I'm throwing this in here because I had a lot to drink tonight and it really doesn't have much to do with anything really other then old times... *Reminder-with spell check* I had much to drink tonight....
When the 5500 first came out, I paid 179$ (US) after it was out a month or two.
I remember when it first hit, I was working at FuncoLand (they got bought out by Gamestop- one of the best places that I've ever worked at- Funco before the switch). I had just really started getting into pc's and although I had a V2 at the time, it really didn't mean much as I didn't understand what Glide was and having a need for a specific video card.
The DreamCast from Sega had just hit and there was all kinds of rumors about Sega and 3DFX. When it hit our selves without a 3DFX chip in it, it was news to all of us (ok, well maybe just me as I had just gotten into gaming).
And then I met EverCrack... err EverQuest. It was the game that Warcraft took over but it was the first game that supported Glide that I could really see a difference between my V2 and V5 and when you launched the game and got the Voodoo logo, it was cool as hell. The spinning 3DFX logo.
It just amazes me, I went a friends house, he was playing Delta Force, it didn't support Glide, and it was beyond pixalated. I had V3 3000 at that point and could tell where the enemy AI was at 3k Ft from me because of how pixalated it was.
After two years of EQ at that point and "upgrading" to a Radeon 64 meg card, a Kyro II 64 meg (which they should have built on) and even after a Radeon 8500 128 meg card, the visual's can't be denied, the V5 looked just as good if not better.
I'm not going to deny Nvidia for taking over the competition however had they supported the 3dfx users a little more at that time and maybe even lied about what 3DFX tech they "might" put in future cards would have helped. What they did with a close the door policy was basically say "F*ck you".
At that point, you created a competition board and a life long ATI fan. Suck it, Nvidia.
Sorry this all came about because our new Help Desk person is 21 and doesn't even know what the Atari 2600 is or 8-tracks.... Damn, am I old.....
3DFX, what is that?.......... There is the "What is Windows 3.1?".......
.... hmmmm.....