Sveta 2002 is back as my 3dfx Retro Gaming Workstation!

  • Sure, the fastest V3 ever made by 3dfx ;)

    Lovely card, the pcb with a lot of smd components looks really nice.

    Die Pixel beschleunigt, die Kanten gefixt, lang leben die Karten von 3dfx! :spitze:

  • Well there was the Falcon Northwest 3dfx Voodoo3 3500 TV AGP Special Edition 16MB release wasn't there xD it ran like 200Mhz core/mem , crazy though that they never changed the cooling.

  • Ich denke die haben die Chips oder Karten einfach Cherry-picked. Meine eigene 3500 AGP TV schafft auch 200MHz, wenn auch nicht viel mehr als das. Ist schon verrückt wie heiß die Dinger rennen können, ohne aufzugeben.


    I think they just cherry-picked the chips or cards. My own 3500 AGP TV can take 200MHz as well, just not much more than that. It's crazy how hot those things can run without going down.

    1-6000-banner-88x31-jpg

    Stolzer Besitzer eines 3dfx Voodoo5 6000 AGP Prototypen:

    • 3dfx Voodoo5 6000 AGP HiNT Rev.A-3700

    [//wp.xin.at] - No RISC, no fun!

    QotY: Girls Love, BEST Love; 2018 - Lo and behold, for it is the third Coming; The third great Year of Yuri, citric as it may be! Edit: 2019 wasn't too bad either... Edit: 2020... holy crap, we're on a roll here~♡!

    Quote Bier.jpg@IRC 2020: "Je schlimmer der Fetisch, desto besser!"

  • Well 3dfx took their time making the Voodoo3 series the Voodoo5 series were mostly gap fillers for Rampage 2000 aka Specter series.
    And V4's & V5's were rushed off prototype designs that were reused for production use.

    Also keep in mind that the V5 5500 AGP x4 models were meant to be the actual production boards but 3dfx had issues on getting AGP x4 working with AGP voltage of 1.5 Volts if I remember correctly though, it's all kind of long ago for me and I have to restudy everything again hah, aaah cries :topmodel:

    But using a slot cooler isn't a bad idea for any V3 setup tbh V3 1000, 2000, 3000, 3500 as well as Velo 100 & 200 that being.
    Avengers get super hot at any speed, cooling them will expand their max lifespan for sure. Can't hurt for that part.

  • The CPU arrived today :topmodel:

    AMD AthlonXP 2200+ Thoroughbred-A from year 2002 week 37 as 0237 goes:

    Here the underside, all pins checked out fine [Blockierte Grafik: https://forums.evga.com/upfiles/smiley/001_smile.gif]

    And here in the EP-8K7A+ mainboard:

    Just waiting for the final part now which is the V3 3500 TV , hope it comes this week, because then I can get this system built, installed ans setup ready for some Star Wars Classic gaming fun 8):spitze:

  • Before installing, you should check the right jumper positions for your configuration. I would set the Vcore to default, now it is +0,1V more than default. Normally the Thoroughbred don't need that at standard clock frequence. Also i would recommend to set the FSB at 133 MHz. It's possible to set it only in bios, but then you overclock the PCI and AGP Bus, that is not recommend for a stable system.

    I marked the jumper postions green: ;)

    I think with this setting your system should detect your CPU right and stable.

    Die Pixel beschleunigt, die Kanten gefixt, lang leben die Karten von 3dfx! :spitze:

  • Yeah thanks for mentioning those things, I made some pics of other Jumpers I found as well just to fully address this subject right away as there are more jumpers on the board than those three.


    Found some more :)


    JP1 bottom left & JP5 top right:

    JCLK1 left & JP3 right:

    JP2:

    JP13:


    Are they all in the correct jumper settings?

  • Aah right the only one that is on my mind is JP5

    Power Loss Recovery

    1-2 Disabled (Default)

    2-3 Enabled

    As good or save this may sound wouldn't enabling this function actually be of use?

    S2 Sedan feel free to remove this post of mine , it has no function, as I found the solution.

    3 Mal editiert, zuletzt von Gold Leader (27. August 2019 um 22:31)

  • Maybe it's interesting... i just testing my second 8K7A+ (beside of my damaged board with Barton CPU).

    Now i go safe and use a AMD Athlon 1,4 gig T-Bird, that's the best historical configuration in my opinion. And i like the original AAVID fan on the northbridge, it's the same as used by 3dfx on VSA100 cards. ;)

    Everything is working great:

  • So here it is then my first boxed 3dfx card since 2011 I think it was :)

    Lets open up this beauty :)

    This is how the IO Pod would of been packed with it's documents :)


    So here the card after I cleaned him up a bit, all like new now :)

    Revision i Rev.A and PCB Date is 3199m week 31, year 1999, this is the oldest PCB date I ever seen on any Voodoo3 3500!
    This card is definitely well over 20 years old amazing!

    Major thanks go to Microbits for helping me get this card earlier to avoid others from buying it, just perfection at it's best.

    This V3 3500 was really an emotional catch after having it in my hands again heck I even hugged it for like 15 minutes if not more, got kind of emotional and all.

    This is to me the best 3dfx card of all time it had the best image quality even better than that of VSA-100 all because it was not rushed off 3dfx took their time to make this beauty count like all their other cards.

    And I know I personally had all the VSA-100 boards the Voodoo4 4500, Voodoo5 5000 AGP & PCI, Voodoo5 5500 AGP, PCI, PCI Mac & Voodoo5 6000 AGP, had em all, but that is kind of irrelevant to this topic.

    Every time I start with a 3dfx collection or just a 3dfx related system build the Voodoo3 3500 is always the card I turn back to because this was the one card that gave me my best memories of 3dfx , it was the last true 3dfx card I actually enjoyed.

    The 3dfx Voodoo5 5500 AGP when I bought it was a DOA, my colleague John Blok also had a 5500 AGP and was also a DOA so I always reverted back to the V3 3500 TV AGP.

    Anyways it feels great to be back, all that thanks to Microbits really <3

    Here some fun I had with my oldest B747 in my fleet, not oldest model but inreality as registration date goes of my B747 collectin this Pan Am B747-121 the N734PA "Clipper Flying Cloud" too to the skies on December 17, 1969, roughly 50 years ag, o, 30 years prior to that 3dfx came with their 3dfx Voodoo3 3500 series graphics cards kind of an ironic difference :)

    So here some fun shots I did with my Gemini jets PAA B7347-121 and this 3dfx Voodoo3 3500 TV AGP 16MB Rev.A 3199

    And here my artworks as I closed one collection and moved on to the next big thing:


    Pan Am & 3dfx

    From Boeing 747 to 3dfx

    Hereby I hope you will love these photo's or just like em, all up to you, my Favorite Boeing 747 & 3dfx card in one setting this is perfection for me, combining both interesting to one<3


    And nice comments please, I already had a rough time at x-3dfx...

    2 Mal editiert, zuletzt von Gold Leader (30. August 2019 um 16:37)

  • Oh well no LS-120 drive in this build the Addtronics 6896A is too tall and having the LS-120 in the spot where the 3.5" Floppy Drive would be my ATA Flat Cables won't make it up there ....

    So to avoid all the stress and agony, I decided not to put the LS-120 in here, the A-Open H600B it would of worekd but yea I kinda want to use my painted Case that is Descent 2 & Freespace themed hence this choice.

    So all in all I am going back to my old config with a standard Floppy drive just need that to flash the Bios if that is really of need.
    But if this Beta Bios is stable with my AXP 2200+ T-Bred A & EP-8K7A+. I am going to leave it be, since new is not always better that is my bad experience with any kind of system.

    HDD's are:

    Seagate Barracuda 5 80GB 7200 rpm
    Western Digital Caviar SE 250GB 7200rpm

    they were still in my system and I know for sure they work so hard drive wise this system is all set too hah!

    So now I will remove the Creative 12x DVD Rom Drive & PlexWriter 48/24/48A and replace them with a NEC ND-1300A DVD RW/CDRW drive just all media's in one and I can write & rewrite both CD's & DVD's just handier for all round use.

    And a Sony or Fujitsu 3.5" Floppy Drive, just handy to have around as well.

  • it's done 100% complete and working :)

    So here's the specs then!

    -----------------------------------------------

    Sveta 2002

    AMD AthlonXP 2200+ Thoroughbred-A @ !.8Ghz

    EPox EP-8K7A+ AMD &61 Chipset with Via 686B SB

    2x 1GB PC-2700 KIngston @ PC-2100 266Mhz DDR

    3dfx Voodoo3 3500 TV AGP 16MB Rev.A 3199

    VIA 616 Onboard Sound --> Audigy2 ZS Platinum Upgrade is next

    1x Seagate Baracuda V 80GB 7200 RPM Main disk

    1x Western Digital Caviar SE 250GB Game Disk

    Belkin 5 port NEC USB 2.0 PCI Card

    3-Com 3C905C-TX-M PCI Ethernet adapter 10/100Mbit

    NEC ND-1300A DVD-RW Drive

    Sony 3.5" Floppy Drive

    Antec True Power 550 Watt PSU

    Addttronics 6896A Entry Level Server Tower

    Compaq S710 17" Blackshade CRT from 2001

    Reso @ 1024x768x32 ! 85Hz

    Win2K pro + SP4 & RU1 for SP4

    SFFT Alpha 41 modified by PS47

    Latest 3dfx Tools for V3 3500 TV AGP.

    -----------------------------------------------

    So yeah there you have it I'm back finally and it runs so fast too,love this build worked all night on it since the urge to play my 3dfx games is rather high now anyway :)

    Many thanks to Declan for helping me with the Voodo3 3500, that really made this build possible at this early stage :)


    Here the photos then :)

    Here the PSU I salvaged from my mother's old computer an Antec True Power 550 cleaned it so it's ready for use:

    I cleaned it's fan as well:

    The PSU is an Antec True Power 500 Watt PSU that I took out of my mom's old Core i3 540 PC lel

    Here the Addtronics 6896A Entry Level Server Tower that I used for this build, also custom painted it myself way back in 1999.
    But pics of that later in this thread :)

    Also I cleaned this case inside out as well as the outside so it's fresh for this new 3dfx life it will have :)

    Motherboard is neatly installed there as you can see connected the power switch, led's and other IO parts the Flat data cables as well moved on slowly

    Flat cables applied for all storage & optical devices

    Thermal compoud applied on the CPU ready for cooler montage

    Upper storage compartment left is the Western Digital Caviar SE 250 GB HDD 7200 rp right is a Sony 3.5" Floppy Drive:

    System build complete :topmodel::hre::spitze:

    Side panels applied they open up for easy maintenance

    Closeup of the cards at this stage:

    Here the first boot screen;

    And I already knew what was wrong the slave HDD. had the jumper on Master the same as the primary one and that was what caused this flaw to occur.
    A Blue Screen of Death During install also happened It seems the floppy drive needed replacing after I did that and reset the jumper of the 250 GB Slave HDD in Slave mode all issues were resolved :)

    So that was fun to find out and get sorted out :spitze:

    Here this side's Freespace 2 art I applied three starships from that game

    Shevan Carrier

    Vesudan Dreadnought

    Terran Hercules MK III

    Here the Descent 2 Pyro-GX art I also did in 1999, I can't see 3D hence the wonky wings rofl

    As for the gap that will be taken care of soon, as I am adding a Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum which has an IO Drive that will fill up that open space neatly, so yeah still gotta work on that part :)

    Here the rear view of this system, all looking neatly there too"


    Anyways thanks for all the help for helping me get certain parts and also with the 8K7A+ as well, now I too can ejoy some 3dfx gaming with this neat build, I am happy with the result so far, now to grab an Audigy ZS Platinum and get that sound card setup in here as well.

  • So here the finished result of this old relic of mine <3

    Here I zoomed in to the 3dfx logo on my V3 3500 TV <3

    Here the entire system setup :)

    As you can see I used my Pan Am & 3dfx Wallpaper, suits this system perfectly <3

    Also I have added my 1985 T.rex EPoX Mascot to finish off this entire system :spitze:

    Here my Win2K pro start menu:

    Here some pics of all the installed parts via the Device manager:

    And here some screenshots I took of all the 3dfx Tools Options with this Voodoo3 3500 TV AGP 16MB Rev.A 3199 :)

    Here some screenshots I took with Star Wars Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight version 1.01 in Direct3D 6.1 @ 1024x768x16 max in game settings:

  • After some cooling advice for my Voodoo3 3500 TV AGP from my friend Microbits, I did some modding and applied this side fan and also reversed the fan so it cools the cards, the V3 3500 can go over 85C under load, now it goes more around 60 a 65C under load , a worthy difference for a 20 year old graphics card :)

    Much better now 8)

  • Well i did manage to fix that gaping hole in my case :)

    I used a plastic 5.25" bay bracket from my Addtronics 7896A to make it neater from the front of this build's Addtronics 6896A :)
    So here some pics of this fix:



    Much neater now :)

    And here my 1985 Imperial Tyrannosaurus rex which I use as my EPoX Mascot and also as avatar :)