Voodoo 3 2000, going back in time!

rogue1979

Diamond Member
Mar 14, 2001
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Was building my kids their second computer with plans to buy a new video card. They have a Duron 750@1050, Abit KT7, 256MB of PC133@147MHz, 7200rpm hard drive, Yamaha 32-bit sound card, basically my old leftovers. All I had was an old V3 which I planned to upgrade. Put it in and clocked to 190MHz, not expecting too much. The last time I used it was with a K6-2 550MHz. Installed some easier games and it played them well and looked good as expected. Put in Janes WW2 Fighters and I noticed it was averaging 55fps, impressive.
It played Mech 3 and Pirates Moon very smoothly and looked great. Being 3Dfx I noticed it played Red Baron 3D and Mig 29 with a better image than my Geforce2 Ti500. Went for Unreal at 1024 x 768 x 16 and it played smooth and looked excellent. Tried Mech 4 Vengeance and Mech 4 Black Knight, expecting it to choke. But no, at 800 x 600 x 16 with settings at ultra it played very smooth and looked great! How can this be? My 6 year old son informed me he didn't want a new Geforce Pro, he liked the Voodoo 3. It doesn't have FSAA and cannot support the latest greatest features, and doesn't do well in 3DMark 2001. But it does what all Voodoos can do well, plays games smoothly and looks great even with a lack of modern features. If you have a second or third machine (or fourth like me) and don't want to spend a fortune in video cards, the old Voodoo 3 2000 can still offer modern gaming enjoyment.
 

jmitchell

Senior member
Oct 10, 2001
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I agree... I just replaced my v3 with a geforce2 gts, and the improvements are great, but the voodoo did fine, even in RTCW @800x600...
 

Killrose

Diamond Member
Oct 26, 1999
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We're nuthin but a bunch of no-good, lousey, frames per second junkies every damn one of us!!!

What's the first thing we do when we get a new vid card??

I'll tell ya what we do. We kick the resolution up a notch with 32bit enabled and everything bumped up to the max, and where does it get us?? The same exact frames per second we left off at.

Of course things look much nicer now, but we can hardly wait for the next new fancy-pants video chip to come out so we can start the whole vicious cycle all over again!!!

We all crazy I tell ya!!!..... just damn crazy insane every last one of us!!!
 

rogue1979

Diamond Member
Mar 14, 2001
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Killrose, how is that Radeon 7500 working for you? I just got the Gainward Geforce2 Ti500, I considered a Radeon 7500 though. I based my decision on driver support, but I heard drivers are finally coming together for the 7500/8500. Got mine running 280/525, it is a big boost over the Geforce Pro, I was suprised.
 

chizow

Diamond Member
Jun 26, 2001
9,537
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Hehe yep, thats why I never ditched my V3 2000 PCI......even though I've had offers to unload it for @ $30....its better insurance than $30 can buy.

Chiz
 

Killrose

Diamond Member
Oct 26, 1999
6,230
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Rouge: I just got the 7500 a few days ago, so I have'nt had a chance to run it thru all the games I play. But I gained another 35fps in Q3 time demo 1 over my old overclocked Radeon DDR with-out even over clocking the 7500. Overclocking gives me another 10-15fps, so I'm pretty impressed.
My 3dmark2K went up considerably too, but I have'nt run it overclocked yet.

I've had 4 various Nvidia cards, a Matrox, and a 3dfx card, the Radeon was my first Ati so I thought I'd go with another one. I wanted an 8500, but $105.00 for a made by Ati OEM 7500 was too good to pass up so I bought it.