The following document provides an overview of the Righteous 3D. HARDWARE OVERVIEW The Voodoo Graphics based 3D Accelerator is a PCI 3D Accelerator. Voodoo Graphics 3D accelerators only provide 3D functionality and cannot be used as a primary display adapter. An existing graphics card or motherboard graphics chip is required. Simply insert the card into an available PCI slot. Connect the pass-thru cable between the Righteous 3D and your other 2D card: the monitor connects directly to Righteous 3D. In this manner the Voodoo card by default passes the video signal from the 2D card to the monitor. When 3D acceleration is required, Righteous clicks into operation and begins processing video data. The switch to 3D rendering is controlled from either Glide or the Direct3D drivers and is transparent to the user. The Righteous 3D card possesses the following: Processing Chip: 3Dfx Interactive Voodoo Graphics chip On Board Memory: 4MB EDO: 2MB for Texture Mapping and 2MB for Polygon Mapping. The following processors and architectures are supported: * Intel Pentium * Intel PentiumPro * Intel Pentium II * Intel 486 (not supported by many titles) * Cyrix 6x86 * Cyrix 5x86 * AMD K5 * AMD K6 The Righteous 3D does work in conjuction with AGP video cards. SOFTWARE OVERVIEW The Righteous 3D supports the x86 platform. * Windows 95 or higher (Direct3D and Glide) * DOS 5.0 OR HIGHER (Glide) * Windows NT 3.51 or higher (Glide on x86 systems only). Windows NT does not currently support the Righteous 3D at the hardware level: only at the software level. * As a minimum, DirectX 2.0 or greater must be installed to use Direct3D. * The Righteous 3D supports DirectX 5.0, which can be downloaded from www.orchid.com. It bears mentioning that DirectX and Glide are composed of a suite of multimedia system components and device drivers. As such, the various components possess differing versions. An upgrade in one component does not mean that all components are upgraded. Bear this is mind when new driver versions appear. GLIDE Glide is 3Dfx's native API and is supported by 3Dfx Interactive, Inc. (see www.3dfx.com for more information.) Glide titles will not run without a 3DFX based accelerator card, such as Righteous 3D. Other API's are supported by using Glide as a layer. These APIs include Renderware, Brender, GLQuake Driver (3Dfx's GLQuake Driver). And don't be affraid of trying increased refresh rates. Many customer's experience great results even at 120hz (check you monitor's documentation prior to setting higher refresh rates). DIRECT3D Direct3D (a Microsoft supported API) is implemented as a secondary device driver. (see www.microsoft.com/mediadev for more information). Microsoft's Direct3D API can refer to two modes of 3D display: 1) Retained Mode (refers to 3D in a window). 2) Immediate Mode (refers to full-screen 3D). The Righteous 3D only accelerates the Immediate Mode of Direct 3D. SUPPORTED SCREEN RESOLUTIONS Righteous 3D supports the following resolutions. * 512x384 resolution (72, 75, 85 and 120 hz) * 640x400 resolution (70, 75, 85 and 120 hz) * 640x480 resolution (60, 75, 85 and 120 hz) * 800x600 resolution (60, 75, 85 and 120 hz) w/o z-buffer Note: Individual applications may or may not use z-buffering. If an application uses a z-buffer it will be unable to run on Righteous 3D at 800 x 600. Check your application's documention to determine whether it uses a z-buffer. Higher resolutions in Direct3D (such as 1024 x 768) are possible, but come at a cost--they will not be accelerated by Righteous 3D. Without acceleration, texture data gets reduced and pixelated. Another side effect is reduced frame rate. RUNNING RIGHTEOUS 3D UNDER WINDOWS NT: Windows NT does not support Direct3D at the hardware level: only at the software level, as of version 4.0 (service pack 3). Direct3D applications will run under NT, but true 3D graphic acceleration will not occur. Running Glide on Windows NT requires Windows NT Workstation 3.51 or higher. Windows NT Workstation 4.0 is required to run any 3Dfx Demos as DirectInput and DirectSound. 3Dfx Runtime drivers may be obtained from 3Dfx Interactive Inc. at www.3dfx.com. Although hardware accelerated Direct3D is not currently available for Windows NT, it's expected to be available for Windows NT 5.0. 3Dfx is committed to providing Direct3D drivers once hardware accelerated Direct3D support is available in Windows NT. TROUBLESHOOTING 1) Try placing your 2D video card in PCI slots 1 or 2. Place the Righteous 3D card in either PCI slots 3 or 4. You might also consider leaving one or more open slots between them, if possible. 2) It is always a good idea to double check video card insertions into the motherboard, and note that all cables are properly in place. It's also possible that your monitor cable is not the correct type for the Righteous 3D. See Appendix A in your owner's manual for the proper pin-out information to determine whether your cable is correct. 3) For those loading a game card for the first time, the proper installation of Righteous 3D involves two important steps prior to loading any games: 1) loading the drivers, and 2) loading DirectX. For those experienced gamers who have Glide, Direct3D and DirectX already loaded, the installation of the Righteous 3D drivers should be enough for successfull 3D acceleration. It's important to note that DirectX should not be uninstalled from any operating system. Also note that one cannot reinstall earlier versions of DirectX over later versions. 4) After loading the Righteous 3D drivers, you can determine whether they are correctly loaded by following this procedure. From the Desktop, click START--FIND--FILES AND FOLDERS, and key-in the following at the prompt: c:\windows\inf\r3dsetup.inf If Window's locates r3dsetup.inf the in c:\windows\inf subdirectory, you have successfully loaded the drivers (Go to step 5 if r3dsetup.inf was not found.) 5) To load the Righteous 3D drivers while in Windows 95, let's start from the Desktop. Proceed to CONTROL PANEL--ADD NEW HARDWARE--NEXT--NO (Don't let Windows search for new hardware)-- NEXT--(toggle down to SOUND, VIDEO AND GAME CONTROLLERS)-- (click the HAVE DISK option)--(place your Righteous 3D cd into your cd-rom). Windows should find your Righteous 3D hardware at this point. Click OK to begin loading the drivers. 6) When trying a 3D game, and you experience system lock-ups or blank screens, try the following. Go into CONTROL PANEL-- SYSTEM--DEVICE MANAGER--SOUND, VIDEO AND GAME CONTROLLERS-- RIGHTEOUS 3D--PROPERTIES--RESOURCES. Uncheck the box "Use Automatic Settings", then adjust memory settings from the "F-range" to the "D-range." Make sure that such a move does not raise a conflict with another device. Reboot your system and retry the game. 7) If your primary video card has 3D capabilities and your not certain which card is providing 3D support, note the following: When the Righteous 3D is invoked it emits one or more audible clicks. 8) If you discover in DEVICE MANAGER that SOUND, VIDEO AND GAME CONTROLLERS does not contain an entry for the Righteous 3D. Check to see if a device called PCI MULTIMEDIA VIDEO DEVICE is listed under OTHER DEVICES. If so, try removing it and restart your system. 9) If a game is coming up with a distorted display or with random geometric shapes, try adjusting your refresh rates to a lower level. Most 2D video cards come with applications that allow these adjustments: and so does Righteous. Note the Righteous 3D tab in CONTROL PANEL-- DISPLAY. The settings for refresh rate between your 2D and Righteous should be the same. Check your monitor's documentation to ensure that it can handle the changes. It's also a good idea to set your resolution to 640 x 480 and colors to 16-bit (65K colors) if the above problems occur. 10) If your standard video card contains the old S3 video chip (prior to S3 Virge) and your experiencing video freeze, random shapes or random colors, try the following changes. In CONTROL PANEL-- ADD/REMOVE PROGRAMS, remove an item called "S3 Refresh" from your system. Reboot and try a game. If problems persist, remove your current video drivers (as supplied from manufacturer) and reload using Windows 95 supplied drivers. (CONTROL PANEL--DISPLAY--SETTINGS-- ADVANCED PROPERTIES (or CHANGE ADAPTER TYPE)--CHANGE--SHOW ALL DEVICES.)