Hail to the 3DFX fans! As I promissed before here are some results of my study on VSA100 cards. Some of you might know that I was a member of the team that succeded in modding a regular Voodoo4 AGP from 32MB to 64Mb RAM by hot-air soldering extra memory chips and a VGA-BIOS mod. The card worked with no problems and now is not the only one of it's kind; other mods have been performed with succes that same way. But there is a catch: allthough it was the proof that a VSA100 GPU can access up to 64MB, it was not a big step to the road of modding a Voodoo5 to more RAM, because the Voodoo4 AGP had empty spots for mounting the extra 32MB; it had all the PCB traces and all the other pieces needed for 64MB opperation. I guess it is OK to suspect that 3DFX produced this PCB design in order to be able to offer 64MB Voodoo4's if there would have been market demands at the time.
However, for the other VSA100 based cards, no succesfull moddings have been confirmed; it may be because of the fact that compatible 16MB TSOP2 RAM chips for transplant are not easy to get. I for one and I bet many of you, would love to see a working Voodoo5 with 128Mb...
For a month and a half I had no computer (MB died) and a question arised in my mind: we want for the VSA100 GPU to handle more memory; but how does it works? I have done some tests of myown; the old-"reverse engeneering"-stile and I will show what I found out. For many of you it might be old-old news, so I'm sorry if so...
First, VSA100 does not realy care about the "physical" memory chips; it does not request the TSOP2 form factor; It does not care about the number of memory chips, nor is it aware about the pinout of the RAM. All that because VSA100 access the amount of memory... let us say in a "virtual" mode. For the RAM controller of the GPU, there can be only one or two virtual memory chips. For a Voodoo4 4500 PCI is one; for the Voodoo4 4800 AGP (64MB) there are two of them. I will say how and why further. The physical RAM chips depend on the PCB design only.
From every VSA100 starts 128 traces for multiplexed in/out data; that is because all VSA100 do 128bit access to the SDRAM (32 traces for every RAM chip for a total of 4 memory chips per VSA100). On the Voodoo4 AGP design, every trace is divided in two; there are 256 in/out 1bit traces, but they are connected in couples for the above reason (32 traces per RAM chip for a total of 8.). It could not have accessed 256bit memory resulting from the number of the 8 chips by 32bits each, so here enters the second virtual memory chip: by a trace called "Chip Select", it can be assigned a second virtual bank from all the extra 4 RAM modules. For every extra memory chip on a Voodoo4 4800 PCB, all the PCB traces of a single one are the the same as for one of the orriginal ones (the 4 modules that make the factory default 32MB for V4 AGP), with the exception of the CS (chip select) trace that is the same for every group of four chips. The situation is somehow simmilar to the DIMM SDRAM modules with memory banks on both sides; they do not have double the bits band of the single sided "brothers", but they share the inputs/outputs and make the selection about where to read or write from in simple terms.
On the PCB, also shared through all the RAM chips are the rows and columns adresses. At each adress allocation can be stored the total sum of all the spaces for all the modules at that designated adress. So for the VSA100, at row1-column1 of the virtual chip we have the total of row1-column1 of memory modules 1+2+3+4 in our case; but it can be in a different number of memory modules for a different PCB design with the same result. Allthough for the second virtual chip all the adress traces are shared, the content of each allocation is differentiated by the chip-select. Other PCB traces are common for all the modules, like power or groud.
There is no question; VSA100 can access 64MB RAM! I had succes myself with modding a Voodoo4 AGP. But... Remember all those old socket7 mainboards that introduced SDRAM support? They could have used 32MB DIMMs if single sided and 64MB DIMMs only if double sided. If you put a single-sided 64Mb DIMM in one slot, it cannot see all the memory. That is because of the limitations of the RAM controller. In our case, we know that VSA100 can "see" 32Mb single-sided memory and double-sided 64Mb memory too, but is it able to "see" 64Mb single-sided? And if so, it might even use 128Mb double-sided memory for a Voodoo4 AGP PCB if the right 16Mb chips were to be found...
If the only way to access 64Mb RAM for each VSA100 is to use the double-sided style (for only a true 32Mb access per virtual chip) then I am affraid that we cannot do more, because the Voodoo4 AGP is the only PCB that has a second chip-select trace to the coresponding GPU pin (ball). We must hope that when someone will find compatible RAM chips, he will be able to point to a succes of a true 64MB per virtual memory chip...
However, this might not be the only way to do that. There seems to be another way to have it done if we look at the way the memory acces for the VSA100 works: composing 8x8Mb 16bit chips by "air-wires" (the memory modules could not be soldered directly onto the PCB, but every pin must be connected through a individual external conductor). Please look at datasheets and confirm or not that! I would try it myself but I have no VSA100 card to sacrifice, nor the money needed to buy something like a GeForce 2 128bit 64Mb SDRAM with 8 8MB 16bit TSOP2 54pin chips... I would say that it can be done; I see now nothig in theory that could not allow the success.
Long story... short... I wish good luck to you all!

1) Solder the chips on top of the other ones, lift the CS (chipselect) pins, and connect CS signals from under the BGA.

2) use larger density memory and hookup the A11 signal.

http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/5082/2003221215718ramqs1.jpg

Hank

wrote on 20.01.07 at 08:07:35:

2) use larger density memory and hookup the A11 signal. http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/5082/2003221215718ramqs1.jpg Hank

Yeah... the easyest technical work, but where to find the 16Mb chips? Until now, I do not know about any succes in this search. If I for one would have had access to a suply of such rare RAM modules, I would have give it a try a long time ago, and many others would have done the same. the are some routers and HDD and possible a verssion of Quadro video cards that have those memory chips mounted onto theyr PCB and we might be able to do the transplant, but I have no knoledge of a community member that allready might have obtained them yet... There might be a small chance for the future, though, but I do not see this as a mass modding solution...


wrote on 20.01.07 at 08:07:35:

1) Solder the chips on top of the other ones, lift the CS (chipselect) pins, and connect CS signals from under the BGA. Hank

On the Voodoo4 AGP PCB where the second chip-select trace is present, it goes under the VSA100 for connection to it's ball(pin), but it does not have a "hole" under the GPU to identify, or I cannot find one, to translate it and use it for the other PCBs. As for soldering TSOP2-86 chips ontop... I do not see myself doing such work, not with my tools anyway, avoiding any shorts and so on... I'm sure that you, Hank, have the skills and tools to do it and maybe you could provide the exact spot of the chip-select on the back of the PCBs. That would be a huge leap forward.
Anyway, composing RAM chips could be also considered as an option, right?

Hi Komponent,

Nice to see that people like you are still interessting for the V5 Memory Modding.
You have all my Respect  ;D
In Order to help you on this "Trying", please tell us what exactly do u need ?
Maybe I or somebody else can help providing you the needed cards.
Geforce2 cards are not very expensive nowadays, so if you could specify exactly the card model, i will search for it!

Radu.

This memory-chip shold be compatible.
http://www.samsung.com/products/semiconductor/Sync_AsyncDRAM/SDRSDRAM/Component/128Mbit/K4S283232E/K4S283232E.htm
But they are "only" 6ns fast. Not so good for overclocking.
The other question: how to get them?

8) 8) 8)

[glb]V6K !!  V6K !!  V6K !![/glb]

8) 8) 8)

My English is now worse than I remembered by the look of my posts... Even I when I read now what I did write this morning, even I find this difficult to understand all. Allthough I have a clear picture in my mind, even in my native language, Romanian, it is not easy to make a clean exposure...
I also had the ideea of piggy-back soldering of simmilar 8MB 32bit TSOP2-86 chips ontop of the orriginal ones, pin-by-pin and pin-to-pin solder, except of the chip-select one; to invert the signal from the first chip-select pin from it's PCB trace and to connect it to the piggy-back-modules, but talking only on my behalf, I would exclude working with this type of RAM chips because the pins are each one too close to the neighbors (the nearest pins are in risc of shorts), plus that the pins are too thin and small; I might not be able to solder them by hand (not even using external coonectors, wires from PCB to RAM pins); and I see no point for TSOP86 to try a hot-air soldering with my heat-gun for a piggy-back style. That does not mean that it is a generality; they might even be many members on this board able to do just that, with the right skills and tools given.
The only reason for I considered composing 16bit memory modules is because TSOP5x chips have more space between the pins, and also the pins are larger; I simply find them easyer to work with (especialy by hand). To invert the signaling from the first virtual memory chip from the trace of the chip-select to get a signal for the second one, if this is possible, could also be applied for the composed 16bit modules; this would get us realy close to the first Voodoo5 5500 with 128Mb dream. It would also be necesary to modify the bios to "fool" the VSA100 that it has a connection, but it will empty fire. How to get a CS1 signal from CS0 one, I'm not sure yet.
I say again: I found no ball on the back side of the PCB under the VSA100 that we could use to take chip-select for the second memory bank. I could very well be wrong, so search for it anyone who can, please. With this ball found it would be much, much more easy!


wrote on 20.01.07 at 09:42:02:

Hi Komponent, Nice to see that people like you are still interessting for the V5 Memory Modding. You have all my Respect  ;D In Order to help you on this "Trying", please tell us what exactly do u need ? Maybe I or somebody else can help providing you the needed cards. Geforce2 cards are not very expensive nowadays, so if you could specify exactly the card model, i will search for it! Radu.

Thanks Radu; but I see nothing special on what I expose here; I feel it is only very old news and the 3DFX fans have been very much aware of those simple facts for a very long time... Please excuse me, friends, if I bother you with my talk; even better, just say if so. I had no computer for a long time so I had no chance to compare what I researched with my old-style methodes with all the previous public facts.
The thing is that I don't like working for other guys with pieces that belong to them, especialy on never tested before mods, because there is allways an important risc of permanent hardware failure. Last year a friend of mine also a member on this forum had a Voodoo4 AGP send to me to add more RAM to it; I did this mod before with succes, yet I killed his video-card while working with it and still now I feel bad because I failed his expectations. I like to work with my stuff for myself because if there is a failure, it is only me feeling sad.

Komponent; A very good and thought out post. Might be old news to some, but to others maybe not. Still nice to see some people really taking alook at upgrading a V5. I for one, am not skilled in either programming (bios work) or electrical (soldering) so it's nice to see somebody that might have the skills to at least try this. Good luck!

wrote on 20.01.07 at 19:44:49:

Komponent; A very good and thought out post. Might be old news to some, but to others maybe not. Still nice to see some people really taking alook at upgrading a V5. I for one, am not skilled in either programming (bios work) or electrical (soldering) so it's nice to see somebody that might have the skills to at least try this. Good luck!

Thank you guys for the nice words, especialy to jandarsun8 and m14radu; it is good to know that there are 3DFX fans who would love to see this mod performed... and it will soon be done by someone because it is very much possible and not that hard in the end. And if other options might fail, there is a good chance that a second piggy-back soldered bank with inverted signaling from the orriginal chip-select could be given a try. My problem is that I don't know yet about a way to study the relation between CS0 and CS1. Only if they work like (when CS0=ON then CS1=OFF) and (when CS0=OFF then CS1=ON) it would be just a matter of a logical gate (transistor based) to do the job and we will have no stop to get 64Mb RAM for each VSA100 working. Else... if the other options fail too, it still could be done, but it will not be that easy... Unfortunately, I have no way to study how CS1 signaling behaves compared to CS0; but there is allways a man who has done so much for the 3DFX community over the years and could provide now some insider facts that will light up any questions without answers now; I am talking about Hank, who else, so we should wait for his oppinion.
Anyway, if somebody here has a 64MB SDRAM 128bit access GeForce or something video card with 8 TSOP 16bit memory chips and a Voodoo4 to sacrifice and he has some soldering skills, he should try the compossing memory method, why not... After all there is only to unsolder with hot air with the heat-gun the RAM from the 3DFX card and from the donnor, then to solder by hand with the soldering iron about 800 points with thin short conductors. I don't say it can be finished in 1 day, but in 1 week it should not be a problem. Then we could all of us know if it worked out or not.

Hey you guessed it  ;D. Right on!

CS_1 = !CS_0

I was looking for an inverter that is fast enough, all have maximum propagation delay that is too high, but the minimum figure (tpd = 1nS) would work.

I'll try to find a LVTTL part, they have minigate devices 3.3V 6 or 8 pins.

Hank

Hi Komponent,

Well, like i sad before, i'm willing to help.
I will search for the specified memory modules ( 54 pin TSOP2 modules ), and don't worry if you will fry them... ;D.. i will don't need them back.
And don't forget, you are the one who did the first voodoo4 Mod , so your'e the Man !
Keep up the good work.

Radu.

OMG!
What impact does 1,5 months away from the news of the 3DFX community have? Well, if I were online, then I would not have skiped the Holly Grail of the VSA100 modding: at the start of Dec 2006, r21vo has made available for download on 3dfxzone.it... the one and only... "VSA100 (Napalm) Databook"!!! I am so angry for not have notticed it sooner! Maybe you all have got it for a long time, but it is the first time for me to read it. Where was that documentation all these years? You can find here allmost all you need to know for building all the practical mods on VSA100 based cards, the mods that we talked so much before!
If you have not downloaded it yet, here it is the link:
http://3dfx.rule.lv/downloads/DATABOOK.PDF
Oooh... so much to study now! This databook should be the highligted part of the 3DFX docs section of the Falconfly archive. It covers the possible RAM configuration for a VSA100 too and much more...
I for one will do my best to learn as much as I can, before ever talking again about our projects!


wrote on 22.01.07 at 18:22:38:

Hi Komponent, Well, like i sad before, i'm willing to help. I will search for the specified memory modules ( 54 pin TSOP2 modules ), and don't worry if you will fry them... ;D.. i will don't need them back. And don't forget, you are the one who did the first voodoo4 Mod , so your'e the Man ! Keep up the good work. Radu.

It is great to team up for realising a common desire, so thanks and we should talk more about it in private (and in Romanian the better!), allthough I'm not sure about what could I offer...

Uhm, page 41 section 3.4.3 Frame Buffer Pins;

MCLKA and MCLKB

Can I start smiling yet or am I misunderstanding what these two do?

Well... if there are out there other peolple than me that still care about adding more RAM to VSA100 powered Voodoos, I will make available for all the results of my research on the Voodoo4 PCI from 3DFX PCB.
I used my heat-gun and I took off the VSA100 from a dead 3DFX Voodoo4 4500 PCI, with hot air un-soldering method.. I searched then with the multimeter the connecting points for the extrasignals  for supplementar adresses and Chip-Selecting and I found where on the PCB should those connections be made. Short talking, down is the picture with the points for extra-connections marked:
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/2703/v4pcivsa100modgw6.jpg
I hope that this might be of some help for anyone... one day in the future...
And a funny thing about the Voodoo4 PCI PCB layout: CS0 signaling does not connect from the VSa100 to the memory chips, as there is no use for a CS1 signaling. So because CS0 should allways be active, on the V4PCI PCB, the CS pins from every RAM module are simply tied to the ground with resistors to simulate a... non-stop Chip-select  "on" message.

Nice Work Komponent !
It's nice to see that people like you ( and you're unfortunately the only one i know ) are still tryng to do the memory modding on the VSA chip.
Therefore, my V5 5500 is on the way to you. At the end of the Week, you will have the needed "ingredients" to start the project.
May the voodoo spirit be with you !


Br.
Radu.

wrote on 23.01.07 at 16:59:52:

Uhm, page 41 section 3.4.3 Frame Buffer Pins; MCLKA and MCLKB Can I start smiling yet or am I misunderstanding what these two do?

No, no; the thing that you noticed is only a special thing about how the memory controller on the VSA100 works. In simple words, it does a 128bit acces to the RAM, but divided in half; first 64bits (half of the total amount of chips) are assigned to the "A" port and the last 64bits are assigned to the "B" port. Do not be confused though, there are not 2 independent memory controllers, but 2 units for multiplexed datas (data input and output to and from the video RAM).


wrote on 10.02.07 at 14:40:13:

Nice Work Komponent ! It's nice to see that people like you ( and you're unfortunately the only one i know ) are still tryng to do the memory modding on the VSA chip. Therefore, my V5 5500 is on the way to you. At the end of the Week, you will have the needed "ingredients" to start the project. May the voodoo spirit be with you ! Br. Radu.

Thanks Radu for your kind words, allthough there was not anything special there; Hank Semenek had published the points for A11 adresses on a Voodoo5 5500 AGP a long time ago; unfortunately he had not marked the chip-select pins too; I saw no research done for the Voodoo4 PCI PCB, so I shared my results; it could be of some help.
I guess it would not be wrong to let the other members here know that we (me and Radu) talk for some time now about teaming up to do future 3DFX modding. Radu offered to sacrifice his only Voodoo5 5500 AGP as a test platform for my work. I want to thank him here! As we talked in private, I will be happy to accept for him to send me the V5 as soon as we find the new RAM chips; no point to send it to me sooner, because allthough we both searched in our homme-towns, we have not found 2xGeForce2 cards with 64Mb SDRAM, 128bits, 8 chips for each one. If we proceed to do the mod, we will share the results on this forum.

hi there,

is there anything known about what brand geforcecards use the desired ram chips??

If I know which ones that would be.......then I could have a look and see if I can find any for you guys. :)

or just the ram chips markings, from which brands, that would help a lot as well.

Does micron have usable chips?? or hynix?? name some and I'll see if I can find them.

And what about the chips on the Hercules Kyro 2 cards?? they run 175Mhz and are sdram, maybe they are compatible?? if I remember correctly, the kyro 2 also has 128bit.

I also read in the Napalm document that it supports 66Mhz pci, does that mean that if you put a 5500 pci in a 66Mhz pci-x slot, it'll actually run 66Mhz and still in spec?? thus removing the pci bus as limiting factor??

Now... I am not sure what are you asking... If you talk about the compatible memory chips, but with double the density, there are no confirmed donor video cards models; at least none that I know about. There is a router and also a HDD that are known to use 16Mb RAM TSOP2-86 modules onto theyr PCBs, and we have M14Radu to thank for the infos; and there is a real chance that a no-name low-profile PCI Quadro card might also use the desired memory chips, but so far all this path looks like a dead-end.
If you want an example of a brand/model of compatible 16Mb TSOP2-86 SDRAM modules, there are manufacturers that advertised the production of such items, like the K4S283232E-T from Samsung. Good luck if you think that you could be able to buy a dozen or two of them.
In an effort to bypass the limitation of geting this kind of rare RAM chips, M14Radu and myself have started a project to try to use non-compatible memory modules for the "transplant". All the technical details are above on the topic. We allready have all the RAM chips that we need for the modding of a single prototype Voodoo5 5500, but the thing that we do not have is alot of time to work on it...

ohh, cause I was looking around, and found these:

HYNIX 210A HY57V281620HCT - 6 KOREA

2 cards, 64MB per card, divided over 4 chips per card.

that's 16MB per chip, but probably not compatible, is it??

or this ram:

V-Data
60150
VDS6616A4A-6

both are 166Mhz chips and 16MB per chip, so that's ok, but is it compatible??

The RAM chips on Voodoo4/5 SDRAM cards are of TSOP2-86 standard, that is each memory module has 86 pins.
VDS6616A4A and HY57V281620HCT chips are of TSOP2-54 standard, that is each memory module has 54 pins.
So, no, they are not compatible, unfortunately; it would be like a try to plug an Intel LGA775 CPU onto a AMD 939 socket, he-he...

ok.

I'll still keep my eyes open and see if I can track some ram. :)

when I googled the ram you mentioned, the 1st page was one you probably already saw, so....I made a request anyway, but doubt they'll respond.

Well,

I did some more searching, and found another site. I actually got a message from them, stating that one of their suppliers would contact me, which I ofcourse haven't had yet. :(

I requested info about the ram you mentioned, the K4S283232E-T

let's hope they do contact me. :)

Hey guys. Finally had some time to look over the VSA100 data book and I do have a couple of questions. Being that I'm not electrical genious by any means (putting the cord into the wall and watching my tv turn on is about my extent of knowledge  :P), I'm wondering why exactly the V4's work in AGP 4x mode with 1.5 volts where as the V5's can't and is there a way to make it work? I'm just wondering because getting that to work somehow would open up alot more doors for compatiability especially since the mother board market for the AGP 3.3 volt is steadily shrinking.

@ Jandarsun8

There was something like this thread posted @ http://www.3dfxzone.it/enboard/default.asp
and the result was a real no go, even that a Voodoo 5 5000 AGP x4 as 5500 AGP AGP x4 as 5500 AGP x4 for Macintosh have the AGP x4 connector, they will only opperate in AGP x2 / 3.3volt modes it´s because of the 3dfrx SLI interfering with the AGP x4 signals as that safety thing.

I think it's due to the SLI being based on PCI bus. Therefore the 'bridge chip' limits the SLI cards like the V5500 anc V6000 to PCI speeds effectively... ::)

(my memory isn't what it used to be though!) :P

LOL! ;D

uhm the 5000 as 5500 don´t have bridge chips only 6000´s have them:
http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/v/3dfx_collectors/collectors_obiwankenobi/album85/3dfx-Interactive-Voodoo5-6000-AGP-128MB-Rev-A-3700-3dfx-Voodoo-Volts-Rev-A-0030/DSC00855.jpg.html?g2_imageViewsIndex=1

_{stupid spannish Win98SE rigs here are so ghey ::) they don´t even let you post normal pics as so unstable grrrr, when they lockup you money counter keeps on going lol pay´n for the d*mn crashes ::)}

hah ,

juhu ;D

I think I found the right memory

its the ML12L128324A-6T(G)

http://www.esmt.com.tw/DB/manager/upload/M12L128324A.pdf
(see top of page9  and page45)

I could get max. 32 of the RAM modules in Germany


Pastor

Nice news Pastor,
It seems to be the right memory  ;D

:o  yeah....

I would like minimum 8 better 16 of them!
quanta costa?

everyone who is interested please contact me per PN:

I have to know how many chips you want and how you want to pay and where to ship and and and...  ;D

but it needs some time to look at all the inquiries ...
and I am a human, too, so I need (at least a bit) time ::)

@gtxe : one chip costs 3,8€

procedure: i order ... i get the chips ... you send me the money ... than i will send the chips to you ...
or you pay for the number of chips you want and than when i get them i will send them to you ...

i know its difficult but its my money too



Pastor  

wrote on 13.09.07 at 16:22:38:

everyone who is interested please contact me per PN: I have to know how many chips you want and how you want to pay and where to ship and and and...  ;D but it needs some time to look at all the inquiries ... and I am a human, too, so I need (at least a bit) time ::) @gtxe : one chip costs 3,8€ procedure: i order ... i get the chips ... you send me the money ... than i will send the chips to you ... or you pay for the number of chips you want and than when i get them i will send them to you ... i know its difficult but its my money too Pastor

So, that equals arround 30 E for modding one Voodoo5 5500. Is there a maximum quote of available chips at the provider, or could you buy a many as you want? I am sure that there are enough guys interested for a first order of much above than the required minimum of 32 RAM modules...

i and two other guys order first time then we or at least I will check the "do-ability" of the mod with this ram ...

if its a success I can ask if there are more chips availible and you all will get the contact infos for buying this RAM...
but tthe minimum oreder quantity is 32chips ...

you all were patient enough to wait til now so i hope you can wait a little more

Pastor

I'd give that money if someone would mod my 5500 from 64 to 128MB.

I'm even willing to let mine go 1st as a try-out. :)

Hey guys,

I found me a videocard, working and all ofcourse, and it has 86pins ram on it.

These are the Markings:

Winfast
mrs-38lc4m32ts-55

Anyone able to find out if this is compatible??

maybe this helps

http://www.idhw.com/textual/guide/noin_ram_chip.html

unfortunately the markings are not on the list.

But thanks for the link, this may come in handy when I'm checking for other ram chips

Hi,

for some I have bad news ... :(

I don´t have the time to handle everything ... so I don´t have time to order all the RAM ... and so on (I´m just a human ...)

but for all who are interested in this RAM I found a site where you can order it ... -->

http://www.memphis.ag/german/kontakt.html

--> just ask for this kind of memory :
M12L128324A-6T(G)


Pastor