Reply 40 of 50, by Ozzuneoj
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smola wrote on 2024-05-06, 19:05:Unfortunately I wont recommend any ram chips, due to only ones I found are selling by only one Chinese guy. There is possibility […]
Unfortunately I wont recommend any ram chips, due to only ones I found are selling by only one Chinese guy. There is possibility they may not work, may be broken/fake, there is not good photos on auction. If you still want modify your velocity card, then take following things into consideration:
* you got most info from previous post from @Thermalwrong
* you have to resolder 4 chips and set few resistors to proper position to unlock missing signals
* you have also re-set additional strap resistors to configure new size of ram and memory banks - I have done this but I wont release solution until I test it in real world
* re-setting straps requires cuting/wiring traces on pcb, also requires removing resistors array + replace some of them to lower size from 603 to 402 - without proper skill/tools and microscope it may be difficult and probably you'll destroy your velocity
* you need to buy new ram chips or gather them from donorsIf you still wanna do this upgrade, just do some basic math:
* velo has 8MB vram in 4 chips, it means 8/4=2, actually 2MiB per chip, MB is just marketing, MiB is in realality 1024*1024 bytes
* so each chip has 2MiB, organization is 256Kx32x2, you want to change each to twice more capacity, so you have to look for 512Kx32x2
* find datasheet of your existing chips and find dedicated ram, check pinouts on both chips, size of the chips, raster etc., check params, speed etc.
* when you'll find proper replacements, then search seller on ali/ebay and check description/photos, there is always risk you can buy crap
* now resolder ram chips, move resistors, set straps
* test stuff, if you did all in proper way, and your chips are good, then everything should work from a shot
* this is not easy task, most ppl think it's just like a fart, coz it's just replacing mem chips... well, it's not, just do it yourself 😉Cheers 😀
Yeah, just my opinion, but I think the 8MB cards are totally fine as-is if you use the fixed glide2x.dll. There are many thousands of 16MB Voodoo3 cards out there if you must have one... and the price premium over an 8MB card will definitely not be enough to offset all of the work (and parts costs) needed to upgrade one. If you are playing older games that don't use a lot of texture memory, the 8MB cards are super fast and have plenty of memory. Also, considering that, to my knowledge, all of these cards are AGP, there are tons of other non-3Dfx options available if you need more than 8MB of VRAM. A Geforce2 MX (128bit) will easily outperform any of these and are extremely abundant and cheap.
If someone is skilled with this kind of thing already and wants to do it as an experiment, then fine... but don't waste a perfectly good 8MB V3 by doing unnecessary Franketstein stuff on a working card that is relatively uncommon.
... a good candidate would be a card with a bad or damaged memory chip since it already requires some work to get it running, but even then, I hope you know what you're doing. 😁
Now for some blitting from the back buffer.