R.i.p. 3dfx

[zoomy942]

after seeing the nostalgia story on the nvnews home page, i just wanted to tell everyone, for no reason, that i had a voodoo 3 2000, a voodoo 3 3000, a voodoo 4 4500, and a voodoo 5 5500. i wish i would have had a voodoo 5 6000!! oh well. what did everyone else have?

[poursoul]

my only 3dfx product wash a 12MB V Banshee 3D Accelorator. AGP of course :p

[fivefeet8]

Voodoo3 3000 PCI
voodoo 5 5500 PCI

Fond memories of them. I still use my Voodoo 5 5500 pci every now and then. Works quite well with emulated games. ;)

[Gator]

I have a Voodoo3 16mb AGP still in use in a PIII 450 in my home. UT loves it.

I also have 3 Voodoo2 cards, 2 of them with the SLI cable and the passthru cables for all. I'm keeping them as collectors items :)

[stefan567]

I had
Voodoo 2
Voodoo3 16mb AGP
voodoo 3 2000 AGP
voodoo 5 5500 PCI

[Edge]

Only 3dfx card I have is a Voodoo 3 2000 PCI, but damn was that a sweet card. That little bugger sure could push frames, my GF2mx was actually a DOWNGRADE from it in many games (though it was a pretty crappy GF2MX card). And glide was beautiful back then. Right now it resides in my parent's computer, not really getting any use. The last time I used the card was on my Duron 750, right before I put in the GF2MX card which I soon swapped out for a TI200. So that must've been in...late 2001 I think? And those Voodoo 3 cards had suprisingly good overclocking, on stock cooling (as in NO fan!) I got it from 143 to 160 or so, and my friend who just threw some cheapy fan onto the card and fastened it with thin wire got it up to 190 :eek:

I think I remember scoring 1,200 or so in 3dmark 2001 with the card, which was pretty good given my system (in 16 bit color, of course). Though ironicly, I recently ran across an emulator which I need Glide in to run properly (it's an N64 emulator that I use a special Glide driver in to play without graphic anomalies in Sin and Punishment with). I almost wish I had me one of those V5s just so I could play around with the AA in it, and I'd like to see what kind of performance it would get in Glide games.

[euan]

I had a Voodoo1 with the whooping great 4MB memory.

[saturnotaku]

Creative Voodoo Banshee
Voodoo3 3000
Voodoo4 4500

And some people really need to get over the loss. 3dfx is dead, gone, farewell, see 'ya.

[Viral]

Just a Voodoo2 12mb for me, i always mention 12mb because there were 8mb variants. Had alot of fun with it.. great for low res. 16-bit colour gaming, which for the time was all that i could do, so was the perfect card for me. Bought mine in mid '98. Always wanted a 2nd for SLI:(

[Edge]

Originally posted by saturnotaku
And some people really need to get over the loss. 3dfx is dead, gone, farewell, see 'ya.

Yeah, but it's still fun to go over the "what could've been" and "where we could be today if..." stuff. Heck, it's half the reason most of us come to this board;)

[cthellis]

At least two Voodoo2's picked up by me, and I seem to be the repository for it from my friends, so I think I have 4-5 lying around. Hehe... Also a Voodoo3 2000 PCI and a Voodoo5 5500. Was still playing on the V5 up until last year. Hehe...

[AthlonXP1800]

I had 3...

Voodoo 1 4Mb PCI in 1995
Voodoo Banshee 16Mb PCI in 1996
Voodoo 5 5500 64Mb AGP in 2000

[jAkUp]

*sniff*

i miss my diamond monster 3d II 8mb

*sniff*

:(

[goofer456]

I was thinking of buying a banshee. But after seeing it in action I went for the TNT 1 instead...

[eesa]

I had a few voodoo2s. Best card ever. Ever!!!!

[yoladude]

i had the voodoo2 8meg card that plugged into early imacs. DAMN that thing was killer, let me play UT, Q3, Diablo 2, Driver, and just about any other game i wanted to at 20fps+ (astounding, considering the built-in ragepro was usually around 10 with lower settings). plus, that comp even ran RTCW decently.

the only crap part was the 233mhz G3 in that imac actually limited the voodoo2; i got a 466mhz upgrade, but was troubled with overheating problems.

[fivefeet8]

Originally posted by Edge
I think I remember scoring 1,200 or so in 3dmark 2001 with the card, which was pretty good given my system (in 16 bit color, of course). Though ironicly, I recently ran across an emulator which I need Glide in to run properly (it's an N64 emulator that I use a special Glide driver in to play without graphic anomalies in Sin and Punishment with). I almost wish I had me one of those V5s just so I could play around with the AA in it, and I'd like to see what kind of performance it would get in Glide games.

I remember hitting 5000+ in 3dmark2k and about 2000+ in 2k1 with my V5 5500 pci. And it is the best glide card around(except the 6000). It's weird though, from my years of using the V5 with N64/Psx emulators, I've found that it's FSAA looks noticeably better in glide than d3d. The voodoo 5's FSAA blurs a little, but this is actually a good thing in emulation. ;)

[Yelapaboy]

Voodoo2 12 MB
Voodoo2 12MB SLI
Voodoo3
Voodoo5 AGP

I later picked up a V5 PCI and used it in conjuction with a GF3 when it became apparent that the V5 was faster and looked better in older flight sims, the V5 was connected via VGA and the GF3 via BNC in the same box. I still have a box with a V5 AGP in it that is used for old sims. Basically for sims prior to IL2, the V5 still rules. I used to be almost 100% into flight sims but my love for 3D cards drove me into other types of gaming and these days like games such as COD, Max Payne 2, NOLF's 1&2 and BF1942 perhaps even more than sims. Have been running a 9700 pro since Oct of 2002 and it still puts a smile on my face with current games.

[Quitch]

Voodoo 2 12MB. Man that thing was a heater :)

[marqmajere]

Voodoo 3 2000 with 16 megs of ram. Upgraded to the Voodoo 4 4500 with 32 megs of ram. Those were the only two voodoo cards i've ever owned. I still own the Voodoo 4 4500 and use it. Great cards.

[zoomy942]

one nice thing about the voodoo'a was that the driver setting had tons of tweaks available. it was as if 3dfx knew its users were 3D competent. i remember playing thief 2 on the voodoo's. those were the days.

[AAlcHemY]

Voodoo 4 4500 ( PCI )
Still using it in my main machine.

[zoomy942]

the legacy left by 3DFX.

[Edge]

Originally posted by zoomy942
one nice thing about the voodoo'a was that the driver setting had tons of tweaks available. it was as if 3dfx knew its users were 3D competent. i remember playing thief 2 on the voodoo's. those were the days.

Yeah, I always noticed that my Voodoo 3 had a lot more options in the control panel then my GF2MX did. I found the only major artifacts from 16-bit color to be the occasional dithering in games like Imperium Galactica 2, but I found setting the Alpha Blend option to Smooth fixed that problem, so to me it was like getting 32-bit quality effects without sacrificing framerate! Only problem with that setting was that transparencies in other games looked bad, so I just turn it on for IG2 and turn it off for other games. I remember how ugly the same effects looked on my GF2mx card, which in 32-bit color was SLOWER then the Voodoo 3. Stupid 3rd world videocard manufacturers...

BTW, does anyone else miss the much more obvious and easy to understand videocard system of the Voodoo days? I mean the Voodoo 2 was about twice as fast as the Voodoo 1, the Voodoo 3 was about twice as fast as the Voodoo 2, etc. And when they released the Voodoo cards, they had at most 3 different cards (a low-end, a mid-range, and a high end). Now, we TWENTY different variations of the same card, for all kinds of different prices. And cards like the 9000 being SLOWER then the 8500, or the GF4MX being WORSE then a GF3, it all gets so confusing even I get stumped sometimes. Does ATI REALLY need to revise and replace their products every couple months and keep the prices the same?

[zoomy942]

i agree about the naming. when i bought my voodoo 5, i knew where it stood in the performance line. now we have 5200's and ti 500's and 9600 xt's and all kinds of things! the only way to know what your purchase should be is to look at benchmarks on the web for hours... and sometimes that's not helpful cause some people dont play games at 1600x1200 with AA and AF on, like me. i play at 1024x768, with the dirver setting set to high performace. but noone benchmarks that.