LGR Tech Tales - 3Dfx & Voodoo's Self-Destruction
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Date: 2022-04-14
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Comments and reviews: 10
Playtech
I will leave my personal opinion about it. I did not have the privilege of having a Voodoo in those days. I had a Crative Graphic Blaster 3D that was useless. That said, I don't know if there were more than 10 good games that required only glide and didn't support direct3D or opengl to look good, (For me those games were: Screamer Rally, NFS 2 SE, Tomb Raider, Carmageddon II, The rest I don't care too much, Unreal (for me was better tech demo, than a good game, Im a quake guy, Clive Barker's Undying, Descent saga, Rune were good but not my type of game) many of the other games that required glide were mediocre or bad games. The story of 3dfx and glide had the duration of a sigh in the history of video games. Everything changed very quickly, glide stopped being used, opengl and direct3D became leaders, and an ultra TNT2 became excellent, then the first GeForce put the last nail in the 3dfx coffin. Today these graphics cards are in terrible overpricing. Luckily we have nglide that runs on Windows 98 and solves this problem with a good GeForce. For me it is not worth spending on that hardware to enjoy a few games. It does not mean that I do not understand the nostalgia that these graphic cards generate and possibly if I had one in those times, I would like to have one, or just out of curiosity I would have one to briefly experiment with real hardware.
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I will leave my personal opinion about it. I did not have the privilege of having a Voodoo in those days. I had a Crative Graphic Blaster 3D that was useless. That said, I don't know if there were more than 10 good games that required only glide and didn't support direct3D or opengl to look good, (For me those games were: Screamer Rally, NFS 2 SE, Tomb Raider, Carmageddon II, The rest I don't care too much, Unreal (for me was better tech demo, than a good game, Im a quake guy, Clive Barker's Undying, Descent saga, Rune were good but not my type of game) many of the other games that required glide were mediocre or bad games. The story of 3dfx and glide had the duration of a sigh in the history of video games. Everything changed very quickly, glide stopped being used, opengl and direct3D became leaders, and an ultra TNT2 became excellent, then the first GeForce put the last nail in the 3dfx coffin. Today these graphics cards are in terrible overpricing. Luckily we have nglide that runs on Windows 98 and solves this problem with a good GeForce. For me it is not worth spending on that hardware to enjoy a few games. It does not mean that I do not understand the nostalgia that these graphic cards generate and possibly if I had one in those times, I would like to have one, or just out of curiosity I would have one to briefly experiment with real hardware.
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Mithra
its weird how you can lose your compagny when you have million of buyer, a good product in advance. The monopolistic idea create communism, They dont create a standard of quality for the compagny They just canibalise them. its too extrem, ok The monopolistic idea so absolutist around the capitalism is a zombi when He destroys job and an healthy world of competition. The finality of the Capitalism destroy job and dont protect a quality standard, its easy to demonstrate that. Who prefer a good end than only a nice evolution through a good process? At End when NVDIA bought 3dfx, it could at least have continued to sell and valu the existing ancient cards created by 3dfx, why to refuse this profit? They were the owners of all of this in 2001, then no shame was possible in admitting that Voodoo serie was good and the Spectre card was the good progression of that.
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its weird how you can lose your compagny when you have million of buyer, a good product in advance. The monopolistic idea create communism, They dont create a standard of quality for the compagny They just canibalise them. its too extrem, ok The monopolistic idea so absolutist around the capitalism is a zombi when He destroys job and an healthy world of competition. The finality of the Capitalism destroy job and dont protect a quality standard, its easy to demonstrate that. Who prefer a good end than only a nice evolution through a good process? At End when NVDIA bought 3dfx, it could at least have continued to sell and valu the existing ancient cards created by 3dfx, why to refuse this profit? They were the owners of all of this in 2001, then no shame was possible in admitting that Voodoo serie was good and the Spectre card was the good progression of that.
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Jickmady
It was really sad to see them go. At the time, their graphics rendering technology and chipsets were cutting edge. To this day, back in 1999 I recall the Quake III Demo had a Mac OS GLide 3dfx version which produced AMAZING visual effects. I still believe they look better than what technology gave us five to eight years later. I still have a Mac OS PCI Voodoo 5 5500 card waiting to be built up into a retro AGP G4 Powermac OS9 gaming machine- I even have a system than has an SSD that amazingly works in OS9 and also a 2GHz XPC 7445 (rated at 1. 6GHz but the thing seems to do fine with a modified heatsink/fan setup and voltage CFG resistor settings altered. One of these days whilst the worldwide pandemic induced lockdown has me seeing lots of free time, I will set the system up to be a dedicated Quake I/II and Unreal 3dfx-enabled retro gaming machine.
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It was really sad to see them go. At the time, their graphics rendering technology and chipsets were cutting edge. To this day, back in 1999 I recall the Quake III Demo had a Mac OS GLide 3dfx version which produced AMAZING visual effects. I still believe they look better than what technology gave us five to eight years later. I still have a Mac OS PCI Voodoo 5 5500 card waiting to be built up into a retro AGP G4 Powermac OS9 gaming machine- I even have a system than has an SSD that amazingly works in OS9 and also a 2GHz XPC 7445 (rated at 1. 6GHz but the thing seems to do fine with a modified heatsink/fan setup and voltage CFG resistor settings altered. One of these days whilst the worldwide pandemic induced lockdown has me seeing lots of free time, I will set the system up to be a dedicated Quake I/II and Unreal 3dfx-enabled retro gaming machine.
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Kira
This has become one of the 10 videos I return to every year, and It's not even 1/4th as long as the others. It's just one of those historic events that completely baffles me, 1 idiot managed to sink a market titan in 1 year. For a company that big, -car crash- doesn't cut it, that's like smashing a pair of rockets together all you see is a blur and then an explosion and subsequent spray of metal shards upon collision.
At age 5 it made me distrust my own memory, because I could've sworn my uncle was bragging about his SLI Voodoo 3 2000s to his friends the year before and them seeming quite impressed with it, then next time I looked suddenly this great company was just gone like a vague dream.
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This has become one of the 10 videos I return to every year, and It's not even 1/4th as long as the others. It's just one of those historic events that completely baffles me, 1 idiot managed to sink a market titan in 1 year. For a company that big, -car crash- doesn't cut it, that's like smashing a pair of rockets together all you see is a blur and then an explosion and subsequent spray of metal shards upon collision.
At age 5 it made me distrust my own memory, because I could've sworn my uncle was bragging about his SLI Voodoo 3 2000s to his friends the year before and them seeming quite impressed with it, then next time I looked suddenly this great company was just gone like a vague dream.
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Lander1
My first GPU was a voodoo 1 in a 90Mhz PC, then traded that in for a discount on a dual-voodoo 2 SLI setup on an IBM 300Mhz. That looked good on paper but was actually an absolute pig of a machine, with a 300Mhz IBM CPU it was smack bang in the middle of useless territory, to fast to be good for the older games, too slow to play the newer games, and largely incompattible with pretty much everything (the voodoo 2 cards were great, the IBM CPU was IMO an absolute lemon, it was painfully picky in what it would run. Soon after upgraded that for an Intel P500 with a Matrox G400 Dual Head Max, this was my best pc yet and lasted for almost 2 decades before eventually dying from bad PSU caps.
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My first GPU was a voodoo 1 in a 90Mhz PC, then traded that in for a discount on a dual-voodoo 2 SLI setup on an IBM 300Mhz. That looked good on paper but was actually an absolute pig of a machine, with a 300Mhz IBM CPU it was smack bang in the middle of useless territory, to fast to be good for the older games, too slow to play the newer games, and largely incompattible with pretty much everything (the voodoo 2 cards were great, the IBM CPU was IMO an absolute lemon, it was painfully picky in what it would run. Soon after upgraded that for an Intel P500 with a Matrox G400 Dual Head Max, this was my best pc yet and lasted for almost 2 decades before eventually dying from bad PSU caps.
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bangell95129
God the early days at 3dfx was wild. People worked hard and played hard. I remember the software team having quake lan play at 2 in afternoon and the electric guitar playing in the dungen(area were we worked which was a converted loading dock. The hole 8 which we were next to on the golf course and having to hit the floor when a golf ball would come flying in. There there was an alpha blender in the break room for Friday mudslides. I remember the sw team sleeping under their desks as they were so engrossed in what they were doing they wouldn-t go home for days. Thank you for showing the products we worked on
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God the early days at 3dfx was wild. People worked hard and played hard. I remember the software team having quake lan play at 2 in afternoon and the electric guitar playing in the dungen(area were we worked which was a converted loading dock. The hole 8 which we were next to on the golf course and having to hit the floor when a golf ball would come flying in. There there was an alpha blender in the break room for Friday mudslides. I remember the sw team sleeping under their desks as they were so engrossed in what they were doing they wouldn-t go home for days. Thank you for showing the products we worked on
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Ridley
When Voodoo 2 (or was it 3) was in its hey day I ran a computer business building PC's for customers in the local area. One Xmas the Voodoo 3 was hugely popular and I took lots of orders for PC's with them inside.
Problem was everyone was ordering them so distributors were out of stock. I took to driving all across the SE UK going from one branch of a large game retailer buying all of their stock.
I was eventually banned, so I had to send a co worker out. Who was eventually banned: -)
Made a LOT of money that Xmas so thanks 3dfx and I will raise a glass to you tonight.
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When Voodoo 2 (or was it 3) was in its hey day I ran a computer business building PC's for customers in the local area. One Xmas the Voodoo 3 was hugely popular and I took lots of orders for PC's with them inside.
Problem was everyone was ordering them so distributors were out of stock. I took to driving all across the SE UK going from one branch of a large game retailer buying all of their stock.
I was eventually banned, so I had to send a co worker out. Who was eventually banned: -)
Made a LOT of money that Xmas so thanks 3dfx and I will raise a glass to you tonight.
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yorgle11
I remember going into a computer store shortly after Christmas 2000, looking for a Geforce2 MX card. I was surprised how many people I saw rushing to buy the 3Dfx Voodoo5 and Voodoo4 cards on clearance. At the time I thought those people were silly.
Today my Geforce2 MX is worthless. A Voodoo5 is worth serious money.
It's not only because it's 3Dfx's final product. It's also because it's the fastest card that can run native Glide. -Anything- that runs native Glide is rising in value today, but the Voodoo5 is at the top of that list and gets the -best of breed- premium.
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I remember going into a computer store shortly after Christmas 2000, looking for a Geforce2 MX card. I was surprised how many people I saw rushing to buy the 3Dfx Voodoo5 and Voodoo4 cards on clearance. At the time I thought those people were silly.
Today my Geforce2 MX is worthless. A Voodoo5 is worth serious money.
It's not only because it's 3Dfx's final product. It's also because it's the fastest card that can run native Glide. -Anything- that runs native Glide is rising in value today, but the Voodoo5 is at the top of that list and gets the -best of breed- premium.
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Jay
My Voo Doo story; Saved up for a Voo Doo 5500 AGP, went to Comp USA it was on sale for $200. 00 less! (because of the fall of 3Dfx) Brought it home played Half Life until I lost my apartment. 2002 was a tough year. Couldn't use Maya because the OGL dll was busted and realized I had bought a lemon (I always bought hardware for Graphics before games. Used nVidia cards for years until HL2 came out and Gaben said it worked best on ATI cards. Then it was discovered that nVIDIA cards ran HL2 better, went back to nVIDIA and here we are today. Now nVIDIA sucks as a company.
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My Voo Doo story; Saved up for a Voo Doo 5500 AGP, went to Comp USA it was on sale for $200. 00 less! (because of the fall of 3Dfx) Brought it home played Half Life until I lost my apartment. 2002 was a tough year. Couldn't use Maya because the OGL dll was busted and realized I had bought a lemon (I always bought hardware for Graphics before games. Used nVidia cards for years until HL2 came out and Gaben said it worked best on ATI cards. Then it was discovered that nVIDIA cards ran HL2 better, went back to nVIDIA and here we are today. Now nVIDIA sucks as a company.
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CHRISMENENDEZ
I always thought 3dfx became nVidia. 3dfx and ATI were the only -recognizable- brands of video cards around here, and I only heard about nVidia around the turn of the millennium when 3dfx disappeared.
You should do a Tech Tales on Superscape. They were pioneers in 3D interactive virtual worlds in the mid-1990s and fell into obscurity in the 2000s. I noticed in some of your videos that you use an old benchmark app from them, so maybe you could dig into their history and fate. It's just a suggestion tho. Thanks in advance if you consider this.
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I always thought 3dfx became nVidia. 3dfx and ATI were the only -recognizable- brands of video cards around here, and I only heard about nVidia around the turn of the millennium when 3dfx disappeared.
You should do a Tech Tales on Superscape. They were pioneers in 3D interactive virtual worlds in the mid-1990s and fell into obscurity in the 2000s. I noticed in some of your videos that you use an old benchmark app from them, so maybe you could dig into their history and fate. It's just a suggestion tho. Thanks in advance if you consider this.
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