Recently I was having fits of nostalgia so I decided to load Avara (http://www.ambrosiasw.com) on my Voodoo equipped Beige G3.
The Voodoo card has OpenGL at it's core. Avara if from an older Mac-only generation and has no knowledge of OpenGL. I'm assuming Quickdraw 3D was the API of choice for the makers of Avara.
Anyway, as soon as the game loaded I noticed some pretty severe rendering issues. Pixel were WAY out of wack. Certain elements of the game wouldn't show. Only the 2D elements (window frames) etc. were showing correctly.
Well, no big deal right? The game seemed to function even though I couldn't get the 'Player' screen to load. No problem... I'll just play locally for now as the default player.
As I began to play I noticed more issues. I couldn't achieve the 3rd Person view. And certain walls wouldn't appear even though I knew they were there (from experience). Also, after I passed an element I could do a 180 degree turn and it would no longer be there.
But I really wanted to play Avara. It's an extremely cool game.
So, I decided to pull the gameplay screen over to my second monitor that's running off an ATi Rage Pro Turbo (QD3D Native). DANGER Will Robinson!
The entire system locked up. Everything. No audio remnants. Just two frozen screens.
I tried 'force-quitting' Avara (I knew it wouldn't work) but it didn't work. So then I did a 'Hard Kill' on the system.
Upon restart everything seemed fine (I heard the happy chime) so I walked away for a few moments. I came back to two dead screens. Hmmm... Let's try this again. I force the Hard Kill, wait for the chime but this time I stick around.
The second monitor (ATi-driven) flickers as if it wants to come to life, but then goes black again when no signal is presented.
The Voodoo-driven monitor never even emits a peep. The green LED light doesn't even show life. Note that this monitor is an Apple ColorSync and is intimately linked to the innards of the Mac itself.
My first guess is that the Voodoo card overheated. So I turn the machine off for a few hours. I really needed to get out of the house anyway.
I return thinking that it's definitely cool enough now, but the system shows the same non-responsiveness.
So I remove the Voodoo Card and plug the Apple monitor into the built-in ATi port. Boot the system and it all comes to life!
So, now I know it's not a hard drive fatality. It's in the video card. But I can't deal with this single monitor madness. Yikes.
So I re-insert the Voodoo card into it's PCI slot and try the old config again. It works! I'm not sure why, but it worked.
So I go back to business as usual (steering clear of Avara, however). Periodically, upon start the system will show the same lack of responsiveness. I trace this directly back to the Avara-related meltdown.
Last night it seemed to die for good. Same issues.
I was using the machine without incident earlier in the evening. Came back, rebooted and the system would register video life.
I removed the Voodoo card and drove my best Apple monitor through the ATi and this is working fine.
Now I've got to get a replacement for my Voodoo card. No big deal. Fortunately I can afford it (any recommendations?).
But I'd like to get to the bottom of the issue. Any clues? Anyone ever seen this before?
Thanks.
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