hello guys
appreciate your interest on my project
short faq:
q: it's your designed boads on youtube video?
a: surely yes, and even more, i have 3 tmu pcb design and based on it 2 tmu pcb project and have even working prototypes for 2 tmu board
q: why shown boards look different?
a: because pcbs mentioned above intendend to use 6 layers pcbs. and boards you may see at youtube designed to use 4 layers at scratch
q: what about overclocking v1 sli?
a: no, hardware limit, mentioned 20 years ago in q3d drivers. but single board will do overclock as usual
q: any possibility in memory expansion?
a: sure, but for tmus only, so max 10mb per board (4mb per tmu, 2 mb for fbi). on my board this possibility released by using two ras memory modules (1mb per chip). if going to 4mb per tmu with 0.5mb memory chips, there should be utilizing 6 layers design as you can see on any voodoo 2 board.
q: why only 2mb for fbi?
a: because of hardware limitation. on v1 only 2mb for fbi in sli mode supported
q: max resolution for boards in sli?
a: 800x600 for v1 boards. because frame buffer memory amout is doubled, so you will get 4mb fb ram in sli system
q: is it important to have 4mb per tmu?
a: no, any early dos/windows glide game using only 2mb. 4mb texture memory only makes sense on later demanding games, where v5 is better choise
q: any support for sli in dos games
a: i'd like to say yes. sli support exist in any glide driver by default, but to make sure benchmarks or other tests should be done (not done yet)
q: how you can prove you words about v1 limitations:
a: here you ought to go (it's glide2x source, all the quirks are well commented): https://sourcecodebrowser.com/glide/2002.04.…7c03549bfe.html
q: how your boards perform compare to known v1 sli configurations?
a: i have 100sb card and couple of 50sb cards. so i can claim that the perfomance is same
q: any special drivers required?
a: no, support for sli and 2 tmus and 4mb per tmu should be in any existing driver. i'm using diamond monster driver at this moment. canopus driver should be avoided due to it behaviour to detect custom chip (that only canopus boards have) on board
q: how about third tmu on v1 or v2 boards?
a: i have strong doubt concerning drivers support. looks like massive driver development required to take some profit from third tmu. what we know about card of such configuration? only primary image cards equipped with 3 tmus. and most likely they had own custom software to support all these. anyway, competent programmer should take a serious look at source codes to tell us something.
q: is any hope to v2 based projects?
a: i'm able to do pcb design, but not able to do even prototypes assembly. look at this superfine pitch at fbi chip. hate to solder it. considerable investements req'd to make automated assembly. and no warranty that all will work from first batch, so more expenses, etc, etc
q: any upcoming projects?
a: hell, yeah
q: what cad tool do you utilizing?
a: don't like to talk about it, cause did not pay for this tool. it name starts with e and ends with le. not best choise, wish to migrate to allegro or altium
q: can you make a v56k?
a: sure, give me funds and 1.5 years
q: are you serious about v56k?
of course, this card is no more than 2 v55s on own pci bus (with some quirks). i have v55 schematic and have a chance to explore v56k so the rest is technical question
q: how much?
a: eur10k for direct expenses. professional oscilloscope, reflow owen, prototypes pcb ordering, aalchemy card in any state (have to explore advanced design comparing to not the best v56k layout) and few things more
q: how to buy your v1?
a: will place pair of these cards on ebay auction in near future to evaluate interest. in urgent cases contact me in pm
ja ich weiss, es ist eigentlich auch nur eine Emulation, Aber eine ganz coole Lösung. Aber back to topic:
Könnte doch auch jede Voodoo5 mit SLI nichts mehr anfangen, weil sie dann auf 66MHz PCI limitiert sind. Wenn es auch Kostengründen sinnvoll wäre, da eine PCI-E Platine billigerer als eine PCI oder AGP ist, dann ok. Aber so würde man da aus meiner Sicht in mehr Probleme laufen als es Nutzen hätte.