New Voodoo3 3000 driver!

Page 3 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
The great thing about my Voodoo 3 was that the heatsink was good enough to dissipate the heat while leaving a PC on for months!
 
Mine were:
- ISA 1 Mb Cirrus Logic based Speedstar PRO (good for... Nothing?)
- PCI 2 Mb S3 Trio 764 (good for Duke Nukem 3D with UniVBE)
- PCI 2 Mb S3 765 (V+) (see above) coupled with Creative/3DFX Voodoo 1 4 Mb
- AGP Asus V3400 TnT/16 Mb, with above Voodoo for Glide apps, good for Max Payne
- AGP MSI Geforce4 ti4200 128 Mb, good for Doom3
- PCI-E MSI Geforce 6600 256 Mb, good for FEAR (current).

I still have the S3 Trio64V+, the TnT1 (does 3D desktops under Linux!) in boxes, the GF4 is in my GF's machine (works wonders) while I retain the 6600 for myself.
Voodoo is gone, though.
 
Mine were:

1) DOn't remember before the no. 2, but I did have one 2mb one.
2) Diamond Stealth 3D 4 MB (I still own this one and it works under WIN XP - I used it when I sold my 6600 gt)
3) Riva TNT 16 MB (own this ne too and I can even watch videos on win xp)
4) Vodoo 3 3000 w/ video-out
5) Gainward GeForce 2 GTS
6) GeForce 5600 XT 64 MB
7) GeForce 6600 GT 128 MB
8) Radeon X1900 XT 512 MB
9) GeForce 8800 GTX or R600 (next month, depending on availability and price)
 
i have a voodoo3 2000 in a box somewhere and my mom bought an e-machines from some guy she worked with (of course, she decided she knew enough about computers before consulting me first, so it was a surprise) but in it was a voodoo3 5000 (or so, one of the ones that needed the external DC adaptor)

man, those were the days
 
The great thing about my Voodoo 3 was that the heatsink was good enough to dissipate the heat while leaving a PC on for months!

Believe it or not, I have yet to use a video card that has a fan + heatsink. All of mine used only a heatsink.
 
The first one that had fans for me was a V5 5500. And I had 2 fans on the same card!! :lol: . I still have this card hanging on my wall :).

Anyway, loved the 3Dfx cards, I'm just dissapointed I couldn't buy a V5 6000 🙁.

Anyway my cards were
- Trident 9750 (4MB)
- 3Dfx Voodoo 2 (12MB)
- 3Dfx Voodoo 5 5500 (64MB)
- ATI 8500 (64MB)
- ATI 9600 Pro (128MB)
- ATI 9000 Mobility (In my Laptop)
- ATI X1800 GTO (256MB)
 
There is no way I can recall all of the video cards I have owned, but I do clearly remember owning the original 3DFX video card in addition to a Tseng 6000 that was used for 2D duties... Quake 1 looked so bad-ass. Man, those WERE the days.
 
If there was one vid card manufacturer I loved, it was 3DFX.
My favorite brand was Diamond Multimedia. My dream computer back in the day was the Monster 3D paired with the Riva, I at least got half my wish. But everyone loves a good list!

ATI AWESOME (yes, it was called Awesome!) 1mb ISA
Jaton Trident 2mb (expandable to 4!!!) PCI paired with the Monster 3D Voodoo 1
ProSavage DDR
Geforce 2 Ti
Cirrus Logic 4MB AGP (Replacement card when I killed GF2)
ATI Rage Pro 128 16MB AGP (another replacement card!)
Geforce 3
ATI Radeon 9600XT AGP
Geforce 6600 GT AGP
ATI Radeon X1950 PRO PCIe. Yay! I'm with the times again!
 
Who's 3DFX? ;-)

You know, i saw a Vodoo 5 5500 being sold for 29Euro on ebay a few days ago. Thats about 35$. It broke my heart to see such a magnificent piece of computer history go for such a low price.

BRING BACK 3DFX! :twisted:


Yeah I have a Voodoo 5 5500 in my graveyard. It's such a memorable piece of my computer history :) I don't remember what I paid at the time, but it was something like 3 or 4 hundred dollars, and that's way back when $200 was considered a lot for a video card.



R.I.P. GLIDE 🙁🙁🙁
 
Ya the memories. Still got my voodoo 2 2000, voodoo bansheee, gefprce 1 256 ddr card, geforce 2 ultra, geforce 3 ti 500 all still running in my machines 😉
 
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO



I was really hoping this was a current article. I am very disappointed.


2 Manufacturers that should have never died was
3DFX and Creative (banshee line GFX)
 
Does anyone know the real reason why 3DFX went out of business? I always assumed it was just a bad business model; that for whatever reason, the little pressure nVidia applied made 3DFX crumble. *edit*

3DFX really still had a good hold on the industry, especially with regards to Glide. Glide was widely adopted, and (from what I hear) was a great API.

They were also a household name with the small number of enthusiasts back then, and could have easily mounted a comeback, had they not invested so much in the mammoth Voodoo 5 6000.
 
Does anyone know the real reason why 3DFX went out of business? I always assumed it was just a bad business model; that for whatever reason, the little pressure nVidia applied made 3DFX.

3DFX really still had a good hold on the industry, especially with regards to Glide. Glide was widely adopted, and (from what I hear) was a great API.

They were also a household name with the small number of enthusiasts back then, and could have easily mounted a comeback, had they not invested so much in the mammoth Voodoo 5 6000.

According to the Wiki article, 3dfx was far too indulgent of its employees and spent too long developing cutting edge cards. This cut into their profits, while ATI and nVidia happily dominated the low and mid markets. To boot, GeForces 256 and 2 severely hurt 3dfx by undercutting Voodoo 3 and 5.
 
my history of graphics cards were (in no particular order)

1. Nvidia TNT or TNT2. dont remember which, but it was running with a 1GHz athlon thunderbird processor.
2. ATI Rage i got from a friend of mine for my Duron 933 system.
4. GeForce 4 TI4200 Se by MadDog Multimedia. i still have this card on my bookshelf.
5. GeForce FX 5700 Ultra. Still have this one too.
6. 7950GX2 :?

theres a couple others that i dont remember the names to.
 
3dfx went out of business essentially due to their refusal to leave a 'flawed' design be their centerpiece: the independant 3D adapter. In fact, later Voodoo were still very much like the original Voodoo, which was:
- 3D only
- 16-bit
- PCI based, CPU copy only
- Glide first and DirectX only; limited OpenGL, no windowed 3D
- inexistant or poor 2D acceleration.
It led to 3dfx being costly, lacking in flexibility, and not much more powerful than the competition in later generations.
Frankly, the Riva Tnt/2/Geforce had most of 3dfx's concurrent products for lunch on OpenGL apps, was pure 32-bit, and had more than acceptable 2D performance - on top of being more flexible.
However, on 16-bit, low textured Glide apps (or full-screen OpenGL), Voodoo cards were impressively powerful and crunched the frames like no other.
 
P.S 7950 GX2 = failure

The only reason it was a failure was because people thought, "oh, SLI on a single card with a GB of texture memory. This must rock!"

Now, most of the people using a 7950GX2 use them with a regular LCD panel, e.g. 1280 x 1024, 1680 x 1050, etc.

This card isn't made for those resolutions, it's made for gaming on one of those 30" monitors at 2650 x 1200, or some insane HD resolution.

People's misconceptions about the situations in which the card would perform to its fullest were what caused the downfall.
 
P.S 7950 GX2 = failure

The only reason it was a failure was because people thought, "oh, SLI on a single card with a GB of texture memory. This must rock!"

Now, most of the people using a 7950GX2 use them with a regular LCD panel, e.g. 1280 x 1024, 1680 x 1050, etc.

This card isn't made for those resolutions, it's made for gaming on one of those 30" monitors at 2650 x 1200, or some insane HD resolution.

People's misconceptions about the situations in which the card would perform to its fullest were what caused the downfall.
Off-topic anybody? 😛
 
Video card list... haha I was actually thinking about this last week, baffled by how far it has come. I started out in the KB cards...

1 ) Some ISA S3 card with 64K of VRAM in my screamin' 10mhz 8088.
2 ) New system came with a VESA local bus card packed with 128K of VRAM... Wolfenstein never looked so good.
3 ) Then Cirrus Logic card with 256K but it ran Need For Speed like crap.
4 ) Monster Voodoo2 with 12MB was plopped in beside #3 (still remember paying $186)... Need For Speed ran awesome! LOL
5 ) Creative Riva TNT 16MB... the Voodoo2 was actually faster in most aspects... thorough disappointment, but I needed it for Rogue Spear.
6 ) Hercules Geforce 256 SE 32MB... crippled version of regular card... a little better than TNT, needed it for Quake 2 - died last year.
7 ) Gainward Geforce 2 Ti 64MB... finally a decent card from nVidia in basement PC.
8 ) Dell branded Geforce 4 64MB... pulled it from dead PC going in the trash - in closet... converted to passive with a massive P2 heatsink haha
9 ) ATI 9800 Pro 128MB - sold on ebay
10 ) eVGA 6800GT 256MB - now in wife's pc
11 ) and finally, HIS ICEq 1900XT 512MB ... love this card.
What a journey.
 
I wasnt aware of Graphics card until i got my first one which happend to be MX440.....

I also wasnt aware GFX card companies made commercials.....
 
Mine list;

S3 Trio 2Mb
Matrox Millenium II 4MB
Matrox Millenium II 4MB + 3dfx 1 4MB
Matrox Millenium II 4MB + 3dfx 2 8MB (I think it was 8MB)
3dfx 3500 16MB
Geforce 2 32MB
Geforce FX 5600 256MB
Geforce FX5950 256MB
Geforce 6800 GT
Geforce 7800 GT + Geforce 7800 GT (SLI)

I Guess thats about it. I still have all of them. :)
 
Wow, my best graphics card company EVER. I loved how Unreal looked on that thing. When I had replaced my Voodoo 3 3000 with a GForce 2 Ti, I saw how different it was. Unreal looked like crap and I thought the GF was the culprit. Later I knew that Glide, the API, was the thing that made that so good looking. So 3 years ago I found a glide wrapper and know I can see the difference between Direct3d and Glide. Damn, there is an amazing difference.

So... Yes, I think that if 3dfx would still be alive all should be better.

Look, I saved the homepage www.3dfx.com before it died. Check it out!

http://personales.ciudad.com.ar/Mesatsu/3dfxIndexContent.mht

I've got 2 original CDs that came with my card too. Unreal and NFS 3.

Nice to see that I'm not the only one that loved that company. Cheers!
 
Wow, my best graphics card company EVER. I loved how Unreal looked on that thing.

Hell ya. Unreal was a beautiful game. The intense colors and myst really brought that game to you. I ran it on an ATI Rage Fury and ofcourse ATI was known for thier lifelike 32bit colors and performance back then, though it didn't cut it when it came to smoothness. I remember buying a V3 2K off the net, getting it and running Unreal and Infiltration silky smooth. Loved my Voodoo3 so much I was happy playing in 16bit; reaching framerate far above that Rage Fury.
It also took Quake3 from a choppy at times stand still to full quality power house.
Ok, thats enough. I'm gonna go cry.

As for old timer gaming, I was hopelessly addicted to multiplayer Doom, Doom2 and Duke Nukem 3D, and on a S3 Trio 64+ 2mb on-board accompanied by a Pentium 133. I soon upgraded that processer to a rare Pentium 200 Overdrive (1mb of L1 if I remember?). I was then able to play D3D at 1024x768+ - never the less, I had a lot of jealous Pentium 66 / 75 / 100 friends still beating feet at 640x480 and a almost unplayable 800x600 :mrgreen: