Clever Hacks and Cutting-Edge Tech - 3dfx Voodoo Graphics

[@CPUGalaxy]

what a great video you have produced! I enjoyed it to the last second. Great content, outstanding presentation of the hardware and perfect choice of the games. Thanks for your efforts! Cheers, Peter

[@GutBombTech]

My machine back in 97 had an s3 virge and as soon as I heard about the voodoo card I went to compusa and bought one. It’s one of the few times in my life where a new product exceeded my expectations. I was blown away at how good it was. Your video brought back those memories. Excellent stuff!

[@TechAmbr]

The incredible performance of these shiny new Voodoo cards blew my little teen-aged mind back then lmao 🤣 What a treat to have gotten to use one in its heyday!

[@eng3d]

rip compusa and its catalog

[@aaldrich1982]

I'm a 3dfx enthusiast and you've effectively and beautifully condensed and made easily consumable everything I would want newcomers to watch. Thank you.

[@pesokpesok]

i was a huge 3Dfx fan back in the day and had all Voodoos up to a final 5 that i payed crazy money for since it was never officially released even though was completed and worked great. Took demise of the company pretty hard but thanks to a dedicated fan base i kept using the cards for another 10 years with new unnoficial drivers made by fans. Still have all my Voodoos somewhere in storage since refused to sell them even though was offered $5k for the unreleased last one years ago

[@vladchenkov9215]

There was nothing like glide, still isn’t really. Here I am today on a 4080 ti super - and just never really had that feeling of a perfect machine again. Maybe that’s why I full rebuild pretty much every 2 years and spend thousands doing it. Still nothing has ever gave me that feeling when I first got my voodoo card and the voodoo cards since that just ran perfect for the time. Shame they tried to do it in house which ultimately bottlenecked the releases causing them to release what would have been hardware at optimal performance 2 years late. I still have every version of voodo starting from rush to the voodoo 5 5500. Always wanted to get my hands on a rampage, never pulled the trigger and now those un-released versions are soooo expensive.

[@BrassicGamer]

Great video, Amber! I was working in a computer store at the end of 1998 and I remember a kid coming in and asking how much a Voodoo 2 card was. I will never forget his face! I can only describe it as extreme discomfort, and possibly also like watching someone swallow all their hopes and dreams. I actually didn't get my own 3Dfx card until around 2005, when I found a Voodoo 3 in a thrift shop. I still have it someplace and loved discovering all the games I'd missed in the '97-'98 era because I had a lowly 486DX4. Great to see Rollcage featured, too - that game came bundled with my Radeon 8500 iirc, and the sequel is even better. The context around the Voodoo II was actually really interesting. All the first commercially-available AGP cards had been released in September to November 1997 (except Intel's own i740, which wasn't released until two weeks after the Voodoo II!) and while they didn't make huge inroads into graphics performance at that point, everyone had bet their farms on the interface. Except 3Dfx. With its SLI feature, AGP obviously wasn't going to suit the technology at that point. So while the V2 swept the floor with every AGP card when it came out, 3Dfx were already finished at that point. Given that the V3 was effectivley an integrated V2 in SLI, they were playing catch-up at that point. But, to quote the film 'The Highlander', better to burn out to fade away! Oh, wait...

[@KevinSills]

There are updates for Rollcage and Deathmatch (Rollcage 2) available online that are "remastered" by one of the original "coders" for the two games, he has taken the games to whole new level and allowed their use on more modern operating systems! :)

[@simonpinel4888]

I brought a voodoo 2 card back in 98 and still have it today

[@TwoToTheSix]

I still have fond memories of my Voodoo3 card, the first graphics card I owned. I love the lighting you used for the card glamour shots!

[@RetroTinkerer]

Hi Amber, great video, that period bring so much nostalgia in me! I replaced my 2D GUI accelerator with a Rendition Verite v1000, loved the way that thing looked and was quite happy with the performance but damn I was so hyped up about that new 3dfx card that as soon as I had saved for it I got one, I was completely sold and when I upgraded my PC I got two VooDoo2 8MB in my PII 300, lets just say that such setup was bottleneck mess. On hindsight, if I could had known better a dual 12MB could had last me for a huge amount of time and would had been a real joy on my next system an Athlon 650!

[@KevinSills]

Bought my first computer in 1997, and the Monster 3dfx Voodoo 1 shortly thereafter. I had Rollcage, NFS2se, POD, Wing Commander Prophecy. Today, in 2024 I have a computer built around the 3dfx Voodoo 1, and all those games, and so many more. I have spent years buying PC games from the 90's, many of them are 3dfx titles...........the legend lives on! :)

[@GarthBeagle]

I remember seeing Tomb Raider with acceleration and it was so amazing!

[@chrisducati26]

Great Video Amber! I Love my first voodoo made me play tombraider from a pixel mess to an incredible experience! I have all the graphics cards you mentioned on your video ;)

[@RiksRandomRetro]

Amazing video! Great way to see what the card was/is all about and a nice slice to show off. I got my Righteous 3D new back then, and was simply blown away how Quake looked with it. Still have the card too!

[@breceeofficial]

Still have my Voodoo 3 2000, and "Diamond Monster 3D II" in a shadowbox on my wall. Too many good childhood memories associated with them to say farewell. Seeing such featured cards in your video was certainly a nostalgia hit! My favorites are still Unreal/Unreal Tournament.

[@superkato1k]

My very first discrete graphics card, an 8MB Voodoo 2 I bought in 1998. It was paired with an AMD K6-2 (400 mhz) that replaced a 486. Good memories. :)

[@Cincomma]

Another stellar video! It's awesome seeing you improve and seeing your audience grow. Keep at it! ♥

[@lemagreengreen]

It was truly remarkable how it went down, it felt like overnight that suddenly a viable 3D accelerator was available and compatible with just about everything. The magazines raved about the Voodoo, it became basically the only choice with the only notable exception I remember being the Rendition Verite but even then you just knew it was 3DFX or nothing. Had the Voodoo 1, had Voodoo2's in SLI but by the time the Voodoo3 was out there was serious competition and the TNT2U kept me away from it. Now of course I know there's big differences but still, it was an add on card that could suddenly make your lowly Pentium PC do things that previously were only really seen on Silicon Graphics workstations, hardware so expensive and so rare that you only really read about it in the magazines. I later got a chance to own some SGI Stuff from the same era and it was of course great but that they were able to squeeze so much of that ability into a pretty cheap little PCI card was amazing. Some very smart people involved.

[@barrozo24]

GREAT video !!!!!!!!!!!! i started with a voodoo 2 back in 1998 and i still own my original V2

[@mightydeku]

I got a voodoo 3 3000 pci when Mac flashing was available. Loved that card

[@tubical71]

I was a a fair asking the 3dfx guys if there would be a Mac support.. And they simply said yes for voodoo 3 and the later pipeline voodoo 4....i wasn't expecting this and left a ' notify me' at my hardware store and they went: why you wanting a voodoo you running a Mac.. Me: jep and they added Mac support....😉 😊

[@EricsEdgeVideos]

Well done video! I didn’t do any serious gaming back in the day. It’s cool seeing how these boards functioned.

[@ashleybreadgirls1228]

Absolutely loving this series! Hoping it continues

[@BigBadBench]

Phenomenal video! The quality of your work continues to get better! Now to dig out my Voodoo system…

[@DelRiode]

I am just mesmerized by this video! Thanks for great work, it is just a pleasure to watch it, thanks again Ambrosia :)

[@evilqtip7098]

3DFX was untouchable Back then .... I remember buying them at Costco $600 each I bought 2 for $1200 bucks crazy eh.. But Tomb-Raider with a 3D patch looked amazing 1024x768 16Bit .. I fell in love with graphics.. Just incredible glory of graphics. Worth every penny .. all games I bought ran smooth and looked awesome.

[@efpcvintageplanet3406]

hi I love collecting 3dfx. I own about twenty examples, all functioning within computers of that era. I also have the Renditions, a PowerVR PCX2, the Permedia 2 and of course the old Virge and Matrox Mystique. A truly fantastic period full of innovations, that of the pioneers of 3D linked to video games. What I call the fascinating era of patches. Thanks for this video, I really appreciated it.❤

[@RonsCompVids]

Very informative, Amber! I love the Voodoo series... your video is a great way to get acquainted!

[@TechAmbr]

Thank you so much, Ron! It really means a lot!

[@smiththers2]

I worked at circuit city from 2000-2001 and it was when 3dfx got bought out that I got my first voodoo3 PCI card. It worked great but I didn't keep it very long before upgrading to a Radeon in 03. I have had a few more voodoo cards over the last 2 years but have sold them in retro gaming systems to other enthusiasts. Now I rely on 3dfx emulation and some of the fastest Nvidia agp cards that run in win98. Works great!

[@sryx]

I had a Voodoo1 (Diamond Monster variant) and remember seeing the colored lighting in Quake 2 for the first time and being blown away. It was such an amazing time to be a PC gamer. It just felt like everything was getting better every few months. The fact that the early web was also developing at the same time makes the pace of technology today seem almost stagnant with the exception of AI.

[@1BitFeverDreams]

Some of your best work Amber

[@RedPillRachel]

I had the Voodoo Banshee on a Duron 700 with 128MB RAM and a Sound Blaster Live! (yes the bang is part of the model name, lol). The same system later received an nVidia TNT2 Ultra, specifically for 60fps, 1600x1200 Unreal Tournament, which was the staple for competitive LAN parties! Oh, if I had a TARDIS, I'd take my humble Galaxy Book 12 and a gaming mouse back in time and casually set up and start winning, with everyone asking how I'm getting 200+ fps with no dedicated graphics, and how this OLED display has better contrast than our best CRTs (we had LCD back then, but gamers and movie buffs didn't want it because they were unresponsive, had ghosting and were wholly unsuitable for FPS gaming). It would be great. I could warn myself that I was right about the future and to buy a scrap of land, however bad and cheap, back then...

[@l3lue7hunder12]

Very nice video indeed. Thank you. The 3DFX Voodoo wasn't the first nor the only atttempt though, just the most rounded at the time. The Rendition Vérité V1000 you mentioned came out the same year, as did the "NEC PowerVR PCX". It is said that I mostly was the well designed "Glide" API, and how easy this made implementing 3DFX graphics into your game, that decided the winner, but in the end also the looser because 3DFX failed to innovate beyond that and ended up falling short compared to the featureset the competition came up with to catch up. Btw. there were 2 Voodoo prior the Voodoo 3 with integrated graphic features: - Voodoo Rush, a merger between a Voodoo 1 and several different graphic chips depending on the manufacturer, that became known for bad performance and compatibility issues. - Voodoo Banshee, also known as Avenger or Voodoo 500 apparently, is a weird in between the Voodoo 2 and the Voodoo 3 1000 that ended up as an OEM card with very good 2D performance with not quite Voodoo 2 level 3D performance due to lacking a secondary TMU. Its especially the Voodoo Banshee PCI 16MB that is sought after these days, since its an excellent DOS to Win 95 era vintage gaming combo that runs with about anything while still being on the cheaper side compared to Voodoo 1 or 2 - currently around $120, while a Voodoo 1 starts at around $190, a Voodoo 2 at around $300, and a Voodoo 3 at $250 depending on the model.

[@V3ntilator]

I still have my 3DFX Voodoo 1 and 2 cards.

[@MonochromeWench]

3dfx also made it super easy to program for the Voodoo so game developers could easily add voodoo acceleration to their software rendering only titles. Also not a fluke or by chance but smart design. Other accelerators like Nv1 did things so differently to conventional rendering it was extremely difficult to port games to it except for games from the Sega Saturn. The first time i saw a voodoo 1 in person running GL Quake I knew I had to have one. It ran faster at higher res than software and had fancy effects like filtered textures and transparent water. Mind blowing for 17 yo me. I didn't play many dos games for the voodoo once I got one, 1997 was a bit too late.

[@iiidiy]

Great video! These were so cool back in the day! I remember having an aging LC630 Mac, being jealous of all the Voodoo and Quake fun :)

[@KevinSills]

There are updates for Rollcage and Deathmatch (Rollcage 2) available online that are "remastered" by one of the original "coders" for the two games, he has taken the games to whole new level and allowed their use on more modern operating systems! :)

[@Freddie_R]

Thanks for the Video! Luckily I still have some of the 3DFX series with me and they are all intact and working: 1x Diamond Monster 3D (Voodoo 1) 2x CT 6670 (Voodoo 2 12 MB) 1x CT 6750 (Voodoo Banshee) 2x Voodoo 3 3000

[@ianpolpo]

Always wanted a Voodoo! When my friend got one I was so blown away. Pretty sure it was a Canopus Pure3D with the 6MB of RAM. I never had a 3dfx card until I got a Voodoo 2 a couple years ago!

[@pawe3839]

Back then (97/98) I was using Pentium 90@100MHz (socket 5), IGA 1680 was my 2D card (worse then virge or trio), I had 16MB of ram, and my drive was really slow SCSI HDD (connected via 16bit ISA Adaptec controler). Helios 3D (my Voodoo 1) was like salvation to me :)

[@JesterEric]

I had a voodoo 2 in 98. Quake 2 is the game I remember being amazed by. Prior to that I had a PowerVR Matrox M3D. The demo games that game with it like Ultimate Race were impressive but I dont remember being able to get Quake to work with it. Prior to that I had a Matrox Mystique oem that I dont remember any 3d games working with

[@rguitar78]

Voodoo2 matched with a Diamond Viper V330, it was epic.

[@chanceschraeder2456]

Right on! My first 3D accelerator was also a Banshee, Quantum 3D PCI version in my new recently acquired Celeron 266. Worked my tail off doing shitty jobs at 14 years old, but I managed to finally snag one online using my 28,800kbps dial-up and rents cc 😂

[@stu2779]

I still have my original creative banshee blaster card, it was my first 3dfx card

[@glitchwrks]

Always good to see more 3dfx hardware running! You're missing an electrolytic cap on your Monster3D :P

[@TechAmbr]

I noticed it after running all the benchmarks and filming b-roll :D I'll get it sorted!

[@glitchwrks]

@@TechAmbr New to your channel (thanks to Ron!) so I'm unaware of the repair levels you usually do, but if you need to send it somewhere for the repair let me know, we've fixed up a whole pile of 3dfx stuff!

[@SmashCatRandom]

I had one of these - it was unusual as it was a pure 3D card - it couldn't render 2D, so needed to work as a pass-through on a system that also had a 2D card. I also had a hardware mpeg decoder to play DVDs with zero CPU (it would overlay the video on the screen in hardware also). So basically 3 cards to do what you can just do in the CPU these days :)

[@xBruceLee88x]

Ah that explains it... Its got Bruce Bruce in it! (name my friends call me) Great work on the video! I hope to get my pair of Voodoo2s running again sometime

[@Lilithe]

My friend actually gave me his Voodoo 1 and when he upgraded later to some nVidia card, his Voodoo 2. I used that for a while until getting a Geforce Ti 4200 IIRC

[@Lilithe]

... another friend gave me my first 3D card, some kind of PCI 3D only thing that shuffled frames over the PCI bus. As you can imagine, it was slow in anything but the benchmarks that ame with it.

[@TechAmbr]

Oh nice! A PowerVR of some sort? The early ones had no video outputs, and performance depended heavily on having a compatible 2D card that could accept the rendered frames! Such a wild idea!

[@keithlowe5512]

Somehow a voodoo 2 card accidently ended up in our family PC back in the late 90s? The PC that was only for study......Yeah, good times.

[@TechAmbr]

Hehehehe oops! 🤣

[@PixelPipes]

Watched a second time cus it's such a good video 👍

[@TechAmbr]

I'm so glad you liked it, thank you!

[@bike-cave-man2527]

Ultimate Race Pro on 3Dfx seems to have been forgotten.

[@ieast007]

I remember going to Fry's Electronics to get a Voodoo 3 so I could kick my roomates ass at Mech Commander.

[@Pickle136]

voodoo 3 was my first gpu and quake 1/2 were am big reason for getting it.

[@Luix]

quake 3 doesnt run well on a tnt2 and you say that it runs ok on a voodoo 1.

[@tomapc]

I still have a voodoo 2 and a voodoo 3 😄 I have no decent motherboard though, still searching...

[@johnhajdu4276]

What is Amber's RGB code in HEX format?

[@thej3799]

I didn't know Vulcan was just a newer version of opengl! I wondered if direct3d had just won the battle. But I am happy to be wrong.

[@dominikschutz6300]

I think Nvidia could re-release the Voodoo 6000 with the 3D-FX brand and would make profitable sales :)

[@fixpontt]

if you want to show how big a deal 3dfx was you should have put the software render mode of games side by side with the glide render and the framerate too otherwise it does not hit as revolutionary

[@JohnDoe-ip3oq]

Really no reason to not use a voodoo 2, which solves the performance issues, then you can use a GeForce for newer games. Buying stb and Voodoo 5 killed the company, they had a dx8 prototype better than GeForce 3 never released.

[@john_ace]

The price of a V2 at the time was much too high for me and most of my peers. We simply went with more affordable solutions, like the Riva TNT. The V5 was just the nail in the coffin. Relying too long on Glide and holding onto the aging Voodoo architecture was the actual reason they failed. Rampage was too little, too late. After they made a grand debut with the voodoo 1, they simply failed to innovate. Remember the Voodoo Rush? Or the Banshee? Both were experiments that felt more like a step back then a step forward.

[@JohnDoe-ip3oq]

@@john_ace Voodoo 2 could have been bought cheaper after newer cards came out. Glide was absolutely NOT the reason they failed, especially because the API was still ahead of opengl and directx until shaders. The voodoo 2 could do bump mapping, and glide was the fastest api. Rush and banshee were never main line cards, they were budget all in one for OEMs. They were alternatives to existing cards, not the primary solution until voodoo 3. There were 2 flaws with voodoo hardware, 16bit and 256 texture resolution, both solved with voodoo 4-5. Wasn't a big deal back then. The TRUE reason they went under is purely bad financial planning by buying STB to do their own manufacturing. They also could have entirely skipped voodoo 5 because no game needed it, you were paying for 32 bit and texture resolution, and it was basically a voodoo3+. 3dfx could have stayed viable by not buying stb, or skipping the voodoo 5. Supposedly you could beat a GeForce in unreal tournament with voodoo 2sli. 3dfx didn't fail to innovate, they made bad business decisions. They had a directx 8 card, and couldn't afford to sell it. Also, if you're going to complain about price, there's no excuse for GeForce pricing. You didn't even have games that needed it. The tnt2 outlasted GeForce for usable lifespan as long as you didn't run the performance downgrade drivers. Then Radeon had massively cheaper dx8 cards with better image quality. Like free anisotropic filtering, which was a massive performance loss for Nvidia, then it became a shader performance loss in DX9. Innovation? LOL. Nvidia innovated less, and were more brute force than voodoo 5, because that was the whole point of the GeForce 256.

[@matusmikoviny]

3dfx colour dightering is still etalon of colors in games

[@DarthChrisB]

"press escape to continue" will never be not funny.

[@TechAmbr]

Like putting "shut down" on the "Start" menu.... 😆