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.
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.
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!.
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!
I’ve been watching your back catalog here on RU-vid and I’ve been very impressed by the depth you manage to get into while still being a reasonable time investment. Really enjoying it so far!
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
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.
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
I sold my 12mb Voodoo2 card a little while back, it deserved to be loved again. Also, quite possibly the singular biggest leap in 3D performance in history.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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...
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!
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.
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! :)
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.
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 😀
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.
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!
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. :)
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...
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!
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.
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.
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.
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! :)
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.
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...
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.
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. 👍
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.
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.
@@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.
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
Nice fix! valuable information too, every little fix that people share on RU-vid 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.
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!
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.
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.
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!
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
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. ;)
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 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.
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
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.
@@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.
Before: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-dNtZAnR8wnM.html After: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-i1Kidowe1lo.html Going to need a few hours of fragging to verify fixed :P
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
