Pseudonymous YouTuber “Bits und Bolts,” hereafter merely “Bolts,” has designed a piggyback board which brings the 3dfx Voodoo 3D accelerator card, a staple of ’90s gaming, to the heady heights of 8MB of RAM — double the quantity it initially featured.
Launched in 1995, the 3dfx Voodoo accelerator and its Glide utility programming interface (API) introduced speedy easy 3D gaming to the lots — or, not less than, those that might afford the add-in boards which hit the market based mostly on the corporate’s chips.
The unique Voodoo was uncommon by trendy requirements by dint of being completely for 3D graphics — utilizing a relay-based pass-through system to take over the video sign utterly when operating a Glide-supported sport however in any other case deactivating and handing over 2D or non-Glide 3D work to the system’s inventory graphics chip.
Whereas later Voodoo fashions would include extra video reminiscence, the vast majority of authentic Voodoo playing cards got here with solely 4MB regardless of the 3dfx Voodoo chip itself having the ability to help as much as 8MB. It is this help which has given rise to after-market RAM mods, usually carried out by double-stacking RAM chips — one thing Bolts determined was an unpleasant strategy.
“After I seemed on the format of how the reminiscence ICs have been aligned I obtained an thought [of] improve my card with out messing up the unique reminiscence chips. [These] PCBs are used to clip on the Guillemot MAXI Gamer 3D Voodoo Graphics Accelerator,” Bolts explains of his open-hardware various. “Regular reminiscence dimension for these playing cards have been 4MB. With the assistance of the PCBs, you will get the Voodoo as much as 8MB.”
Whereas the PCBs Bolts has designed work in successfully the identical approach as soldering second reminiscence chips on high of the originals, they’re designed to be as protecting of the unique {hardware} as attainable. They are not simply plug-and-play, nonetheless: upgrading the feel reminiscence requires the soldering of a single wire, whereas upgrading the second reminiscence financial institution to extend the utmost supported decision from 640×480 to 800×600 requires one other two wires to be soldered.
There’s additionally, arguably, little level past bragging rights: within the 3DMark ’99 benchmark Bolts discovered that the efficiency of playing cards modded to 6MB or 8MB have been barely greater than the inventory 4MB model, whereas operation at 800×600 barely reached double-digit body charges in each benchmarks and period-appropriate video games like Id Software program’s Quake and Eidos’ Tomb Raider.
For individuals who wish to attempt anyway, and who’ve the very same third-party 3dfx Voodoo board, Bolts has launched design recordsdata and Gerbers for the reminiscence mod boards on GitHub underneath an unspecified open supply license.
