A Wicked Dual PIII Build

[Irinikus]

I made that video, fun that people play around with mtgl32!
Tough I did not write the actual SMP patch (found it on internet archives), just made some changes to the quake3 source to allow people to select it from the menu.
Also added 8 and 11Khz audio support but it can sound bad during movies and timedemos from my testing (mainly ISA cards) but its MUCH faster on CPU limited machines.
And you can select quality in the menu now, it was previously useless and broken.
Also VC2005 was used to generate faster binarys with optimized compiler flags.
Was told Quake 3 dont have high and low pass filters and thats why its hardcoded by default to 22Khz (the code for 11Khz is actually there just commented out.
A modern port, Quake3e has those filters the dev told me.

mtgl32.dll works on other games when my friend tested, half-life for example, as long as you can call the driver using r_gldriver or similar it can work.
I think he got gains in Quake2 also, need to test myself.
Wolfenstine tough had performance regression for me.

You can get the 3 versions of mtgl32.dll I have found plus the manual from my dropbox, I think its all on internet archive somewhere if you know where to look that is XD

Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

Anyways was going to register on the forum anyways because I got an SGI Octane last month so I have watched your IRIX install Howtos!

I've re-installed my Voodoo5 5500 into my dual PIII system and I simply cannot get it to work in SMP mode! Do you by any chance know if it's possible to overcome this problem?

 

[Irinikus]

I've installed the Quadro 2 Pro, and I must admit that the results are underwhelming to say the least!!!!

Here's the Nvidia Driver setup:

Here's the 3DMark 2001 score:

Here's the standard Quake III TimeDemo Four result:

Here's the Quake III SMP TimeDemo Four result: (Slightly lower than the standard version!)

For comparative purposes, here's the GT 430's 3DMark 2001 score:

Here's the GT 430's standard Quake III TimeDemo Four result:

And here's the GT 430's SMP Quake III TimeDemo Four result:

 

[Irinikus]

Here's what the Quadro 2 Pro looks like in the machine:

I should hopefully have the Quadro 3000 in the next couple of weeks, so let's wait and see as to how that card performs! But for now, the ZOTAC GT 430 PCI is the best card I've tested in this system by a pretty large margin!

 

[pa1983]

I've re-installed my Voodoo5 5500 into my dual PIII system and I simply cannot get it to work in SMP mode! Do you by any chance know if it's possible to overcome this problem?

I do not have a V5 5500, only time I had one was in for recaping.
I do have two Voodoo3 3000 cards and I did notice that Voodoo3 cards gave no option in the menu to select a GL Driver at all.
I have not tested vanilla version of Quake 3 but from what I can understands of the code (not that much) it looks for a 3dfx signature or en opengl signature and Voodoo1 and voodoo2 uses the 3dfxvgl.dll while Voodoo3 seems to lack it an acts more like a normal OpenGL card.
So I dont think the Quake 3 code takes 3dfx cards newer then Voodoo2 in to account, because both quake1, 2 and 3 code has to figure out what GFX card you have because some lacks features and have limitations.
So you can see those comments in the code for different cards.
3dfx cards for example can only do 256x256 textures while many other cards could do more so thats a common statement.
Also the code seems to assuem 3dfxvgl.dll if you have a 3dfx card.
From what i recall the Voodoo3 seems to default to the OpenGL driver if one asks what it uses, but I think that the menu disappears because the game expects an OpenGL card or a 3dfx card and the later Voodoos seems to act more like an OpenGL card but not fully and I guess some conditions are not meet and the menu disappears becuse the game dont know what to do.

mtgl32.dll looks for either opengl32.dll or 3dfxvgl.dll, similar to what i remember from the game code.
I just made a copy of mtgl32.dll and hex edited one to look for mt3df.ini instead and renamed that mtgl32.dll to mt3dfx.dll, that way Quake3 can load the proper renderer depending on what you select in the menu.
So mtgl32.dll was never written for Voodoo3 or newer either it seems, look in mt3df.ini and you will see the 3dfxvgl.dll it asks for, you V5 5500 dont use that I think.
3dfxvgl.dll dont exist in any V3 drivers I have or after install of the drivers.
So yea for Voodoo5 5500 I would think you need to use it as a OpenGL card in quake3.

Now one can just set what ever driver one wants in the console using "r_gldriver" cvar and then do a "vid_restart".
Because Voodoo3 and up dont use 3dfxvgl.dll from what I can find I would assume you would have to run it using opengl.

If you dont have the menu, mine dont show with a V3 in Quake3 (my modified version at least) one can just do "r_gldriver mtgl32" and then "vid_restart" for it to take effect.

Thats how it was originally used.


Idk if this helps but it should be doable using mtgl32.dll with a Voodoo5 5500 but I recall hating the Voodoo3 3000 when I was testing and defaulted back to a Voodoo2 instead because the game know what that is.

My friend is also building a dual P3 1400 system with DDR and he had problems with his V5 5500 (not quake 3 specific, more later games did not work at all that he wanted to run like Quake 4) also and I think he is swapping it for a high end FX or 9000 series card because you can run so much more with those later cards due to better feature set.
So if you want to run Quake 4 on your machine, should work I would recommend a FX5900 Ultra or a 9700/9800PRO instead.
Quake 4 SMP patch and all settings to the lowest should run, ran fine on my dual Athlon MP 1.67Ghz.

3dfx cards are fun and all but my first and last one was Voodoo2 back in the day and I still prefer V2 12Mb SLI because they perform well and are very compatible, I do not like my V3 cards, performance is a bit to unpredictable for my taste.
I love 3dfx car as much as the next guy but when it comes down to it I find the later cards to be more a collectable card then a usable card.
We host Retro Lans in sweden 1-2 times a year with 40 ish people and you need compatible cards, TNT2, GeForce 256, G400, Voodoo2 etc works well for a 1999 lan.

A bit of topic, but my experience with later 3dfx cards is mainly repair and just helping friends and yea from a practical point of view they seem not so much worth it for an actual gaming machine when the GeForce card of the time did much better.

I hope this helps. Been sick and then had to catch up with stuff so not had much time for retro computing.

 

[Irinikus]

Thanks very much for the info! I really do appreciate your input!

 

[Irinikus]

Today I received the Quadro FX 3000, and it's now installed in the system! (Excuse the power coupling, as it will be cleaned up once I install the Corsair Power Supply that I intend using in this build, closer to the build's completion!)

Here's the current hardware setup according to Windows:

Here's the 3DMark 2001 Score with the Quadro FX 3000 fitted:

Here's the Quake III SMP result:

 

[Irinikus]

I've come up with the strategy that I'm going to use regarding the power coupling going to the Quadro FX 3000. (Using the "card extender" to neatly route the wires away.)

I'm sill using the original style (coloured) cable for now and may opt for a fancy braided cable once I fit the Corsair Power Supply, however I do think that a feature such as this original coupling points to the vintage of this hardware in a desirable way.

The Motherboard and SSD's on the other hand will receive the best quality and neatest braided cable option that I can get my hand on, when I install this Power Supply:

So I'm settling on the Quadro FX 3000 as the graphics option for this build, as it offers good performance and seeing that it's a workstation card it complements this motherboard.

Over the next few months I'll purchase the rest of the cards that I'm going to install into this system, starting with the SATA II RAID controller, as there's only one real option as far as this card goes, and it'a this one:

I'm still undecided as to the Sound Card option I'm going to be settling on: (I'll more than likely settle on two of these options, as I don't think that the professional sound card options will work well with games!)

Here are the cards that I'm currently considering: (Any additional suggestions are welcome!)

The Creative E-MU 1212M -EM8810 PCI DSP Processor & EM8800 MIDI extension daughter card.

The Onkyo SE-200 PCI professional high-end sound card.

The Creative X-FI Extreme Gamer Fatality Pro.

And finally, the Digigram VX882HR 8 Channel Multichannel Analog & AES/EBU Digital w/ XLR Cable.

Last, but not least, I'll add in a Belkin USB 2 card:

 

[pa1983]

That is some cool sound cards. Best I have is a moded AWE64

 

[pa1983]

My friend emailed the creator of the mtgl32 minigl layer some months ago and we asked him if he wanted to make the source public.
Was some time ago, we did not know if he still used the old email from 20 years ago etc.

But he came trough and updated his page so now the source exist ans is publicly available!

SMP MiniGL Layer Beta

http://cwdohnal.com/smp_minigl_layer/mtgl_src.2007_05_30.zip

I have not looked at the source so idk if there is say x86 assembler in it for example.
So cant say how easy it would be to port for somone over to say IRIX and SGI but that would be a cool thing if someone had that level of skill.

Its worth archiving just in case!