Voodoo5 5500 Problems

[Gallion]

Even though I posted in Tips/Techniques Thread that BC3K runs like a charm on 3dFx V5 5500, I am having the a problem running BC3K v2.09 (v2.0 patched up w/ mappak patch) on Voodoo5 5500 2d/3d v-card.

I have tried various configuration settings within the bc3k3dfx.bat file and with the 3dFxTools utility.

I have tried system configuration settings (config.sys) as stated in the FAQ and various README text files on Forum, CD, and patches.

I have also search the web for how to info and have hit a brick wall.

Problem: Cannot restore savegame via the Main menu either when staring new hgame or within a game session. This happens after saving a game, quit game, and then try to restore a saved game. Continue works sporadically.

• System Specs:

• PIII 733, Mobo ASUS P3V4X w/ Award BIOS v1.01, 3dFx Voodoo5 5500 v-card - w/ latest drivers.

• glide2x.ovl date 4 May 2000

• 3dFxTools Voodoo5 settings:

  * GLide Splash - disabled

  * Legacy Compressed Textures - disabled

  * Alpha Blending - Automatic

  * 3D Filter Quality - Automatic

  * MIP Map Dithering - Disabled

  * Triple Buffering - Disabled

  * Rendering Color-depth - Software Controlled

  * Maximum Buffered Frames - 1 Pending Buffer

  * Anti-Aliasing - Fastest Performance

• config.sys

  * DEVICE=C:WINDOWSHIMEM.SYS

  * DEVICEHIGH=C:WINDOWSEMM386.EXE RAM

  * SHELL=C:WINDOWSCOMMAND.COM /E:4096 /P

  * DOS=HIGH, UMB

  * FILES=50

  * BUFFERS=20

Exact problem - Getting the black screen of death when restoring savegame. Experience same symptoms sometimes when selecting Continue vice Restore at the Main menu. This happens both within the game itself and when starting new game. Happens no matter what profile I use, FF, ACM, etc. Which is telling me that there is a problem with 2d and 3d v-sync refresh rates. I have changed v-card refresh rate mega times from 60-140hz (no over-clocking of v-card), changed size from 800-600 thru 1152-864 and still get the old BSOD.

BC3K does run in software only mode w/o any hickups or problems.

I have tried various configuration with the bc3k3dfx.bat to no avail.

I like eye-candy Watching Rattler play BC on the old Banshee reawakened my need for the eye-candy fix

I would like any assistance that anyone can provide. Whether it be tech or point to info on web.

TTFN and TX in advance.

BTW - BC3K3DFX eye candy on Voodoo5 5500 is flippin' awesome. Mega times better than Banshee or older Voodoo Cards.

[This message has been edited by Gallion (edited 06-16-2000).]

[Gallion]

Completed doing the complete uninstall/reinstall of BC and V5 drivers plus some more tinkering with the bc3k3dfx.bat settings.

Same smack - black screen of death.

Tried all 3dfx drivers avail at download area and recieved cannot init card error message.

This is a pisser to me but hey, I am just exercising my interest (ye hear that Blades )

TTFN and still searching for the fix

[This message has been edited by Gallion (edited 06-16-2000).]

[Supreme Cmdr]

Saving a game has nothing to do with drivers.

The card is probably going out of synch during a screen update.

For one thing, if the Voodoo5 drivers don't work with BC3K, then, thats that. Nothing I can do about it.

IIRC, when you install the V5, it sticks some commands in your autoexec.bat. Try commenting them out. I'm 90% thats the problem.

And if you go using non-V5 drivers and you get that error, well, what I can I say?

[Gallion]

quote:

---

The card is probably going out of synch during a screen update.

---

Yep, this be the problem. Which is isolated to the v-card/driver and not BC3K itself - knew that. Game runs fine in non-3dFx mode. I tried the 3dFx drivers on D/L page just to make sure. Nothing wrong with the game just me v-card.

Checked and configed BIOS IAW v5 idiot guide had several anomallies there.

Nothing in autoexec.bat or config.sys referencing v5 stuff. Checked various win98 inin files and found nothing htere either.

Searching web for 3dFx Voodoo parameter setting - aka bc3k3dfx.bat stuff.

My thinking is that I am overlooking something simple. Just need to find out how to get v5 2d/3d sync to match up with dos programs.

[Gallion]

Thanks for your reply SC.

My quasi-search came up nill. Ron gave me some ideas to try (thanks). Zipped e-mail to 3dFx support and awaiting reply.

Will continue this endeavor on the morrow. I will get to the root of this evil one way or another.

Will advise latest crashes or fix when avail. Open to any ideas or what not that any may have.

TTFN

[This message has been edited by Gallion (edited 06-17-2000).]

[Supreme Cmdr]

hmm, thats strange that when you installed the V5, it didn't put anything in your autoexec.bat file. Here's what it put in mine. Why don't you try this (though I have them disabled in mine) and see. Also, make sure that you are using the GLIDE2X.OVL file that came with the V5. Copy it to the BC3K folder. If that causes a driver init problem, try the V3 one.

REM out EVERY Voodoo parameter in the bc3k3dfx.bat file and put these in there. Also, try adding/removing the VSYNC command too.

As for your registry, search for Voodoo or 3Dfx and see what you come up with. Also check for the presence of similar .ini file in the Windows folder tree.

quote:

---

REM == Voodoo legacy support for older games ==

@SET SST_GRXCLK=90

@SET SST_FT_CLK_DEL=0x4

@SET SST_TF0_CLK_DEL=0x6

@SET SST_TF1_CLK_DEL=0x6

@SET SST_VIN_CLKDEL=0x1

@SET SST_VOUT_CLKDEL=0x0

@SET SST_TMUMEM_SIZE=2

---

[This message has been edited by Supreme Cmdr (edited 06-17-2000).]

[Supreme Cmdr]

Look what I found....

http://www.3dfxgamers.com/boards.asp?BOID=...sort=lastpost&b

[Gallion]

Thanks SC.

Tried settings as stated in URL ye provided and environmental settings too. Driver install was no problem. Took a while to clean system and registry up though before doing clean install of 3dFx stuff.

Selecting Continue at Main Menu works w/ no problem in 3dFx mode.

Selecting Restore at Main Menu in 3dFx mode still results on the hanging BSoD.

Found old hardcopy of 3dFx Environmental Settings laying about. Still searching for the cure to this phenomenon. Nothing from 3dFx support yet. More details when available.

TTFN

[Supreme Cmdr]

I bet its the refresh rate settings. Try 60Hz

Apart from that, there is no plausible reason why Continue would work and Restore won't. It sure doesn't sound like its graphics related to me.

[Gallion]

Latest and greatest efforts to solve this thing

Reset v5 adapter card setting refresh rate to 60hz - no cure.

Cycled v5 adapter card setting refresh rates from 60-100hz - no cure.

Reinstalled v5 software to include DirectX 7.0a - not related to Glide operation but I had a wild one after research various sites and thought this would make a difference. DirectX seems to be key to v5 operation it seems even though this failed to cure me eye-candy wows.

Went thru various 3Dfx Environment Settings SC posted without any luck. Rattler assisted me with the info search (thanks) and found some useful sites along with other goodies, even a decent glide wrapper for nVidia v-cards No haven't tried that app. Here is the latest Environmental Variable settings I could find on the net. At least this one is dated 1999 If any knows of any other site(s) please let me know.

Anyway, as I was watching the screen flickering I noticed something. I could see the screen click from 2d Menu mode (after selecting Restore) and change to 3d mode of in-game. This is where everything hangs up at, trying to sync up or something like that.

Tried to lower v5 card clock rate from 166mhz to 100mhz and it did not like that one bit. Imagine that, a card that doesn't like to run slower than default speed.

Taking a break and will tackle this monkey again after dawn's early light.

Thanks SC and Rattler.

TTFN

[This message has been edited by Gallion (edited 06-18-2000).]

[Gallion]

My latest results in my v5 struggle.

Zipped and sent savegame profile to Rattler, he loaded the savegame in 3dFx mode and it ran perfectly.

My search for v5 DOS Glide info is resulting into an act of futility. IOW getting nowhere fast. Cruising some of the 3dFx newsgroups didn't help or brighten my outlook either.

I will take a break from this for a day or two. Need to get my focus and get out of the tunnel vission syndrome I seem to be in.

Ideas to this v5 monkey from any and all are welcomed.

TTFN and again thanks to all.

[This message has been edited by Gallion (edited 06-18-2000).]

[Gallion]

My struggle with my pretty little Voodoo5 doll continues. With the exception of this one quirk, this doll flippin' rocks IMO.

quote:

---

SC stated elsewhere:

...I have no problems with BC3K v2.0x on my V5, so I don't know what the problem is. Sorry. The

work-around

is to probably use Continue instead of the Restore function...

---

That is how I am running BC in 3dFx mode SC. My search continues and getting more dangerous as I progress thru the tattered webs of the net. A little knowledge can be dangerous, especially for me.

To the gist. Did another uninstall of v5 and drivers. Massive search for any .ini files and registry entries referencing Voodoo, 3Dfx, and Glide. Deleted those that I found. Reinstalled BC3K, etc. Still hickups when loading savegame from Main Menu/Restore. Selecting Continue works like a charm in all the eye-candy Even with all this difficulty, playing BC in 3dFx mode on v5 is great - better than my old Banshee. Framerates are excellant, still slow down some in that one spot in Tod1-m1/5 but recovers quickly. BC runs great in software mode and in 3dFx mode using steps outlined by SC.

My hunt for a cure for this quirk is not ended. I am determined as hell to get to the root of this evil.

Anyone else besides the SC and myself running BC3K on a Voodoo5 5500 V-Card? If so I would like to hear from you and get some setup settings also.

TTFN

[This message has been edited by Gallion (edited 06-20-2000).]

[Supreme Cmdr]

I have updated the troubleshooting FAQ with tips on getting the Voodoo5 card to work properly.

[Thomas Siemens]

Derek,

Found a minor cosmetic "quirk" in the Troubleshooting FAQ: in the answer of the question "Q. WHY DOES THE GAME NOT WORK WITH MY VOODOO3 OR VOODOO BANSHEE BASED CARD?" the font color changes to black, and the font itself changes too (using NS 4.73) for the rest of the document.

Gallion,

Does it work now with Derek's tips? I am thinking about buying such a card, too (upgrading from my Voodoo 3), and want to avoid troubles...

Thomas (a.k.a. Gudihl)

Official Tester, Battlecruiser Series

[Supreme Cmdr]

FAQ looks fine here.

As for Gallion, I've been waiting for him to get back to me. It works fine on my end and other people who contacted the tech support line say it works too. Which is why I added it to the FAQ.

[Rattler]

Last I heard from him was that it still didn't work for him. He WAS going to get back to you on it. Don't know why he hasn't yet. If I see him online tonight I'll remind him.

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

Rattler, Insurgent One

Commander-In-Chief,

Insurgency

Official Tester,Battlecruiser Series

[email protected]

ICQ 12894104

"Still Crazy after all these years!"

[Thomas Siemens]

Hmm, found the problem with the black font:

code:

---

Q. WHY DOES THE GAME NOT WORK WITH MY VOODOO3 OR VOODOO BANSHEE BASED CARD?

A. The Voodoo3 uses the same drivers as the Banshee. However, the GLIDE2X.OVL which shipped with 

   this card, as well as the lastest driver set released by 3Dfx do 
not
 work with most 

   games that require GLIDE2X.OVL. You can download the http://www.3000ad.com/downloads/3dfxdrivers.zip">VOODOO Drivers file from the 3000AD 

   website and unzip it into the folder where you installed BC3K. Read the included READTHIS.TXT 

   file. The game will then use this driver instead of the faulty one in C:WINDOWS (which may 

   be needed by other games). This archive contains drivers for all 3DFX Voodoo boards.

---

Those two cause the problem, i.e. Netscape make up its own formatting thereafter.

Thomas (a.k.a. Gudihl)

Official Tester, Battlecruiser

[This message has been edited by Thomas Siemens (edited 07-13-2000).]

[Gallion]

SC & All,

Me woes with this quirk continue to evade me best efforts to fix or rectify

Used the drivers and setup as prescribed in the new FAQ SC released, did not fix my quirk. Cruised the web in search of a fix, tweek (found alot of then, not to many for my voodoo doll though), or anything that would work, to no avail.

Vorpal has a V5-5500 too but hasn't told me how BC3K runs on his V5.

So I am at an empasse I think. BC3K runs great in non-Glide. BC3K will also run great in 3dFx Glide mode but only if I select Contunie from the Main Menu. If I select Restore game and system hangsup in the blank screen of death, doing nothing.

This all may very well caused by my ASUS P3V4X Via chipset motherboard. But then again it may very well not be either.

Bottom line to all: Thanks for the effort and support. This is a quirk, 'cause other than this minor irk, my voodoo doll runs like a champ. Waiting for the Voodoo5-6000 to hit the streets - gonna get one of them too

TTFN and thanks again SC and all

[This message has been edited by Gallion (edited 07-13-2000).]

[Gallion]

Something that I did fail to mention earlier, when I installed Voodoo5-5500 (initial or reinstallations), at no time was I prompted or asked by the setup program if I wanted Glide suppoer for legacy DOS programs.

[Guest]

Gallion, I replied to your e-mail but it was just me saying that I haven't run BC3K yet on my V5, I'm actually going to attempt it right now (Came here to pick up the new drivers) so I'll let you know how it goes.

Sounds to me like your save game is corrupted in some way, but never the less I'll let you know how it goes.

[This message has been edited by Vorpal (edited 07-14-2000).]

[Guest]

1) removed old copy

2) Installed from CD

3) Installed patches

4) Installed map pack

5) Installed Mission Pack 1

6) Moved Voodoo 5 driver to BC3K directory

Game booted up smooth.

No problems found. My config.sys and autoexec.bat consisted of about 4 lines combined and had none of the lines mentioned in the FAQ for running BC3K and it still worked (haven't rebooted yet).

Sorry Gallion. However from what I've read about your problem it sounds like the game runs fine, you just can't restore that particular saved game (or is it anytime you try continue from a saved game?). I don't see why the V5 would be the point of failure in that case.

Well never the less, good luck!!

SC: Thanks for continuing to support BC3000AD V2.0 with those new V5 drivers. Now to go play some Battle Cruiser 4X FSAA style!

[Supreme Cmdr]

Fixed the FAQ bug

Vorpal, can you play a Restored game? I think thats what Gallion is talking about.

[Gallion]

Correct SC.

Vorpal, there be nothing wrong with the saved game(s).

My problem is that I cannot load a savegame via teh Restore button located at the Main Menu after starting BC3k session.

If I select Continue at the Main Menu, then I get all the 3dFx Glide functionality and eye-candy When I select Restore then the game hangs in limbo and doesn't sync-up, at least that is what it looks like to me.

Anyway, let me know how ye experience turns out Vorpal. Also your sys specs at setup via e-mail por-favor if ye doesn't mind.

Gotta scoot, thunder and lightning heading my way

TTFN

[Supreme Cmdr]

Sounds like the refresh rate for your V5 and your monitor are out of whack. I say this because the Restore screen causes a screen change to 2D. What happens if you run CONFIG from the bridge?

[Guest]

D'OH! Open foot insert mouth... yeah looks like I have the same exact problem as Gallion over here...

First time I tried a restore I didn't bother with any of my Voodoo config settings since the game was running smoothly, so I tried it again with what I believed would be a more compatible setting (16 bit color desktop, no FSAA enabled, no triple buffering, etc...) and it still didn't work. Once the screen blanks I can't Alt+Tab or Alt+Enter or even Ctrl+Alt+Delete out of it.

Odd thing is, hitting 'Continue' from the main menu does work in loading the game.

My gameing system is a PIII 700 (100 mhz FSB)

256 megs RAM

All SCSI (no IDE Enabled)

Windows 98 SE

SBLive Platinum

V5 5500 AGP

Config.sys:

DEVICE=C:WINDOWSHIMEM.SYS /NUMHANDLES=64 /VERBOSE

DEVICE=C:WINDOWSEMM386.EXE RAM VERBOSE

SHELL=C:WINDOWSCOMMAND.COM /E:4096 /P

DOS=HIGH,UMB

FILES=50

BUFFERS=20

Autoexec.bat:

SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6

SET CTSYN=C:WINDOWS

C:PROGRA~1CREATIVESBLIVEDOSDRVSBEINIT.COM

REM == Voodoo legacy support for older games ==

@SET SST_GRXCLK=90

@SET SST_FT_CLK_DEL=0x4

@SET SST_TF0_CLK_DEL=0x6

@SET SST_TF1_CLK_DEL=0x6

@SET SST_VIN_CLKDEL=0x1

@SET SST_VOUT_CLKDEL=0x0

@SET SST_TMUMEM_SIZE=2

Display setting are set for 'Optimal' refresh rate.

I'll play around with a little more tomorrow and see if I can narrow down the problem...