3dfx Voodoo5 6000 Clone

3dfx MSRP was $299, but brick and mortar retailers like CompUSA were selling it for $699.99. I remember walking into a CompUSA in Austin when they launched and they were going for that much.
sounds like you had scummy mgmt lol, one here in norfolk had them retail price. The mac version was more expensive like $50 more but that was the only overpriced one, rest of cards at the time were all $299 or so.
 
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If I bought the pci 5500 I would still have it. Since the agp version only worked with my slot1 motherboard, I donated that computer to the place I was working ( for use as an an occasionally used internet access pc)

I always kept a couple pci vid cards around for troubleshooting, still have a banshee, a low end fx5200(?), etc.

I still have some 30 pin simms in a box too. You never know when you'll need them.
 
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I'd so love a remake of the old AGP voodoo cards, but with the ability to use the "newer" AGP 1.5V slots. Sadly, the only universal slot AGP motherboard I have needs re-capped to work properly. My retro gaming PC I have now has a 1.5V AGP 3.0 slot; and I have a 6800GT in there running Windows 98SE with nGlide for 3dfx games. But man, would have loved to run my old Voodoo 3 3000 in it for that "true" feeling.
 
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Unlike some folks on the Vogons forum, I see no need to chase speed when building a retro rig. You just build it fast enough for the time period and games you want to play. My ASUS P2B has a Voodoo 5 5500 and Aureal SQ2500 with a Roland SCD-15, and I love it. It doesn't matter who went out of business when building a PC to capture a particular time.
 
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Unlike some folks on the Vogons forum, I see no need to chase speed when building a retro rig. You just build it fast enough for the time period and games you want to play. My ASUS P2B has a Voodoo 5 5500 and Aureal SQ2500 with a Roland SCD-15, and I love it. It doesn't matter who went out of business when building a PC to capture a particular time.
I think a lot of times it's what does someone still have sitting around that is Windows 98SE (or older) compatible... My Retro rig is much faster than what was out when some of the prime 3DFX games were out (Athlon XP 2800+; 2GB DDR 400; 6800GT; Sound Blaster ZS using SB16 emulation); but it was also 100% Windows 98SE compatible and what I had laying around still that was not dead.

One day I may get my old Soyo KT880 working again so I can use my Voodoo 3 3000 AGP card and not have to use nGlide. I just don't see the need for me to buy a PCI version of a Voodoo card at this point when nGlide does everything I need it too (for now anyway).
 
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And then there was one.
One brand of 3Dfx based video card.
One brand still clinging to the hope and dream that 3Dfx will come back and reclaim the crown.
LOL

All jesting aside, this is so cool!
My absolute most memorable "wow factor" with PC gaming was when I fired up some Glide wrapped games for the first time (having been used to software-based rendering) and seeing this right before all the magic:

3DfxLogo.gif


Dawn of a new era: hardware graphics rendering!

It was so eerie seeing my local Best Buy have an entire dedicated section for 3Dfx products from all the various board partners (Creative, Quantum3D, Intergraph, Diamond, STB, Orchid, Elsa, et al) then seemingly overnight the 3Dfx section was reduced to an aisle end-cap while the ATI and nVidia boards took over the same shelving space.
When the V5 5500 emerged, I was contemplating buying one or going for the Geforce2.
Seeing the role-reversal of the retail space allocation, I got a feeling that something just wasn't sitting right, so I opted for the GF2.
Having been a 3Dfx loyalist for years since my V1 which then moved me to the Voodoo Rush and then onto dual V2 12MB in SLI (that were about to be replaced), I felt like I was committing some sort of betrayal.
As soon as I got that GF2 up and running and I test drove it with a few familiar games, that feeling dissipated quickly because my new GF2 was a BEAST!

Glad to see the spirit of 3Dfx still alive and well with this new VSA-100 creation!
 
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My absolute most memorable "wow factor" with PC gaming was when I fired up some Glide wrapped games for the first time (having been used to software-based rendering) and seeing this right before all the magic:

View attachment 431680

Dawn of a new era: hardware graphics rendering!
wish i could have been there / experienced it first hand for myself back then. unfortunately this was just a few years before my time into PC Enthusiasm. my first accelerator was a GeForce2 MX 200.

i recreated the experience you described recently and actually was very impressed with Tomb Raider 1. I wasn't expecting the 3D fidelity to be as refined as it was for the time, but with the 3dfx Voodoo1 acceleration the experience is quite polished. (they had left a lot to be desired with the default controls and lack of mouse support though)
 
VSA-100 was obsolete and outclassed at launch. The single chip V4 4500 fared much worse, being outclassed by a Geforce 2 MX. You can go back and look at Anandtech benchmarks to see just how badly they fared.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/641/6
So true. Pulled all my old stuff out of mothballs about five years ago and did some direct comparison between my V4 and GF2 GTS - "GigaTexel Shader". Always liked sound of that. Can guess which got spanked. The anantech tests really show how V4 falls flat at 32-bit. Mine turns into a snail at 1024x768. Performance is relatively adequate at 640x480, and at 16-bit though.

Back story. Reason I have those two cards is my friend ordered a brand new HP pavilion in October 2000. Was all excited to get a V4 when they came out. Long story short ... the system would not run as configured. Looking at HP forums we were not alone. Seems the Glide drivers did not jive with HP system somehow. They stopped offering the card quickly. After several hours and over a week back & forth with HP tech they finally sent the GF2 GTS free overnight. System worked perfectly. Frustrated, my friend tossed the V4 in trash. I picked it out to replace my TNT1. Year or so later I got the GF2 as well. All free.

At times I wonder why I bother using the V4 in one of my current retro builds at all when I have far better card at hand. Nostalgia. After all, that is why we are all here.
 
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3dfx's demise was pretty much simultaneous to me first discovering an interest in PCs, and I never owned any of their products.

But the lore has always infected me, and I find just about anything with their name on it to be fascinating.

And decades later, I still don't think I have ever seen better branding. The retail packages were absolute perfection.
 
3dfx's demise was pretty much simultaneous to me first discovering an interest in PCs, and I never owned any of their products.

But the lore has always infected me, and I find just about anything with their name on it to be fascinating.

And decades later, I still don't think I have ever seen better branding. The retail packages were absolute perfection.

I don't even know what compares in such a transformation jump in gaming..
When I went from something like a Stealth 3d S3 Virge based gaming.. to that first rig with a single Voodoo 1.. and next Dual Voodoo 2's in SLI...it was a "WOW" moment when you load up that first 3dfx/Glide3d optimized game..
 
I don't even know what compares in such a transformation jump in gaming..
When I went from something like a Stealth 3d S3 Virge based gaming.. to that first rig with a single Voodoo 1.. and next Dual Voodoo 2's in SLI...it was a "WOW" moment when you load up that first 3dfx/Glide3d optimized game..

Only thing as big/bigger than that leap is VR for me. Nothing else really comes close to that first hardware accelerated experience of playing Quake 2.
 
3dfx's demise was pretty much simultaneous to me first discovering an interest in PCs, and I never owned any of their products.

But the lore has always infected me, and I find just about anything with their name on it to be fascinating.

And decades later, I still don't think I have ever seen better branding. The retail packages were absolute perfection.
Without going from software to glide and experiencing the difference, you'll never know lol
 
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At times I wonder why I bother using the V4 in one of my current retro builds at all when I have far better card at hand. Nostalgia. After all, that is why we are all here.

The V4 4500 is what the V3 should have been. It makes a good retro card for games in that time frame, since its faster than the V3 and offers 32 bit color vs 16 bit dithered color and 2048x2048 textures instead of 256x256.

Problem is that these days it's hideously expensive and hard to find since not that many cards were sold before 3dfx went bankrupt.

You can get a bit more performance by modding a V4 4500 to 4800 spec, which is adding another 32 MB of SDRAM to the card. The extra memory helps a bit in games that were starting to push the memory limit of cards at the time so it spends less time swapping from system memory and hard disk. It's easier to add more memory to a 4500 than a 5500, where you have to run bodge wires. On the 4500, I think all you have to do is solder the memory chips on the empty pads and add a couple of bypass capacitors. I've upgraded the memory on a V2 from 8 to 12 MB, and it wasn't that bad.
 
Im a fan of the original green one, but the others look nice also. It is good that at least these can be made, and didnt end up something only in a tech museum.
 
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