The Secret 3Dfx Graphics Card (You Never Knew Existed)

[@glenndoiron9317]

Velocity is the moniker used by STB to brand their video cards. 3dfx purchased STB shortly before they became bankrupt. This is actually just an OEM Voodoo3 card.

[@vardekpetrovic9716]

The purchase of STB is what killed off 3dfx. They stopped selling chips to other board makers.

[@IceCreamePudding]

I remember getting getting two dozen compaq's that all had this same specific 3dfx card at a recycling center. Wish I kept a few, was a long time ago.

[@0x1ED1CE]

As someone who is currently developing a 3dfx game, it's sad to see most of the velocity cards on Ebay are already being sold out 😭

[@markbauermeister5449]

I thought about adding 3dfx Glide support to my toy game engine, ever since I rediscovered my Voodoo 2 kit. Curious. How do you approach your game's development? Are there any good examples for the 3dfx Glide API on GitHub or elsewhere?

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Would love to learn more about your game!

[@SockyNoob]

This video will probably drive prices up lol.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

😂😭

[@eddiehimself]

I got a Creative 3D Blaster Banshee PCI card a couple of years ago. The nice thing is that it is a 3DFX Voodoo Banshee card for cheaper and with modern third-party software you can fix the V-sync not working bug that came with the original drivers.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Nice! The Banshee is one of the 3Dfx cards I don’t have! 😎

[@fakkel321]

i remember getting a Banshee card as a kid and that bug was annoying as hell. Hated that card

[@IrrationalExuberance]

My first hardware accelerated 3D / 3DFX API card! forced me to ditch this Cyrix CPU / Mobo I had and switch to a Pentium 233 and supporting Mobo

[@marnixvansintaldegonde1934]

Good tip, just bought one from eBay and will do the registry mod : )

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Awesome! Good luck!!

[@syrus3k]

Looks like a banshee off the bat. I remember getting my 4MB 3DFX card... absolute game changer. In fact, it changed gaming itself as far as I'm concerned.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Yep! It’s basically the Voodoo3 version of the Banshee. But with the registry hack I mentioned it runs really great! 100% agree on the game changing aspect of these cards. I had Voodoo 2 SLI back in the old days and it was *miles* ahead of anything else at the time.

[@Jabjabs]

Absolutely did! The leap out of the world of software rendering was wild! There is a reason why Quake 3 made it mandatory to have 3D card.

[@Azuris190]

Prices on Ebay go up in 1,2,3... :D

[@jamesfmackenzie]

😂

[@Azuris190]

@jamesfmackenzie Hmmm ooor, you did found a Box full of them and now comes the big Profit ;)

[@Mani-aX]

I remember Dell and some other OEM PC's coming with an STB Velocity card with 4MB of memory.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Very confusingly, STB made a lot of Velocity cards prior to being acquired by 3Dfx, including Riva 128 and S3 Virge varieties. I think both of those were 4MB! 😮

[@beardedgaming1337]

its so crazy the way computers used to work. i starred on MacOS 7.5 and got 98SE as a kid. did lots of registry stuff. but just adding a single stinrg to enable glide... fuckin nuts that that was even a thing

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Similar story on my side! I started on Atari and got a PC in the early 90s! Very grateful to 3Dfx for keeping the dual TMU support in the driver - so we can easily get it working again! 😎

[@vanderlinde4you]

Many chips where sold with disabled and often faulty parts. Are you sure this was not a disabled part sold off to STB who rebranded it as a different model?

[@jamesfmackenzie]

I believe STB was owned by 3Dfx at this point and did most of the manufacturing for the regular Voodoo3 too. So far, everything has worked well with 2 TMUs active - fingers crossed! 🙂

[@vanderlinde4you]

@@jamesfmackenzie Such things often did not meet quality standards. AMD did that too, reselling 750Mhz models as 550Mhz models, but it was obviously cheaper to make a faster model and rebrand it into a slower version. That explains also the bigger OC advantage of buying a lower end model.

[@maniatore2006]

Is not to find here in Gernany... Sadly. But for a round 180€ i get an Voodoo Banshee.. i think thats okay.. or the 3dfx Voodoo 3 2000 AGP for 124€

[@akuunreach]

Just use something like nGlide, unless you're just really into the history. (if you're wanting to play these older games)

[@federicocatelli8785]

These days it's easier 😋

[@martinsulak6366]

Of course Velocity AGP outperforms Voodoo PCI. It is because of the bus. I wonder if second TMU is disabled in DOS where there is no registry.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Great question! Some of the Glide registry keys also work when set as DOS environment variables (for example SET FX_GLIDE_NO_SPLASH=1, SET FX_GLIDE_SWAPINTERVAL=0). It’s possible the TMU key works as a DOS environment variable too.

[@BrassicGamer]

Nice! Did not know about the existence of this model.

[@3dfxvoodoocards6]

Excellent video. In 640x480 and 800x600 the performance of the Velocity 100 with the second TMU enabled is at the level of a Voodoo 3 2000 or even a little faster. But in 1024x768 because it only has 8 mb it is in many games slower or significantly slower than the Voodoo 3 2000.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Thanks for the kind words! I’m v impressed with the Velocity 100 - a great purchase! 😎

[@Empterdose]

> The prices are much more reasonable > $119 > $117 > $99 I remember people paying by the pound to dispose of computers with real Voodoo cards in 'em at the e-waste facility I worked at fifteen years ago. Collectors with too much money have ruined retro computing by letting eBay sellers get comfortable asking for ten times what these cards are worth.

[@eddiehimself]

As you said, that was 15 years ago. Those computers were going to e-waste, meaning that all those cards were scrapped and/or recycled for materials. Just because they were common and not seen as being worth anything *a decade and a half ago* doesn't mean they are now.

[@Aeduo]

Yeah I laughed at that haha. I'm sure market value is generally high but at some point one has to consider just what the actual worth of this stuff is haha. I guess some have a lot to blow on nostalgia even when the software has long been emulated. It's fun if it's able to put the stuff together with a small bit of cash on a whim, but there's no fun in it anymore now that it's speculated to hell.

[@eugenb9017]

Supply and demand. You cry because some old graphics cards are too expensive... What about housing? Many people cannot afford houses because there are a few rich people basically hoarding them and "investing" into them...

[@Aeduo]

@@eugenb9017 well yeah that should be obvious but maybe it isn't. It's a pretty obnoxious and harmful behavior that's reinforced at all levels.

[@eugenb9017]

@@Aeduo Harmful behavior? Let's say I have a Voodoo3 3000 for sale, but there's 20 people wanting to buy that card from me, what do you thing it will happen? The one willing to give the most will get it. The reverse is also true, try selling some entry level sk 775 cpu, an e2180 for example. There are A LOT of those, but nobody wants them, again, supply and demand.

[@jensdroessler3575]

Question is: If silicone and clocks are the same, why does it perform better than a regular Voodoo3?

[@jamesfmackenzie]

My guess is AGP vs PCI (my Voodoo3 2000 is PCI only)

[@jensdroessler3575]

@ Yes, that would do it. Did you mention that and I missed it?

[@harbinger200]

It would be nice if you could do a comparison of pcem17 Voodoo hardware emulation and real Voodoo cards. Does real hardware has advantage over hardware emulation?

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Great idea!

[@harbinger200]

@@jamesfmackenzie Oh man i would like to see that! Its a big factor in question "do i need to hunt for real hardware?".

[@zo1dberg]

That heatsink - Should've gone to SpecSavers.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

😂

[@SkipsHappyHour]

Just curious what motherboard and processor you are using on this? Thanks

[@jamesfmackenzie]

It’s a QDI P6V694X/A10F, along with a Pentium III at 933MHz 😎

[@SkipsHappyHour]

@@jamesfmackenzie Awesome

[@Aeduo]

Maybe someone could figure out how to mod more RAM on to it. Might be down to soldering chips on top of the existing ones then connecting some address/select pins kinda like the xbox mods.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

I think it should be doable! Especially since the card can be flashed with a modified Voodoo3 2000 bios 😎

[@PhoticSneezeOne]

And now lets solder 16mb RAM to it ;)

[@jamesfmackenzie]

That would be a nice project! 😎

[@stevenewman9290]

What's the name of the F1 game shown in the beginning?

[@thewhyzer]

"As we all know, 3dfx Voodoo Cards are highly sought after." I didn't know this! So my Pure 3d Voodoo 1 card in a box in a closet somewhere (unless it got lost complete) is worth something? No clue if it works or not, haven't used it since like the year 2000-2001 or so.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Yes indeed! Especially in box!

[@thewhyzer]

@@jamesfmackenzie I'll have to look to see if I still have the card, but there's absolutely no way I still have the box! I do have the original drivers CD though :) I wonder if in 15 years my GTS 250 will be valuable too...

[@markbauermeister5449]

When I was in Middle School I bought a Creative 3D Voodoo 2 in box with a bunch of other stuff for 50 bucks. Now that card in box is apparently worth 200-300 on its own

[@lemagreengreen]

I had heard of the Velocity 100 but never saw one in the wild, even back then. Did not know it was a Voodoo3 2000! Can it maybe be flashed with a Voodoo3 2000 BIOS? not that it's necessary of course if the only thing you need to do is change a registry key :)

[@jamesfmackenzie]

It can be! And then you can use any regular Voodoo3 drivers 😎 Check out this thread on Vogons: www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=93073

[@IrrationalExuberance]

How well does this run 2d in Win 3.11? (drivers and such)

[@GeomancerHT]

Is made? was made? is still being made? very confusing for foreign people...

[@bryndal36]

Was made, back in 1999-2000. 3DFX went bankrupt back in 2001 and were bought up by Nvidia.

[@3dfxvoodoocards6]

The 3dfx Velocity 100 (with the second TMU enabled) was by far the fastest budget card of 1999. But people preferred to buy the (slower) TNT2 M64 because it had 16 or 32 mb while the (faster) Velocity 100 only had 8 mb. They thought that a 16 or 32 mb card (TNT2 M64) will surely be faster than an 8 mb one (Velocity 100), which was totally wrong.

[@jensdroessler3575]

@@3dfxvoodoocards6 I think people were more worried about the future when 8mb wouldn‘t be enough anymore. Same as today. 8Gb is enough at the moment, but I wouldn‘t buy a new card with only 8Gb anymore.

[@axescar]

Pff. It's 3dfx voodoo3 1000 and it's no secret

[@jamesfmackenzie]

V3 1000 has more RAM and lower clocks vs the Velocity 100 😎

[@axescar]

@jamesfmackenzie My Bad. When it was selling in my country I didnt saw any 16Mb variant. Just checked techpowerup - you're right

[@DamuDamu-t4g]

Could you get steam to run on the raspberry pi 5?

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Not yet! But maybe in the next video 😎

[@microlinux]

You can try FEX or box64, Hangover (a wine fork made for arm64) as another alternative to run Windows stuff with built-in box64 and FEX. The main constraint will be not being able to use dxvk, but if you use a discrere GPU, you should be able to use it.

[@NetrunnerAT]

AGP is only a PCI Bus on steroids. With a PCI 2 PCI-E its possible. 😉 AGP is Backwards compatible to nativ PCI 😁

[@zeke7100]

Nahhhhh why pay any more than $50 for these when I could just get a really low old GPU and plug it into a free PCIE slot. Then run a VM on windows xp or something and a cpu limiter and you're good to go.

[@johns3655]

Glide is just different on some games