Troubleshooting Tips

The following troubleshooting tips are general in nature. Be sure to consult the owner’s manual for your computer for specific details of your system that may be relevant to these suggestions.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The Voodoo3 card requires an IRQ. Your computer’s BIOS should be able to assign an IRQ to the card automatically on boot-up. If the BIOS does not automatically assign an IRQ to the card, try to assign one manually according to the instructions for your computer.

If your computer does not support the assignment of an IRQ for the display card, then you may need to upgrade the computer’s BIOS to have this option. Please refer to the instructions for your computer for more information about your computer and its BIOS.

If you have trouble restarting your computer after installing your new Voodoo3 card…

  1. Check to be sure that the Voodoo3 card is properly seated in the AGP or PCI bus connector.
  2. Check all of the cables and cable connections to the computer.
  3. Verify that there is no other display device in the system or that a built-in display device is completely disabled.
  4. Verify that the computer is IBM-, PCI-, and/or AGP-compatible.
  5. Try to boot-up the computer from your Windows Boot Disk or from a standard DOS boot diskette.
  6. Check to be sure that the computer does not have any of the following features enabled in CMOS:

Frequently Asked Questions (F.A.Q.)

The questions and answers that follow should cover most of the common installation, compatibility, and software support issues for your new 3dfx Voodoo3 card.

Hardware Installation

Why does the computer fail to boot after installing the Voodoo3 card?

Check to be sure that the Voodoo3 card is properly seated in the AGP or PCI bus connector.

Some computers have a display device built into the system motherboard. If so, then the system's BIOS must have some method for completely disabling the on-board display device in order to allow the Voodoo3 card to function properly. Please refer to the instructions for your computer to determine if it has an on-board display device and how to completely disable it. You may need to contact the computer's manufacturer for a BIOS upgrade to allow this.

You may also need to contact the computer's manufacturer to obtain a BIOS upgrade, software patch, or updated Bus Mastering or AGP Port Drivers to allow your new Voodoo3 card to function properly in the system.

Driver Support

Why do the Voodoo3 card's display drivers fail to load, or report an invalid display type, or identify the Voodoo3 card as a Voodoo2-based or Banshee-based card?

If you have previously installed a graphics card based on another 3dfx chipset (i.e., Banshee, Voodoo2, etc.) into this computer, then Windows 95, 98, or NT 4.0 may attempt to use the device drivers for that older 3dfx-based card with the Voodoo3 card. This could cause any of the problems described. You will need to remove all of the older 3dfx drivers from your system and from the Windows Registry to completely resolve this problem. Even if these older drivers don't seem to be causing any problems, you should still remove them because their presence in the system can prevent your Voodoo3 card from fully delivering all of its 3D acceleration performance.

Why do the Voodoo3 card's Windows NT 4.0 display drivers fail to load after being installed according to the printed instructions?

The Quick Install software on some early versions of the Voodoo3 Driver CD was not able to correctly install the Windows NT 4.0 display drivers for the Voodoo3 card. If this occurs, simply use these instructions:

  1. To install the Windows NT 4.0 display drivers after installing your Voodoo3 card, simply start Windows NT 4.0 normally and then open the "Display Properties" dialog box and select the "Settings" tab, then click the "Display Type…" button.
  2. Next, click the "Change" button in the "Install from disk" dialog box. Click on the "Have Disk…" button and use the "Browse…" button to select the location of the Windows NT 4.0 display drivers for your Voodoo3 card.
  3. Click on the "Open" button, and then click on the "OK" button. Next, select the Voodoo3 option and click on the "OK" button.
  4. You may see a dialog box asking you to insert installation disk 2 into your system. Simply click "OK" to proceed.
  5. You will then see a dialog box asking you for the location of specific files required for the installation. Click on the "Browse…" button to open the "Locate Files" dialog box.
  6. Now simply click on the "Open" button and then on the "OK" button and the installation should proceed without any further prompting for files.
  7. Note that both of these dialog boxes should default to the location you selected as containing the Voodoo3 card’s Windows NT 4.0 display drivers. If not, simply direct them to that location before you proceed at each step.

This will complete the installation of the Windows NT 4.0 display drivers for your new Voodoo3 card.

Why do 3D games or applications seem to slow down after installing the Windows NT 4.0 display drivers for the Voodoo3 card?

Install the Voodoo3 card's MiniGL driver from the Voodoo3 CD.  Windows NT 4.0 does not allow software to completely and directly access the graphics hardware under Direct3D as well as it does under GL.

Games and 3D Applications

Why do some 3D games or applications produce unusual display problems like doubled text or generate error messages regarding the display adapter not being properly configured, or simply lock-up the system, or terminate unexpectedly?

Some 3D games or applications have been written to take direct advantage of the 3D processing power of 3dfx graphics accelerator chips using the Glide 3D Application Programming Interface (API). The Glide API has now been updated to version 3.0 to include the advanced 3D features and functions of the new Voodoo3 chipset. You should contact the manufacturer of your 3D games or applications to obtain a software patch that will allow your programs to fully access the advanced 3D power of your new Voodoo3 card.

After installing the display drivers for Quake3, why do other 3D games or applications fail to function properly?

The Quake3 display drivers are specifically and only to be used for Quake3. They will not support your other 3D games or applications properly. You should reconfigure your system to use the 3dfx display drivers for your Voodoo3 card again before using your other 3D games or applications.

Why do some 3D benchmark applications show that the Voodoo3 card has failed some of the 3D tests that it is supposed to support?

The shareware versions of some 3D benchmark applications may not be able to run all of the 3D tests that are available from the registered versions of the same software. They will indicate that the Voodoo3 card has failed these tests, when in fact the tests have not been run on the card at all. Anytime that you use benchmarking software to compare performance, you should always be very careful to ensure that you are using the same version of that software for each side of the comparison to obtain valid results.

Why do some DVD playback cards stop working, or generate error messages that the display card does not have the ability to create an overlay window, after the installation of a Voodoo3 card?

Some DVD playback cards use the CCIR-656 video format to send video data to the display card. The Voodoo3 card uses a CCIR-601 video format for its Digital Video Input Connector. You should contact the manufacturer of the DVD playback card to find out if there is a software patch you can obtain that would allow your DVD playback card to use the CCIR-601 video format instead of the CCIR-656 format.