The 3dfx Voodoo Rush and its Hidden Secrets:

[@Starbug1S1]

I actually owned a Rush. My dad and I got it to play Need for Speed 2: SE. It worked great for us. We had no issues with it.

[@PixelPipes]

This is the second time I've seen an AT3D in action and it isn't any better this time. That chip was not fit for human consumption. Great breakdown of the underlying weaknesses of the card! I never really delved into it before and it's interesting, because I've always assumed it was just related to the PCI sharing.

[@RetroTechBytes]

Thank you for all the kind words, kind sir! It means a lot to hear this coming from you! I do think the Voodoo Rush was an imperfect design and it certainly was an imperfect execution of a perfect idea. The Voodoo Banshee is a better bet and there's almost no reason to use a Rush these days, other than if you really can't use a Banshee/V3 PCI and want to save a PCI slot. As for the AT3D...it's such a legendary piece of garbage! I had to do it after seeing your note on the GPUJune rules. I had only heard of it, and hadn't done much research on it, but I found one mislabeled on eBay and grabbed it! Fun fact: this piece of crap was NOS! Hard to believe, but it was indeed NOS and that had me laughing real good because, well, it really was an unsellable card!

[@PixelPipes]

@@RetroTechBytes lol there are probably more NOS cards in a landfill than used ones in the wild. Did you see vlaskcz's video about it?

[@RetroTechBytes]

LMAO true! And yes, indeed I did! I caught it after I made mine and it’s excellent. (Not to mention the great voiceover…). It really is amazing to me just how shady this card is. I’m almost surprised there were no lawsuits over this thing.

[@dmoney7301]

Greetings. I'm building a Win95/Dos rig from the ground up. Found new old stock for almost everything. Video will be a S3 Virge 4MB and a Voodoo 2 1000 12 MB. After it is all together will post pics of it and my long promised win98/Dos rig.

[@johnhajdu4276]

I can see, that The alliance card in 3d mode cannot handle alpha blending transparency. In tomb raider 1 you can switch off that feature. If you run unrealtournament 99 on the pentium pro, you should switch off 3d audio as well, because off the missing mmx.

[@johnjohny1312]

You gotta love how the AT3D was advertised as having "state of the art 3d acceleration"

[@SUCRA]

Haha just wow. What a piece of crap GPU the AT3D is. The sad part is that it tricks you it's actually going to run something. Doest it run even a single game? Unrelated to the quality of the silicon the video was really good. I didn't know the Rush was worse than the V1, and you made pretty clear why with the bonus of the AT3D content. Thanks for another one, my friend, great video.

[@RetroTechBytes]

Thank you for the kind words and support, as always, Bruno! Isn't it a riot? I can't believe it either--I was legit confused because it just straight-up CANNOT run a SINGLE game! Isn't that insane? I guess you can technically play something via software rendering, but, still, the image quality is AWFUL, so no! Haha! But hey, thank you so much and I am so glad that you enjoyed it! The Rush really isn't a bad card in that it's genuinely bad like the standalone AT3D, but it's weird, and it's not exactly fun to work with! Either way, thank you for the kind words, my friend!

[@footballmanify1]

YUSSSS more GPU June!!!

[@rsmith02]

I had the Rush in the form of the Stingray 128. I bought it as I didn't have enough open slots for both a graphic card and 3D card on my Gateway Pentium II 266 desktop. The drivers were seriously flawed with conflicts using my MS Mouse that would crash Windows 95 among other things. I spent so many hours troubleshooting. Framerates were

[@byCDW]

Playing P.O.D. (Gold) on my P233 MMX & Riva 128 now to get these terrible images out of my head. 😊 Great video. 👍

[@RetroTechBytes]

HAHA I am so sorry about the AT3D but you know what? Here for some P.O.D. always! Enjoy it, and I hope that it cleanses the terribleness of the AT3D from your eyes/mind! Thank you again for all the kind words, and thank you for the support!

[@amirpourghoureiyan1637]

I can imagine the Alliance management being like J. Jonah Jameson. R+D: "Alright sir, we worked all-night, but we got the driver ready in a week like you asked" Management: "I want this card to have 3D and I want it done yesterday!" R+D: (unbridled rage)

[@RetroTechBytes]

Legitimately this is what it had to have been! Haha this got me good! Thank you for the kind words--I hope that you enjoyed!

[@dmtd2388]

the name says it by its self Rush they rushed it to fast to get it out and delivered trash

[@chrisducati26]

Great Review! At3d chip was intended to do the 2d job, everyone knew that it was broken for 3d back then. voodoo rush was the first combined vga of 3dfx just preparing the ground for Banshee and later for voodoo 3

[@RetroTechBytes]

Hey, thanks a million! Yeah, that's very true. It's still a fun "3D" card to explore! After all, they sold these things as "3D" capable cards, and it was Hercules of all companies doing the marketing! Anyway, thanks for the support and the kind words; I hope that you enjoyed!

[@blastfromthepast3073]

I did a sidegrade with a Jazz Adrenalin Rush in early 99 to replace a Riva128ZX. Because Riva was never able to Render Unreal Engine correctly. It was not a fast graphics Card but the 3D Imagequality was superb and much better than the original Voodoo Graphics. Im stil using a Voodoo Rush in my Retro machine. Thank you for great Review!

[@ozzyp97]

Considering how similar they are, I would think the perceived difference in image quality was mostly from the original Voodoo having a terrible default gamma setting. Just dropping that down to reasonable levels can do wonders to the look.

[@garhpd]

Love that the pentium pro is getting some screen time! they were hella underrated

[@temphandle01a]

I have to agree, the AT3D running Direct3D is indeed something.

[@jikissgamer]

I actually never knew thjs card was this slow! That Half-Life footage at the end was absolutely hilarious!!! I always thought the Rush was some sort of obscure 3dfx card that was on par with a banshee, I don't know why I thought that haha. Those AT3D chips were so slow too, the one I had in my Pentium was so bad I had to swap it out haha. Great video as always Will!

[@RetroTechBytes]

Thank you so much Rami! Yeah, it's kinda crazy just how slow the Rush is compared to a Voodoo 1! It's not so bad that it's unusable, but I'd have a hard time telling someone not to get a Voodoo 1, Voodoo 2, or Banshee PCI for a build over this thing. It's a neat looking card, and I'm sure that it has a use case somewhere, but it's not a definitive 3dfx product, unfortunately. As for that Half-Life footage, I swear that felt like a sin! It was SO bad and the audio was incredibly garbled--another lovely, lovely side-effect of whatever the AT3D does inside of a computer! The Rush definitely was a Rush-ed product (totally original, I know haha), but it's funny because for years I always thought the same. When I got this one a few years back and compared it to my old Banshee, I was so confused! But it makes sense--the Rush is a prototype of sorts for the Banshee I guess! As for the AT3D, oh lord they are SO bad, aren't they? It's amazing that the chip is so bad in 2D that the crappy acceleration is noticeable! That's when you know! And hey, thank you again for all the support, kindness, and friendship, as well as for all of the kind words! It means a heck of a lot to me, and I really do appreciate it more than you know!

[@BadManiac]

Really thorough and interesting video as usual! I have a Voodoo Rush too, had 3 but gave the others away. It's a pretty crap card, it never really gets used. But a suggestion for you, if you get the chance. Compare 4MB and 6MB (and 8MB if you can find one) Voodoo 1 cards. I have a 6MB Voodoo in my K6 233 "1997 MMX PC" and it absolutely flies. I'm currently putting together a test bed for those very early 3D cards. Inspired a lot by your ATI Rage Pro Turbo #GPUJune video, that card really surprized me. I've ordered a SGRam expansion for my card so I can test :)

[@RetroTechBytes]

Hey, thank you again for the kind words and for all the support! I can see why you gave the other two away; it really is a crap card, but it's fun to mess with now-and-again. I feel like a PCI Banshee is just better for all use cases, so it's hard to justify using the Rush these days! On that note, I'd love to do that! In all seriousness, I've always been fascinated by the odd V1s, but I only have a Guillemot Voodoo 1 and it's 4MB. I'd be interested to find an 8MB model, and I've seen the 6MB Miro and Canopus cards pop up now and again. The 8MB ones seem near impossible to find! And hey, I'm so glad to hear it! I'd love to see that! The ATI Rage Pro Turbo is just such a dream and a fun card! The 2D is sharp and crisp, the 3D is more than adequate, and the card is easy to find! Thanks again for all the kind words and support! It means far more than you know!

[@Bergwacht]

So for me with the rush, the games you show work really well, but I have the Macronix MX86251 rush. Tomb Raider 2 is also running great for me (mmx 200) at first I thought I had gotten the worse version of the card, apparently not. I'm actually happy with this card.

[@Androx74]

i had the mxic voodoo rush version and i remember i had played a lot of games on that and i find that fine for my needs at the time

[@Cmdr_Rhialto]

I read the reviews back in the day, so i never bought one, i bought the S220 instead. To this day, i still have a Voodoo 2 running though.

[@RetroTechBytes]

Hey, that's awesome! The S220 was a great move. I love that card and I can see why the reviews at the time would've led you there--they certainly led me there! The Voodoo 2 is a different story for sure, though. Anyway, thanks for checking my video out! I hope that you enjoyed it!

[@Cmdr_Rhialto]

@@RetroTechBytes it was, and it could be bios modded to a higher speed. I also owned a Banshee later on. Both got saled later on, now i whish i would still have them.

[@CaptainsWorkspace]

Thanks for a amazing video! :)

[@RetroTechBytes]

Hey, thank you for the kind words and I am just so glad that you enjoyed! Thank you for watching and for all of your support!

[@dantheman1998]

You also have to think about the Riva TNT which crushed this card in performance in 2D and 3D and only came out a year later. The riva was able to beat voodoo 2 performance. Also in 1997 the voodoo was basically done for because the voodoo 2 basically destroyed it in any form. Noone wanted a original voodoo.

[@kylejones8392]

Dang, I knew the Rush had its issues but I thought it was all related to performance!

[@RetroTechBytes]

Yeah, unfortunately the Rush just has a whole host of oddities. It's also just a really temperamental beast, not wanting to work in systems faster than a PII! But it's still a cool card, and because it's "unloved," there's more out there than there are V1s! Thanks for watching!

[@jeremygregorio7472]

I had one of these back in the day and it wasn't a bad value. You got three games in the box all which were pretty good and you got a really great 2D accelerator The downside was you took about a 10% hit versus a standalone 3D effects Voodoo

[@maxa.8230]

Untextured HL footage looks kinda cool, actually. Almost like RTX on lowest settings, if you squint your eyes.

[@hartsickdisciple]

The Banshee was what the Rush should've been.

[@albelerbay5638]

Nice Review! Had one of those back in the days. Brings back memories.Just wanted to add something tho, the pentium pro 200 is faster than a P233 MMX, with a few exceptions here and there.

[@RetroTechBytes]

Thank you so much for the kind words and support! So glad to hear that it was able to bring back some memories! As far as the PPro, that's true in 32-bit code for sure. In 16-bit stuff, it's a bit of a wash, but the PPro here was definitely flexing some muscle! I do think the newer platform of the P233MMX is nice to have and a bit more robust, especially in the guise of an HX or TX chipset, or even a SS7 chipset, but it's definitely neat to play with these things and explore them and see where they go!

[@Byte5]

Great video mate! That's the kind of content that I wish I had time to create for my channel (which is a brazilian retrotech channel). But enough about me, keep on doing your great work. Great channel BTW. And you got me subscribed, I am watching you, remember that! lol

[@RetroTechBytes]

Hey, thank you so much for the kind words! I absolutely appreciate them more than you know, and I am super glad to hear that you’re enjoying the channel! I definitely will not forget, trust me haha! I am going to go check out your channel for sure-always here to learn more and see some neat things! But hey, yeah, thanks again for stopping by, and I hope that you enjoy what’s yet to come!

[@JohnDoe-ip3oq]

The obsidian x-24 had the same problem when using high resolution textures vs dual SLI. It's just faster to use 2 cards. Which is dumb, since copying the workload should mean copying most of the bus transfer, but this perhaps would require a hypothetical bridge chip. That said, as long as textures didn't use more than the included VRAM, the obsidian ran fine. As for the rush, banshee was the better card, and ultimately the voodoo3.

[@ottoolsen9560]

well i had the voodoo 2 dual setup. and after this nvidia had made a good card. and the celeron 300A clocket at 500 and some hz became a thing. and the 3dfx was forgotten in a verry short time, they did not manage a second groundbraking card, but the voodoo 2 was, and they made several ok cards.

[@ianhanschen]

Rush was kind of a joke, Banshee less of a joke, they finally figured it all out with Voodoo 3.

[@RetroTechBytes]

Absolutely! Well said! The Banshee was getting there, and the Voodoo 3 was the card that everyone wanted. It was really a great "third time's the charm" story, and it shows even till this day with just how great that card is! Thank you, as always for your support!

[@Jan3Sobieski5]

Weren't there voodoo rush's that implemented a different 2d chip and not the at3d? I think it was some sort of MX chip. I wonder how that one compares to the at3d

[@modernandretrogaming]

Amazing card. AT3D is Troll-GPU that is just ideal for Willamette Celeron. Great work as always. Voodoo Rush can be better option if it can work with faster cpu's, first Voodoo don't want to work even with my Socket A MSI MS-6511 motherboard.

[@RetroTechBytes]

Thank you for the support and kind words, as always, my friend! The AT3D is the PERFECT troll card and I agree--ideal for a Willamette Celeron indeed! The Voodoo Rush is really weird about what CPU it wants to cooperate with. It locked up a Pentium III 600MHz system on an ASUS P2Z board, so I think it caps out at a Pentium II or so. I'm curious where the Voodoo 1 works with at max. Maybe an Athlon 1.0GHz or thereabouts? Either way, thank you again, good friend, for all your kind words and support!

[@modernandretrogaming]

@@RetroTechBytes I tried my Voodoo card on my 1700+ PC where I even set FSB to 100 Mhz and still card don't want to work there. Maybe one day I try that card with Athlon 950/Duron 1000 there. But on other side my AMD K6-2 400 is probably enough for Voodoo card.

[@aublak7492]

I found a Rush but it missing it's voltage regulator. Can someone help identify it for me? Or at least give me the markings on the component. I can't find a clear enough image anywhere.

[@RetroTechBytes]

What model Rush did you find? I can send you the markings from mine

[@aublak7492]

​@@RetroTechBytes Its an Intergraph Intense 3D Voodoo.

[@RetroTechBytes]

Vlask's page VGAMuseum has a high quality image here: vgamuseum.info/images/palcal/3dfx/503_intergraph_intense_3d_voodoo_msmt467_rev.b_top_hq.jpg. It looks to my terrible eyes to be an LM317T, but I could be wrong. Hopefully that's of some help! Let me know if I can dig anything else up for you.

[@aublak7492]

@@RetroTechBytes Yes. that will do it thanks.

[@RetroTechBytes]

@@aublak7492 No problem at all! Good luck and let me know if it works!

[@alexanderwhite8320]

I suspect AT3D have wrong driver for windows version. Have You tried different Win95 versions, like original, OSR1, OSR2 etc. Also Direct3D was crappy at that point in history, so probably different versions of DirectX 5 should be tested.

[@dmoney7301]

Question. Is there any hardware/software you would be interested in reviewing but do not have? I could contribute something for the channel.

[@RetroTechBytes]

Oh, wow, thank you so much for this! I am beyond words, seriously! I don’t know what to say, but if there’s anything you had in mind, I’d be interested for sure. I’m game to review anything, really! If you wouldn’t mind, could you email me at [e-mail] and we can chat about this some more? Thank you again for this incredible and beyond infinitely generous offer!

[@Falcon0BR]

They created a monster and didn't know how to make it work with rotten parts.

[@RetroTechBytes]

A true Frankenstein!

[@RuruFIN]

The AT3D makes ViRGE looks like a good product.

[@jimlkosmo5730]

The way you have organized information, going from one topic to another, then shuffling the card names back and forth needs fixing. Then you tested the at3d and i never understood if it was the at3d core portion of the voodoo rush or the other stand alone version. I'm guessing you added stuff to the video script in order to drag it to 30minutes...

[@AngelDemonn]

I can tell you why there was no mention of its performance in reviews. There was no standard in relation to 3D performance and how to measure it at the time yet. Please do not mention ZD 3D Winbench - this was used mostly (and only) by PC Magazine themselves. Wave of standartizing started with the release of Final Reality and 3D Mark99 after it.. And to everyone complaining about the speed of the AT25 in 2D - guys, at the time you were happy that you have local bus graphics card..almost all of them were fine for what 99% of the users did at the time in 2D

[@ToxicwasteProductions]

Is it possible you think to best half life with that card? 🤔

[@RetroTechBytes]

Perhaps someday! Maybe I’d stream it too…

[@ahah1785]

wow compared to todays gpu prices voodoo was dirt cheap....how in the hell did we end up here...

[@Ometecuhtli]

I think that was a rushed release

[@upgrade1373]

Abstract gaming

[@3dfxvoodoocards6]

Like

[@KabelkowyJoe]

Blabla bla bla. Im very talky person. But i get annoyed somehow. Maybe its because you layed out conclusions at the very beginning. Maybe because i already know how this might end. Although i dont know too much about Rush so i get interested. I step on this channel, seeking for some new interesting people and channels, not being 65scribe(best channel here, somehow?!), PixelPipes, vlaskcz, LGR, Phils.. But something is just.. not there i dont know. You are great, great voice, do good research, technically its perfect. Is't lack of music in background? Probably! Should fix that. Is't you repeating same sentences. Probably. You speak in such a way, as if surprise to be around the corner, hiding behind every word, in every sentence. Somehow it annoys me. Its like watching how i meet your mother. Dont do it. It doesnt work IMO. It would be much nicer if you go trough this smoothly, but instead give final answers at the end of video not at the beginning. Obviously i subscribed. And i think PixelPipes may worry about who gonna be next voice for future vlaskcz! videos.

[@RetroTechBytes]

Thank you for the kind words and for the support! I appreciate your feedback and am definitely taking this all into consideration. My later videos have music, and I am working on my dictation. I am a naturally shy person, so this is still new to me, but it’s been so much fun! Thank you for the support, and thanks again for the feedback!

[@pointblank722]

I have the Macronix version...Any difference?