3dfx Voodoo – Retro Gaming PC Build

sparrish 2021-08-17 21:04:08 +0000 UTC [ - ]

This brings back memories.

Wing Commander: Prophecy, Deus Ex

Paid way too much for a Voodoo card but got so much enjoyment from it.

The "American Megatrends" BIOS screenshot... good times.

shog_hn 2021-08-17 21:48:54 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Hell yeah, I actually won a copy of Wing Commander Prophecy on a local radio station competition. I think it was one of my first 'multi disc cdrom' games.

Quake 2 was one of the first games I loaded up after installing my card. The coloured lighting, smoothed textures and silky smooth framerate were just totally mindblowing for me at the time.

It was all enough to make me forget about the fact that I had a janky heatsink/fan assembly with the PC case lying on its side. I gamed like that for at least a year or so until I could get an upgraded motherboard with AGP slot to support newer cards.

pak9rabid 2021-08-17 21:13:46 +0000 UTC [ - ]

For Quake2, the two single best upgrades were my Voodoo2 and getting Cable Internet access (TimeWarner Roadrunner).

cyberge99 2021-08-17 21:06:33 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I paid $300 bucks or something for that video card.

Fond memories, though.

pak9rabid 2021-08-17 21:12:01 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Screw the Samsung SyncMaster, he needs a Sony Trinitron!

shog_hn 2021-08-17 21:54:54 +0000 UTC [ - ]

You convinced me to pull the trigger on an old one on ebay... My wife is not going to be happy when this arrives.

The SyncMaster will always have a special place in my heart though. Played many old DOS games on that from UFO: enemy unknown, to x-wing, tie fighter, and Ultima VIII. It went through many family PC upgrades and I inherited it. The 17" CRT started to get a bit more affordable in the era of the Pentium II, III and AMD K6-2/3 and I think it'll be a better pairing with the Voodoo 2 enabled system.

Koshkin 2021-08-17 22:07:09 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I will never forget how impressed I was when I installed a Voodoo3 2000 in a 100 MHz box. All of a sudden I had a supercomputer in front of me.

The card served me well for a number of years. Unreal looked amazing on it.

kobalsky 2021-08-17 22:01:20 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It was so sad seeing this page:

https://web.archive.org/web/20010118202800/http://www.3dfx.c...

I wonder why they were doing so bad comercially since in our microcosm voodoo cards were the best. It was a sad day when nvidia just bought and killed the brand.

tomnipotent 2021-08-17 23:19:26 +0000 UTC [ - ]

3dfx made a bad acquisition with STB, and decided to abandon the OEM route while NVIDIA/ATI embraced it. Lack of hardware T&L also made a big difference, so by Voodoo5 it just wasn't an appealing option for games like Quake 3 and Half-life. This was also the era when MS was really pushing DX, and 3dfx DX support was always lagging.

The Voodoo2 was the first PC peripheral I ever purchased, and I have fond memories playing the first Delta Force game with it. Was also the first box I wanted to keep like a trophy.

tym0 2021-08-18 10:04:41 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Wow, those bundled games are giving me flashbacks, I had totally forgotten that so many of the games of my childhood came with the Voodoo 2.

Evansbee 2021-08-17 22:08:09 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I would do this just to play starsiege: tribes.

dexterhaslem 2021-08-18 02:01:53 +0000 UTC [ - ]

well.. if you dont want to, you can download tribes1 archives preconfigured and ready to go on modern machines https://playt1.com/ (click on one of the configs)

atonse 2021-08-18 03:47:29 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Tribes was my life from 1998 to maybe 2002.