or whatever hardware you have for no known reason. Quake1 is much more reliable.

@jimjamz.

8 ай бұрын

The trouble is, how will you launch Quake 2 or 3 to get the TMU data if the Voodoo card won't initialise in the first place?

Good job, that was entertaining!

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks very much! :)

Not so common to see a fault like that. I think SMD resistors and caps on lower-current data lines maybe tend to fail more due to physical stress of the PCB bending etc. But I guess even the thermal stress over the years of the card getting warmer and colder many many times could cause this, too. Good to know it's something to look out for, and another nice repair job. ;)

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks very much! Yeah, I can't say I've ever seen one fail that wasn't damaged in some way. RA40 is very close to the FB chip, which gets >75'C without active cooling, so the thermal stress could definitely make sense.

I miss my Voodoo.

I seem to remember people upgrading these to the 12 MB version. I had 2x Diamond Monster 3D 2's 12mb in SLI back in the days... :)

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

It's definitely possible to upgrade an 8MB card to 12MB with most PCB revisions. May give this a try in the future, stay tuned :)

I’m going to need to test my Voodoo 2 cards from Creative Labs soon. I have 4 12MB cards, plus an Obsidian 24x that uses just one pci slot

good job

nice!!! i just wish i knew how to use my multimeter LOL. i have 2 voodoo 2s that i got a few years ago hoping to repair because i could see some bent legs on the fbis, but i ended up breaking some pins on one, but the other has a very similar set of symptoms - shows as a device but gets the same windows errors. i'll definitely have to try out the debug tool and maybe i can bring one of mine back to life too :) thanks again for the great info

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks very much! Yeah the FB chip is especially fragile. The pins are really fine pitch and difficult to straighten out. Best of luck!

I have the exact same problem with my first ever true 3d graphic card, the famous voodoo 2. Now, the light is made, on this problematic. wow.

I have 2 of the exact same card stored in a closet. One of them works, the other doesn't. I don't think I still own hardware that I can stick them in to see if they are still working. Any way, my intention is to frame those cards and having them decorate my gaming room. I still remember the shock when I saw quake 2 running with colored lighting and bilinear filtering in 640x480 at 60hz. Going from software 320x240 to that was such a jump in quality that you had to be there yo understand it.

I haven't used VOODOO2 card since my Pentium 1 days. The difference in graphics was night and day.

you will see the tuning they did to get it to work without what I just said and be amazed how fixed architectures do get faster or slower with correct tuning

I had 2 Voodoo II 12 mb cards, (Diamond). I overclocked them. After years, one of them only worked after I underclocked it to 65mhz...

I didnt even know about these debug tools. Enjoyed watching your voodoo-ing so a sub from me~

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks very much! 🙂

Just finished watching this one and the trainwreck repair, good work! I have a slightly sick STB Systems Voodoo 2 I'll be looking at over the next few days. It runs but there's noise/flicker in some of the textures, it changes and sometimes goes away with a tap of a finger on the card. Pretty sure all of the SMT electrolytics need replaced, one fell off when I removed the card for PCI connector cleaning and has the characteristic white crust under it -- not much, so I suspect they're just starting to go. Figure it's worth hacking on, it was a $1 MIT Flea find from a decade ago :P

@vswitchzero

9 ай бұрын

Thanks very much! Best of luck getting your STB card repaired. Replacing the electrolytics is definitely a great place to start. Keep an eye out for corrosion on any of the other pins or pads too as it'll sometimes hide loose or flaky solder joints. Let me know how it goes.

@glitchwrks

9 ай бұрын

@@vswitchzero Will do! Got the caps off this morning, almost every one had leakage crust under it. Found a few loose pins on the second texture unit, which would make sense with the symptoms I was seeing.

@glitchwrks

9 ай бұрын

Before: kzread.info/dash/bejne/loKovKOngpvdnrA.html After: kzread.info/dash/bejne/m2V_y8aop8iXnNI.html Going to need a few hours of fragging to verify fixed :P

@vswitchzero

9 ай бұрын

@@glitchwrks Awesome work! 🙂👍

Powr Comms Ramm on those old styles. capacitors. resistors or diodes.

Great repair video. I have a obsidian 2 card that isn’t operating at the moment. You don’t happen to take in repairs do you? Thank

@vswitchzero

9 ай бұрын

Thanks very much! At this time I’m not taking on any repairs. I’m still learning and don’t really feel comfortable working on other people’s hardware. Plus it’s really hard to find any spare time to work on things these days. Sorry about that. Best of luck getting your Obsidian 2 working again. The Quantum3D cards are really nice 👍

I'd really like to see a video on upgrading the memory of a voodoo2 from 90 or 100mhz to 110 or 125mhz and see if that expands the overclocking potential. Especially if the main processing chips are actively cooled and have heatsinks.

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

This would be very interesting to try! 100MHz SOJ40 EDO is pretty easy to find, but I haven't seen faster chips recently.

I had to pull out my cards. I bought one ( banshee creative), one from working (I think it was voodoo) and Lab work in banshee. And they were dirty 🤣

Spent its life in the RMA bin, my guess . Looked like a hairline crack to me, fairly common in production that can pass testing. Good job on fixing it.

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

Thanks very much! :)

When you become huge... which you will, remember me when I subscribed at 3k OK?

@vswitchzero

Жыл бұрын

😁👍