round of applause for the long gone 3dFX

[Golgatha]

I was 3dfx's lap dog back then.

8MB Voodoo 2, 16MB Voodoo 3 3000 AGP, Voodoo 5 5500 owner here. I will never forget the sinking feeling when I heard they were purchased by nVidia. Not so much because I really even liked them as a company, but more because my $300 video card had just become a paperweight overnight. However, I do recall patching Need for Speed II with the 3dfx patch and also playing Quake 2 at 800x600. Had a killer PII 400Mhz, 160MB RAM and 10GB 5400rpm ATA66 hard drive on an ASUS P2B...it was gaming bliss.

Edit: Just recently put together an old Athlon 800Mhz slotA machine together with a Voodoo 4 4500 to play Final Fantasy VII and VIII in all their 8-bit palettized texture glory under Windows 2000. This thread makes me want to try some retro gaming now.

 

[CP5670]

I have two V2s (got the second off ebay much more recently) and a V3 3000 AGP. I got the V3 over the competing TNT2 back then pretty much because of Glide. Most of the games I played in those days ran much better on Glide than D3D and some were even Glide only.

 

[Extelleron]

Besides the Radeon 9600 I have here, the only card I have ever owned was a Voodoo 16MB.

 

[sandorski]

Voodoo 2 12 STB Blackmagic and Voodoo 5 5500 owner, thanks for the memories 3DFX!

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: morgash
as we, the enthusiasts, sit back and watch as higher performing/higher priced multi GPU vid card solutions dominate the market, let us reflect on the fact that 3dFX were the fathers of this technology. THe mighty Voodoo 2 SLI rig was a force to be reckoned with, a hurricane in a time full of coughs. So as SLI and crossfire continue to mature, look back, and shed a tear for what COULD have been in a 3d world dominated by 8 Voodoo 10's in OCTO-SLI.

seriously though, after reading several articles on what 3dfx had in the line-up, i really do wonder how much faster and better 3d cards would be today if they could have stayed around to make the vcard fight more interesting. post ur opinions

There's a reason why they imploded and were gutted by nVidia. Their cards were junk compared to the competition, they NEEDED SLI just to stay competitive. Its part of the reason why nVidia was interested, combine SLI with good GPUs and you've got something.

I loved my Voodoo 3 3000 because it played my favorite games in Glide, but had I become hooked on other games that weren't written for Glide I would have gone with a different card. I have no reason to believe that we'd have better overall graphics (we'd have worse) had 3Dfx remained alive.

 

[MrBaseball]

I still have a Canopus Voodoo2 card around here somewhere

 

[kmmatney]

Originally posted by: Matt2
I only owned 2 3DFX products. Voodoo Banshee <---- Worst video card I have ever owned and a Voodoo3 3000 <---- Very fast. Can you say 86fps in Quake2? Boo YAH.

I had a banshee - it was a nice card for $89. No complaints. The drivers were finicky, but overall I thought it was a decent buy.

My next card was an even cheaper $45 Voodoo3 1000, which kicked booty for the price. That one lasted me a while. It was basically a Voodoo3 2000 with half the RAM, but performed about the same.

The worst card I ever owned was the Voodoo Rage 3D. Utterly horrible.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles

Originally posted by: morgash
as we, the enthusiasts, sit back and watch as higher performing/higher priced multi GPU vid card solutions dominate the market, let us reflect on the fact that 3dFX were the fathers of this technology. THe mighty Voodoo 2 SLI rig was a force to be reckoned with, a hurricane in a time full of coughs. So as SLI and crossfire continue to mature, look back, and shed a tear for what COULD have been in a 3d world dominated by 8 Voodoo 10's in OCTO-SLI.

seriously though, after reading several articles on what 3dfx had in the line-up, i really do wonder how much faster and better 3d cards would be today if they could have stayed around to make the vcard fight more interesting. post ur opinions

There's a reason why they imploded and were gutted by nVidia. Their cards were junk compared to the competition, they NEEDED SLI just to stay competitive. Its part of the reason why nVidia was interested, combine SLI with good GPUs and you've got something.

I loved my Voodoo 3 3000 because it played my favorite games in Glide, but had I become hooked on other games that weren't written for Glide I would have gone with a different card. I have no reason to believe that we'd have better overall graphics (we'd have worse) had 3Dfx remained alive.

Disagree wholeheartedly. 3DFX failed because it had lousy management.

 

[shortylickens]

I know this isnt entirely on topic,
but what the heck ever happened to Trident?

They were supposed to make some reasonably priced 3D cards back when the GF4 Ti's were reigning supreme. Thats the last I ever heard of them.

 

[jiffylube1024]

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles

Originally posted by: morgash
as we, the enthusiasts, sit back and watch as higher performing/higher priced multi GPU vid card solutions dominate the market, let us reflect on the fact that 3dFX were the fathers of this technology. THe mighty Voodoo 2 SLI rig was a force to be reckoned with, a hurricane in a time full of coughs. So as SLI and crossfire continue to mature, look back, and shed a tear for what COULD have been in a 3d world dominated by 8 Voodoo 10's in OCTO-SLI.

seriously though, after reading several articles on what 3dfx had in the line-up, i really do wonder how much faster and better 3d cards would be today if they could have stayed around to make the vcard fight more interesting. post ur opinions

There's a reason why they imploded and were gutted by nVidia. Their cards were junk compared to the competition, they NEEDED SLI just to stay competitive. Its part of the reason why nVidia was interested, combine SLI with good GPUs and you've got something.

I loved my Voodoo 3 3000 because it played my favorite games in Glide, but had I become hooked on other games that weren't written for Glide I would have gone with a different card. I have no reason to believe that we'd have better overall graphics (we'd have worse) had 3Dfx remained alive.

Disagree wholeheartedly. 3DFX failed because it had lousy management.

I agree with ya sandorski that 3dfx ultimately died because management was abysmal (marble floors for their office building for chrissakes!).

But signs of this management showed in their products which failed to evolve: although the V4/V5 series did come with AA for the first time ever, they also had an incomplete featureset (32-bit on 3dfx for the first time. Whoopee). The V4/V5 series were hopelessly delayed, and Rampage (some claim to be their saviour) was also delayed right up until the end.

I'll give them kudos for SLI, but they lose points for everything they did after the V3 era.

 

[Matt2]

Originally posted by: kmmatney

Originally posted by: Matt2
I only owned 2 3DFX products. Voodoo Banshee <---- Worst video card I have ever owned and a Voodoo3 3000 <---- Very fast. Can you say 86fps in Quake2? Boo YAH.

I had a banshee - it was a nice card for $89. No complaints. The drivers were finicky, but overall I thought it was a decent buy.

My next card was an even cheaper $45 Voodoo3 1000, which kicked booty for the price. That one lasted me a while. It was basically a Voodoo3 2000 with half the RAM, but performed about the same.

The worst card I ever owned was the Voodoo Rage 3D. Utterly horrible.

Banshee was ok for the price I guess. About 2 months after I bought it I dropped $100 on a Creative TNT card and I never, ever ever ever, looked back. The TNT absolutely smoked it for a minimal price premium.

 

[BFG10K]

One thing that impressed me was 3dfx's driver quality.

 

[Elvis2]

ha...i'm on my V5 box right now. use it for my email, surfing and some old Glide stuff. the 2d's still easy to read and the card is quite scalable. i have it on an old kt266a board with an xp1700 cpu. and it scores 5385 in 3DMark....2000! . the fsaa looks great and while my next card was an Nvidia 64mg GTS, the iq, imho, was much better with the voodoo. this works ot well for me since i only fire up my Opty for some serious gaming.

 

[Stumps]

I still have my two voodoo 2's in a box somewhere, as well as my Voodoo 3 3000 and Voodoo 5 5500...All were great cards...I wish 3dfx had remained in the market place...but aleast they got their revenge on Nvidia with the Geforce FX 5800 ultra....damn that card sucked ass hard....thanks 3dfx...or should I say ex 3dfx engineers for that one

 

[Hacana]

Former owner of 3 Voodoos:

12 meg Diamond Monster 3D2
16 Meg Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
64 Meg Voodoo 5 5500 AGP

In fact, I still have all three of them lying around. Actually, I have two 5500's lying around. But, I still have very fond memories of each one.