Topic: I just got a Voodoo 2!

[Grey Ninja]

Alright, I am sure you are all wondering why I am thrilled to have just paid real money for a 5 year old video card.  It's a long story, so I should probably start from the beginning.

In the old days, 3dfx cards (Voodoo) were the best around.  They had their own API (Glide), and they were fast and looked great.  My first "real" 3D accelerator was a Voodoo 3 2000 PCI, as I was broke, and not too into PC gaming.  However, the card performed marvelously.  I could play Wing Commander Prophecy in all its Glide splendor, and Need For Speed High Stakes ran with a beauty and a silky smoothness like you wouldn't believe.  My Pentium 120 was finally able to run new games at 60fps, and look just as good as the ultra-modern Pentium IIs.    I would regularly be able to play games that would list a Pentium 166 or even a 233 as a minimum system requirement.

However, my mother's computer was a storebought computer while my own was home-made.  Needless to say, my computer ran a fair bit better, but it seemed that her computer was a certified lemon.  It would crash regularly, and the problem wasn't only the newfangled Windows 95 that was installed on it.  After months of trying to track down the bug, I eventually found that her computer's stability was greatly increased with my Voodoo 3 card installed.  With great reluctance, I offered her a chance to trade video cards.  I would take her nVidia TNT, and she would get my Voodoo 3.  I did get a fee for it, in the form of more memory, and an upgraded hard drive, but I always missed my Voodoo 3.  I was no longer able to use glide, and the TNT just wasn't very fast.

As time went on, new technology came out, and my computer evolved into a celeron 600, and I came across a GeForce 3 when the card came out.  In spite of the clear performance gain that I had over my computer as it was in the old days, I still missed my Voodoo 3.  Not being able to use glide still pained me, and wrappers just didn't do it justice.  My computer evolved further, and I learned to live without glide.

However, a friend of mine recently lost his computer due to a motherboard failure, and bought an entirely new one from the store.  Knowing that he had a Voodoo 2 card in his computer, I jumped at the chance to buy it off him.  So, $20 poorer, I plugged in my "new" video card, and saw the 3dfx logo pop up on my screen for the first time in years.  Not having any of my old glide games installed, I was playing Gran Turismo 2 with Lewpy's glide GPU plugin.  The smoothness and the beauty of the game running on the Voodoo2 truly does 3dfx justice.  I did experience a few frame drops, but I think that my GeForce 3 has been retired from PSX emulation in favor of a 5 year old video card.    I may buy another Voodoo 2 off ebay at some point, and link the two in SLI, but right now I am just happy to have glide support again.  The API may be long dead and buried, but it's still loved by all of 3dfx's fans, and a testament to that may be found when I went out to seek Windows XP voodoo drivers.  So many coders had written Voodoo drivers for Windows XP, and so many people had downloaded each and every one that it brought a tear to my eye.

Anyways, a toast to 3dfx!  May their memory live on forever.

[Gamefreak]

Best around? The best TNT2 cards beat the crap out of Voodoo2's. I was a major videophile back then too...I don't care about cards so much anymore. I'm happy with my Geforece 4 Ti 4400 and won't really care about new cards until I can't run everything smoothly at 1024x768. Of course now I run everything at 1280x1024 minimum...

Anyway, TNT2 owned Voodoo Yes Voodoos were the best, only until TNT's and to a bigger extent TNT2's came around. And by the time the GeForce 256 hit Voodoo's were all but crap.

[Smithy]

I know what you mean Grey Ninja. My first 3D card was a Diamond made Voodoo 2 12MB model. I remember buying the OEM version for $212 online. To this date it is the best video card I have ever owned. For the money I paid for it and the length of time it lasted was well worth it. Not to mention it was widely supported back then.

As for the TNT's, the Voodoo 2 graphics always looked much better, especially for Quake 2. If you had 2 Voodoo 2's hooked up in SLI they would easily beat out a TNT. Sure it costed alot for SLI but it was the fastest thing out for a long time. TNT only marginally beat the Voodoo 2 speed wise, but the Voodoo 2 still looked better on screen.

I do miss 3DFx. Probably because Quake 2 was one of my favorite games and it ran awesome with Glide.

[Grey Ninja]

Smithy.  I hear ya.  It's good to know that many still remember the good old days of 3dfx

Quote
Originally posted by: Gamefreak
Best around? The best TNT2 cards beat the crap out of Voodoo2's. I was a major videophile back then too...I don't care about cards so much anymore. I'm happy with my Geforece 4 Ti 4400 and won't really care about new cards until I can't run everything smoothly at 1024x768. Of course now I run everything at 1280x1024 minimum...

Anyway, TNT2 owned Voodoo Yes Voodoos were the best, only until TNT's and to a bigger extent TNT2's came around. And by the time the GeForce 256 hit Voodoo's were all but crap.

Yes, the TNT2 cards would beat the crap out of the Voodoo2 cards.  I guess that's what happens when the TNT2 comes out a year after the Voodoo2.    It was the TNT that went head to head with the Voodoo2, and got its butt handed to it speedwise.  The only real problem with the Voodoo 2 was that it wouldn't do 2D graphics.  Of course that's its real selling point these days, as we don't want the hassle of switching cables every time we want to use it.  

The Voodoo3 was the TNT2's direct competitor, and they were about evenly matched for the most part.  The Voodoo3's glide support was what really made it the superior card though.  For appropriately programmed games, it would be millions of times better than the TNT2.

The Voodoo5 of course is still a primo card.  There is no question that it was a far superior card to the GeForce 256.  Ebay sells Voodoo5 6000s from time to time.  They usually sell for more than $2000 USD.

But as for the TNT2 beating out the Voodoo2... I find something interesting.  We all know that a GeForce3 is faster than a TNT2 right?  I am getting BETTER performance out of my Voodoo2 in some cases than out of my GeForce3.  

[AngusPodgorny]

I'm happy for you.  The first time I saw GLQuake running on a Voodoo I nearly soiled myself.  I had to have one.  It was a gaming epiphany.

The thing I really liked about about the Voodoo 1 and 2 was the way they were implemented in Linux.  Because it was a separate card from your VGA card, it had it's own device node and you could run glide programs straight to the metal.  It was the only fast way to game on Linux until DRI came along years later.

I still have my Canopus Pure3D, in fact.  I passed it on to my grandfather when it got too old, but it recently came into my possession when he bought a new PC.

-Angus

[Gamefreak]

That is because some older games do not run well on newer video cards because of the way they are coded. And some old games, like Total Annihilation, are actually software rendered so only the CPU matters.

Oh, and I meant TNT2's beat the crap out of Voodoo3's, must not been thinking right. I had one of them Diamond Viper V770's, they all got rave reviews. Yeah, the original TNT wasn't as good.  

[Jdub03]

I just got a geforce3 by nvidia.  I havent installed it yet so I dont know how it is.  Anybody know how good it is...with new and old games?

[Grey Ninja]

I have one, and I just responded to the PM you sent me.    It performs well with all games.

GameFreak, I would still take a Voodoo3 above a TNT2 any day of the week.    Those who owned Voodoo3 cards would know what I am talking about.  Those cards should have been illegal they were so much fun.  And let's not forget the weird resolutions that nVidia cards don't support such as... 960x720?  (Is that right?  It's been a while, but I MISS that resolution)  

[Gamefreak]

My friend had a Voodoo3...It simply wasn't as powerful. Sure they were fun, but I prefer to run at higher resolutions and keep a steady frame rate.

As for GeForce3, it depends on if yours is a Ti or and MX. If it's an MX, well you made the wrong move, they suck bigtime. A Geforce3 MX has about as much power as a Geforce...
If you have a Ti, they all's fine, you should be able to run all but the most taxing games at about 1024x768 with most effects turned on/high depending on how the rest of your system is.  

[Grey Ninja]

*coughcough*  There is no GeForce3 MX....

Anyways, I don't really care about uber-high resolutions, if I can run the game smoothly, and with a fair amount of detail and effects, I am happy.  I am not much of a graphics whore at all.

[Gamefreak]

Oh yeah that's right, they canceled it.

There WAS a Geforce3 MX, originally they planned to have a Geforce3 MX and Geforce3 Ultra...

[Grey Ninja]

Well, I hadn't heard about that.  They must have cancelled it really early on in the planning stages.  There's 3 models of GeForce.

GeForce3 Ti200 - Lowest clock and memory speeds.
GeForce3          - First model released.  Average speed.
GeForce3 Ti500 - Highest clock and memory speeds on a GeForce3 card.

I have a GeForce3 Ti200, but I can overclock it to almost a Ti500 level.  Unfortunately, I recently discovered that the fan on the card died.  It seems to run fine without it, but I might take it back to the store soon, as I have an extended warranty on the card.  (I intended to bring that into use if I ever fried the video card through too much overclocking.)

[Gamefreak]

Actually, I remember a news announcement saying something along the lines of "geforce 3 MX and Ultra to be released in a few weeks"... Maybe the just renamed it.

[Darc Requiem]

Quote
Originally posted by: Grey Ninja
I have one, and I just responded to the PM you sent me.    It performs well with all games.

GameFreak, I would still take a Voodoo3 above a TNT2 any day of the week.    Those who owned Voodoo3 cards would know what I am talking about.  Those cards should have been illegal they were so much fun.  And let's not forget the weird resolutions that nVidia cards don't support such as... 960x720?  (Is that right?  It's been a while, but I MISS that resolution)

Sorry Grey I have to disagree with you to a certain extent. The TNT2 was superior to the Voodoo 3. I had a Voodoo 3 back and the day and my best friend had a TNT2. Our systems were identical except for the video card....actually I had a K6-2 333mhz and he had a K6-2 300mhz...anyway he always got superior performance on most games. The only games that ran better on my system were the ones that were basically Glide only. Those games were few and far between by then and with the waning dominance of 3dfx by this point more and more games were using OpenGL and DirectX. And even the games that did run better on my system had inferior video quality and there was no support for 32-bit color only 16-bit color. I still remember the lame interview with 3dfx when asked about the lack of 32 bit color on Voodoo 3 "...but we have emulated 21-bit color..." WTF

Darc Requiem

[Uncle Rich AiAi]

Ah, the memories.  The Voodoo3 was my first 3D card.  It's still sitting in my parents old IBM computer (PII 350), collecting dust.  I have a GeForce3 now.

Grey Ninja, is the Voodoo really better than my GeForce3 for PSX emulator?  Or only for certain games?

[Gamefreak]

Also, the reason I bought a TNT2 Ultra over a Voodoo3 was because every single review I read said the TNT2 owned, and the Voodoo3 was merely good.

[Grey Ninja]

Quote
Originally posted by: AiAi
Ah, the memories.  The Voodoo3 was my first 3D card.  It's still sitting in my parents old IBM computer (PII 350), collecting dust.  I have a GeForce3 now.

Grey Ninja, is the Voodoo really better than my GeForce3 for PSX emulator?  Or only for certain games?

A Voodoo card is better overall I think.  The framerate is better and more constant than with a GeForce card.  I can't do 2XSAI (plugin doesn't implement it... yet) or FSAA (not implemented on Voodoo cards until Voodoo4) on my Voodoo card, but in some ways, that's a good thing.  2D games look fantastic anyways, even without 2XSAI, and I don't really care about jaggies anyways.  I would rather have the extra framerate.  The FMV also looks better on a Voodoo.

The most challenging game to emulate though, is of course Xenogears.  It's a little TOO demanding for the Voodoo2, and I still have to run that with my GeForce3.  The framebuffer effects are too slow on my Voodoo2, and the game pushes an insane amount of polygons.

The games I primarilly tested though, were Gran Turismo 2 (solid 60fps), Final Fantasy Origins (solid 60fps), and Breath of Fire 3 (solid 60fps)

All tested games ran just fine, and looked great.  The extra smoothness I got from playing it with Glide made it worth the small drop in image quality moving from the OpenGL plugin.

Quote
Also, the reason I bought a TNT2 Ultra over a Voodoo3 was because every single review I read said the TNT2 owned, and the Voodoo3 was merely good.

Bah.  They said the same thing about Lost Kingdoms.  

I loved my Voodoo3, as well as many other people.  I would trade a TNT2 for a Voodoo3 any day of the week.  The card was just something special.  Only someone who worked with it for a long period of time before switching to nVidia would understand though...