3dfx People - Check this out (pics)

Man I loved 3dfx. My first real 3D accelerator was a Voodoo Rush I bought for $199. Logged a lot of play time in GLQuake and 3D patched Tomb Raider.

Second setup up was dual Voodoo2 12MB cards. Ran Ultima 9 decently... when the game wasn't crashing.

Almost 2 years later, I was given a brand new Riva TnT2 Ultra 32MB and was wowed beyond belief at the sheer speed of the darn thing.

A buddy of mine bought a Voodoo3 3500TV 16MB after I repeatedly told him to go with the TnT2 Ultra as well, and he instantly had buyers remorse when it just could not keep up with the similarly priced competitor's card.

I completely bypassed the GeForce 1 cards and finally broke down and bought a GeForce2 Pro 64MB shortly after their release. Another pleasant upgrade.

Since then it's been:
GeForce4 Ti4200 64MB
GeForce FX 5700 Ultra 128MB
Radeon 9600XT 128MB
6600GT, then 6600GT SLI
7800GT, then 7800GT SLI
And now an 8800GT.

Long road and lots of money spent over the years, but I've never been disappointed by the performance of anything I've had in my case.

And all because of 3dfx's outstanding products back in the day. Cheers and RIP.
 
rabident said:
…and the click of the mechanical relay. I paid $300 for my Orchid Righteous 3D. It was the first Voodoo card out, before Diamond picked it up with the Monster line. Tomb Raider was the only 3D enabled game for it. Then they went back and started patching other games for it. My favorite was Monster Truck Madness.

I didn't like the look of 3D in a lot of ways when it first came out. The bi-linear filtering smoothed things out too much. It's come a long ways, but I wonder what software rendering would have looked like now if they had continued with it.
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agreed! i remember my brother and I drooling over our Orchid Righteous 3D (back then when we were REALLY kids :D and my dad had to do the hardware stuff...)
the 'click'...I can still remember the sound of it and the sweetassed performance we got after it switched into 3dmode :p
 
dsc0084qe1.jpg
Oh the memories... Its amazing how far video cards have come since then
 
I remember my first 3d card was the Hercules Stingray, but it didn't make me happy due to the fact that it was limited to 2MB of texture memory and struggled with the newest games (in '96/97). Upgraded to the Canopus Pure3d, but had to sell the Stingray as the two didn't play nice. Canopus also had the special VGA dongle that minimized noise when you were in 2d.

The Pure3d was incredible. 640x480 glory and fast. I thermal epoxied heatsinks to all the chips to get a bit more speed on it. What a card. nVidia only existed in the background with their original Riva chip (which was garbage, and they almost went under because of this Diamond MM exclusive chip)

Even though I never went Voodoo2/Voodoo3 I always had a special place for the Pure3d/Voodoo1 as I think I had that card in my system longer than any other card ever (save for maybe my 8800GTS) and no other product ever changed my gaming life like the Voodoo1 did.

I still think of them every single time I hear "SLI"

10e
 
I remember when, at the 2001 CPL, when nvidia bought 3dfx... a little piece of me died that day....

And when I heard the teeny boppers (fan boys) screaming YAY FOR NVIDIA, I could only shake my head and say to myself....

"Less people making product = higher prices"

And now we pay 600 dollars for the highest end video card setup (and sometimes more)

To you who were running around screaming yay... I hope you are smacking yourselves.
 
I recently recycled my old Pentium 200 MMX PC that I got in grade 7 but I salvaged the Diamond Monster 3D from it. Long live the Voodoo :cool:
 
I've still got my old Voodoo3 3000 laying around. I finally found out it was a PowerColor Voodoo, took a while since I got it online with no documentation and the PCB was yellow with active cooling. I think I got all the way to GTA3 using that card. I think I eventually got tired of finding cracks and driver fixes to get games to run on it though.
 
Scream And Fly,

So what really happened with the Rampage? We've all herd it was delayed and Voodoo 3 was released instead. Why was it delayed so much. So you get the Voodoo3->3500->4500->5500->6000, all in development and whats is going on with rampage at this time?

Did they really except Daytona, a single chip voodoo5 with DDR memory to beat Gefore 2:(

And whatever happened to Scott Sellers. There were rumors a few years back that he was going to start a new company? Is he still with the Graphics business.

Would appreciate it if you shed more light about the company, especially stuff that most or all people don't know.
 
Rampage from what ive read was meant to be the successor to the voodoo 2. Management apparently kept diverting resources from its development and it fell further behind schedule so stopgap products had to be made. I think after voodoo 2 every card 3dfx brought out (voodoo 3 4 and 5) were basically cobbled together stopgap soloutions as their "ubercard" just wasn't ready. :(

Hopefully fly can fill us in more on his, as for sellers last i heard he went to some company that did unique versions of the geforcre series in the sense they came in wooden boxes. Thats the last i ever heard of him and thats going back to maybe early\mid 2001. Strange that one of the founders of 3dfx just faded away into obscurity, even Gary tarolli who went to work for nvidia you never hear of anymore.
 
aldamon said:
Didn't the massacre start with the GeForce256 DDR? Mine was expensive ($300) but it was better than the Voodoo3.
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nah, i even remember when i got a Geforce 256..

at about that time MDK2 came out and when you benched it, the game was actually faster with the CPU doing the TnL.. not by much but it was enough that the TnL onboard the Geforce 256 wasn't that great..



whats funny is under my desk i have my "3dfx" setup (hoping to upgrade it to a V5 PCI).. that includes a Geforce256 and dual V2 12Mb in SLI running on a AMD s939 3200+ with 768Mb of RAM..

what is even more amazing is it has taken until recently that CPU's have gotten fast enough to finally surpass the Voodoo 2 in software rendering..


In Quake2 i get 59(fps) with a single V2 (103 in SLI) and my AMD 3500+ in software mode runs at 84..
 
RooK said:
I remember when, at the 2001 CPL, when nvidia bought 3dfx... a little piece of me died that day....

And when I heard the teeny boppers (fan boys) screaming YAY FOR NVIDIA, I could only shake my head and say to myself....

"Less people making product = higher prices"

And now we pay 600 dollars for the highest end video card setup (and sometimes more)

To you who were running around screaming yay... I hope you are smacking yourselves.
Click to expand...

No, I'm still saying yay.
 
H-street said:
In Quake2 i get 59(fps) with a single V2 (103 in SLI) and my AMD 3500+ in software mode runs at 84..
Click to expand...

O.O 75% performance improvement from adding a second card? Why the hell can't we have that now?!?
 
ApaThy_NeXT2 said:
Scream And Fly,

So what really happened with the Rampage? We've all herd it was delayed and Voodoo 3 was released instead. Why was it delayed so much. So you get the Voodoo3->3500->4500->5500->6000, all in development and whats is going on with rampage at this time?
Click to expand...

I came to 3dfx right around the time that the Voodoo3 was starting to show its age (TNT2 Ultra was out), so my pre-Voodoo3 information is lacking as far as that goes. Rampage was up and running right before the company shut down - I remember playing Q3A on a machine so-equipped. It was extremely fast, but extremely buggy. I have no idea what happened to those samples. Daytona was just going to be an interim product - a gap-filler, so to say - especially when it became clear that Nvidia was going to leapfrog it.

Did they really except Daytona, a single chip voodoo5 with DDR memory to beat Gefore 2:(
Click to expand...

No, that was not its intended purpose - at least, not in the end.

And whatever happened to Scott Sellers. There were rumors a few years back that he was going to start a new company? Is he still with the Graphics business.
Click to expand...

I actually have no idea. :)
 
yeah..

I had the orcid righteous 3d as well

Then I had a vodoo 2 at one point, but never SLI and I wanted it really badly!

Always thought it would be fun to have one of these cards too :)

bitchin.jpg
 
Archaea said:
yeah..

I had the orcid righteous 3d as well

Then I had a vodoo 2 at one point, but never SLI and I wanted it really badly!

Always thought it would be fun to have one of these cards too :)

bitchin.jpg
Click to expand...

I always loved how that videocard had a floppy port.
 
ha, I remember seeing this when it first came out and thinking 256 MB - what a laugh.

At the time everything had like 8MB and 16MB as high end!
 
BallerX said:
...I have some great drivers for the voodoo5 if anyone needs them(winXP). Made by a wonderful danish fellow named DarkMane.
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Oddly enough, I'd love to get copies of those drivers.

BTW, I see the PCI Voodoo 5 5500 on Ebay occasionally. I'm often amazed by how much they sell for. One just a couple weeks ago took around $150! The AGP version rarely breaks $50, if even $25. So what am I missing?? What makes the PCI so attractive, still? Is there some obscure value to PCI and Glide? I'm confused. :rolleyes:
 
People buy PCI cause no one makes AGP mobos anymore. But, the old PCI will soon be completely unused on newer mobos. It will all be PCI-E very soon.
 
Spare-Flair said:
I always loved how that videocard had a floppy port.
Click to expand...

That's actually what the SLI connector looked like on the Voodoo2.

I had Voodoo2 SLI back in the day. It was incredible. Then one Christmas I opened a box and a GeForce256 DDR was in it. I knew 3dfx was done.
 
Prior to the V5 5500's release I kept saying it was stupid for needing extra power, the two processors were completely wasteful, and it was just a piece of junk. However, on the day it went on sale, I drove to the mall and bought one for $299 retail. I had no problems with it, but I did still complain it was needlessly large.

I also remember when big blower fans on video cards were considered stupid. How times change.
 
My contribution.....hanging on the wall in my office.

3dfx-v55000.jpg


3dfx-v56000.jpg
 
I ran voodoo2 in sli back in the day. Right up even through an TNT2 card I had. I think it was for me the gforce cards that saw me switch over to a single card solution.

I had quite a few cards.. my TNT2 was a herculese card. Then I had the gforce... then a 9800... then a X850xt... and that card saw me through to my 8800GTS 640meg card. And it is still trucking along strong!
 
Chris_B said:
Was near sure there was no p4 boards that supported the old style agp connector on the voodoo 5. :confused:
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MrMike said:
I thought that was a P3 coppermine.
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How quickly we forget the old Socket 370's... LOL!

Chris_B is probably thinking of the Socket 423 P4's. They had much denser pin grid, and ran RamBus (RDRAM), which ran pairs. This board has 3 slots.

P3's had the small die, with no heat-spreader, until the Tualatin / Coppermine era. But those dies didn't expose the pin grid on the top.

No, this looks like an old Celery 370... :p
 
wjogert said:
How quickly we forget the old Socket 370's... LOL!

Chris_B is probably thinking of the Socket 423 P4's. They had much denser pin grid, and ran RamBus (RDRAM), which ran pairs. This board has 3 slots.

P3's had the small die, with no heat-spreader, until the Tualatin / Coppermine era. But those dies didn't expose the pin grid on the top.

No, this looks like an old Celery 370... :p
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Yep you're right.
 
Scream And Fly said:
That particular model in the photo was non-functional too.
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Yup, the old intel bridge chip. How many of those were made before 3dfx realised it wouldn't work? Thats probably the msot common pic of the voodoo 5 with that large intel logo on it.
 
Rock&Roll said:
People buy PCI cause no one makes AGP mobos anymore.
Click to expand...

OK, I get that part, since the AGP Voodoo was 3.3V AGP 2X.

But there are certainly newer cards available in PCI standard.

(BTW, thanks to OP. Great thread! :D Sorry that I've gone off-topic)
 
Chris_B said:
Yup, the old intel bridge chip. How many of those were made before 3dfx realised it wouldn't work?
Click to expand...
Were they ever produced for retail or were the working 6000s only ES? Did they ever work??
 
APOLLO said:
Were they ever produced for retail or where the working 6000s only ES?
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Working ones were engineering samples, they replaced the intel chip with the "hint" chip. I really dont think the card would have ever seen the light of day had 3dfx survied a year or so longer. Cost was rumoured at around $600+, plenty of fanboys bitching about the external powerbrick even though it would save them from buying a new psu.
 
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