If you own a 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics or Voodoo 2 card, there’s a good chance it might not work as it once did. In my experience, the most common issue is broken solder joints. Over time, solder can weaken, losing both its electrical conductivity and physical strength. However, don’t give up on your card just yet – there is still hope it can be saved!
The most common signs of a malfunctioning 3Dfx card include the card not being detected in Windows or failing to initialize. Another frequent issue is the system crashing or freezing as soon as you launch a 3D application or game.
Fortunately, there’s a tool that can help you identify potential issues with your 3Dfx card: Mojo. Originally, I believe Mojo was an internal debugging tool developed by 3Dfx, but it eventually became available to the public. This gives us access to basic debugging functionality under DOS.
The image above shows the output from Mojo, which provides key details about your 3Dfx card. It reports the number of TMU chips on the card (1x for Voodoo Graphics, 2x for Voodoo 2) and their respective memory sizes. Additionally, it provides information about the FBI chip. In this example, the FBI memory is reported as 0MB, which is incorrect – Voodoo 2 cards should always have 4MB, while Voodoo Graphics cards should have 2–4MB. You should also see the number of TMUs and their memory sizes. Clearly, something is off in this output!
But, as I said at the beginning, chances are that your 3Dfx Voodoo card can be repaired! Even if most of the memory has exploded due to a faulty power supply!
And after an extensive repair – which spanned 3 video, the output of Mojo looks like it should!
We have one FBI chip with access to 4MB and two TMUs with each having access to 4MB. In total, this is a 12MB Voodoo 2.
Of course, you would want to get your hands on to Mojo.exe that can be executed under DOS and Windows? No problem, here is the download link!
And if you are interested, here are the three videos about the Voodoo 2 with the exploded memory chips:
