Well, Longhorn is currently in development (as everyone must know) of its new Windows Graphics Foundation technology, which will replace DirectX as we know it.

For more infor on WGF 1.0 and 2.0, see here: -

http://www.falconfly-central.de/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=news;action=display;num=1122394221


As Longhorn will be purely designed for 64-bit systems, this pushes us 3dfx gamers further and further away from using our 3dfx technology in newer systems to play the latest games.  If this is not the case already, it will be in about 18 months.  :(

So what do we think?  What needs to be done?  Do we need to start looking at 64-bit drivers, or are we destined to fall behind and having to settle with playing old games on legacy systems if we continue to use 3dfx cards?

Your thoughts please.  :)

Well Janskjaer I did have a topic running about WinXP 64 drivers for our Voodoo's , which is located over here:

http://www.falconfly-central.de/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=drivers;action=display;num=1119996586;start=15#15

I think it's not worth it, our cards lack alot onwhich the newer cards have,like FalconFly Mentioned before:

" I'm afraid none of above would improve performance, since the VSA-100 core would still suffer from its internal Triangle Setup bottleneck.

That's the reason it wouldn't scale a bit, the available AthlonXP Platforms already completely maxxed out the Voodoo5's internal potential.

At present, one could increase CPU performance by a factor of 10, and observe (at best) a 5-10% increase in resulting end performance."

Come on - I mean it's bad enough that we have to use the V5500 (or for lucky people with the 6000) in Windows XP (i.e. - RAM Pacman). ::)

Imagine the resources that Vista will EAT! :P

I suppose it's not all about the performance.  But about the compatability.

This can be a great convenience to those who only have one system, or can only use one native OS.

In the end, I think those that really want to continue running 3dfx cards will have to do so in a seperate legacy rig running a more well-suited OS like Windows 98 SE or Windows 2000.

ye4ps that's right, I have Win2K pro on my AXP 2700+ with Voodoo5 5500 AGP and Win98SE on my 8 year old K6-2 500 with a Voodoo3 3000 AGP :) runs perfectly, I think WinXP 64 and Win Vista isn't possible because glide isn't supported in those OS'es, XP Pro was the last to support glide I think dunno about Win2K3

It can be difficult to determine whether Glide would operate, especially without drivers.  But you never know ...

I mean I can still get Argonaut BRender to render some of it's tech demos in Windows XP, when no BRender tech demos have not been produced since we when everyone was running Windows 95.  :)  Now that was also a good API.

oh man just imagine if 3dfx was still alive we could of had Glide64 ! :D man that's would of been cool :D

I don't think there would have been no advantage or performance gain in solely allowing the Glide API to run on 64-bit systems.  Only the 64-bit CPU's would show any evidence of that, not the 3dfx cards itself.

It's what the API can do that counts.  ;)

Glide's own rival to Pixel Shader 2.0 and 3.0 would have been something to look forward to!  ;D

Imagine how far 3dfx' SLI technology may have progressed if things would have been different.

If this was so, there would have been no nVIDIA SLI cards like there is today, that's for sure!  Unless nVIDIA wanted another lawsuit on their hands!  ;D

nVidia's so called SLI shouldn't deserve that name, it's no where near the compairance of the real and better performing 3dfx SLI aka Scan Line Interleave
NV's Scalable Link Interface should of been better with the name:

SFR aka Split Frame Rendering, that is actually what it is, and it's not that scalable at all really, if your CPU is a A643200+ of FX 57, the difference isn't there at all, NV is not that smart hehe, the obvious ofcourse.

Of course, but the thing is, nVIDIA SLI performance gains would have been under serious criticism if they were in comparison with 3dfx's SLI technology (if it was still around, assuming that the technology would have progressed with the times).

However, I believe this is yet to come once ATI's Crossfire becomes more mainstream.  ;)

yeah ATi's CrossFire is abit like MAXX but better, I think ATi has a better future than NV, they are haveing it tough now but ATi will pull through, they always did.

Even the way how you install the ATi cards, actually nearly the same way you install 2 Voodoo2 12MB's with the external Pass Through cable , this feels good to see back after 7  rough years.

You've also got to convince buyers to invest in the compatible motherboard.  :-/

Let's not forget that ... and how much the shift is going to cost us overall.  ;)

well there is something positive at least for us 3dfx fans and 3dfx users, thanx to the honorable Psycho 47 aka Ps47, his friends are makeing the good ole long scouted and waited for AGP2PCI Converters.  PCI 32Bit is gonna get older that AGP it's self, and with these sweet converters there is still hope for us.

here that lovely topic about those great divices:
http://www.falconfly-central.de/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=general;action=display;num=1121802543;start=0#0

http://www.shifter.sk/type0.jpg

these babies are gonna change our history in 3dfx gaming in newer Operating Systems :)

It is nice to know that there are still hardware components that can support our cause, such as this convertors.  :)

Legacy motherboards such as KT333 giving us the ability to use 3.3v AGP cards with a decent enough CPU such as the AthlonXP.  :)

yeps like the AthlonXP-M 2500+ very cheap and great Overclocking abillities, got that from 3Dfx-Tweaker & Thandor.

There is a wide range of components that make it easier to use 3dfx hardware.  Fortunately, the prices for items such as KT333 motherboards, 333FSB CPU's and DDR333 memory is always dropping.

It makes it easier to build a more cost-effective 3dfx system!  ;D

yeah nowadayzz it may be easy to find but within a few years from noe the VIA Apollo Pro KT333 mobo will become scarce aka Rare.

I made sure I bought my Chaintech 7VJL Apogee as soon as I could buy it.  :)

http://www.chaintechusa.com/tw/eng/product_spec.asp?MPSNo=13&PISNo=138

Chaintech had stopped making them and they were coming towards the end of their line, when I bought mine brand new in 2004.

It's still wrapped up as it awaits the rest of my components for a 3dfx rig.

I just don't have any room to set it up anywhere at the moment.  :(

We're moving off-topic here anyway.  ;)

I have an idea, sell some old stuff and make room, I used to have 5 PC's have 3 now, it's just because lack of space and that I didn't use them that often.

Nice board BTW, but the WGF1.0 and 2.0 might be a problem for the newer cards like GF 6.xx series, ATi Raddy X8.xx series, S3 S.xx series, XGI V.xx series  and Matrox P. series cards.

I onder4 how the world is gonna look at that, we 3dfx people are not the only ones that bare this problem, people with other branded cards might whitness the same thing as us, so that brings us all to one point aka the same problem.

I have been selling stuff.  Lot's of rubbish just to make room. I just need to buy a bigger house.  One with about 6 bedrooms this time!  :)

Well my Chaintech board will have nothing to do with WGF 1.0 and 2.0 as it will be a legacy 3dfx system supporting only Windows 98 and 2000.  ;)

Other cards such as nVIDIA Geforce series and ATI's Radeon series will be okay as they support DirectX 9.0c.  WGF 1.0 is a legacy support for this.  See the other topic.
Matrox Parhelia series will struggle, as they only support DirectX 8.1, so there cards will have some difficulty.

I suspect much older cards from vendors who are currently still around, will either try their best to support older cards (i.e software API bridges and wrappers) or just tell folk to go and upgrade.

at first I did think that the Parhalia would be fine, it does support DirectX 9.0a with it's Pixel and Vertex shaders, it was morely a hybrid that an normal card.

It is a shame, because the first thing I saw was '512-bit GPU and 256Mb graphics memory' and thought, 'wow!'  :o

It was just a shame the performance of the card let it down.  :(

Even so, it is a sad shame that it will not be supported by WGF 1.0.

Let's hope that The Parhelia 2 if it ever comes out shall have a 512Bit GPU and ram and hopefully Matrox shall get the upper hand :) Though the Parhelia 512 does have Pixel shader 2.0 compliancy :) still is an interesting device though :)

Whether or not it does, at this stage the idea has not been put into development yet.  So there is a good chance that it will be developed to coincide with the WGF driver API.

However, this is Matrox we are talking about, who built a DX8.1 based card (I know it runs DX9 but its built to only support the DX8.1 API) when DX9 based cards had been out for ages.  So who knows.

well got some good news within a 2 mounths I'll be getting my Matroc Parhelia 512 based videocard with 128MB :) Now testing it with WGF1.0 would be great fun :D

Who knows what it would be able to do :)

Lucky bugger.  ;D  Nice one Obi.   :)

It is a nice card after all.  If I was to get one, I'd splash out and go the full way with the 256Mb.

Don't worry too much about the difference that you may see in Vista.  If anything, it may be a 5 - 10% performance increase (according to what Microsoft tell us in general about modern day GPU's).

*lol*

Looking at this Thread it seems as if you two had a private conversation going (PM would be preferred in this case)

@ FalconFly

Well no-one else bothered this topic I guess but yeah we kept it going, sorry that it went on for so long Falconfly, afteral it's an interesting thread afterall. I suppose that kept us go'n.

@ Janskjaer,

The 256Meg Parhelia is 570 euro's here compaired to the 384 Euro'ed 128MB one hehe, I will test it in the Beta Windows Vista, I will let you know on how it will perform. Though I'm not sure if WGF1.0 is allready implented in the latest Vista beta, anyone ideas?

I tried to get it going, in the attempt that it may spark others interest.  Seems me and Obi are the only ones that are really looking forward to the future, in what Microsoft has to offer.

yeah I was thinking in the same direction jan, soon we will be the left overs, auw that's gonna feel lonely, I really hope that the others will join in the quest to keep 3dfx alive and working in the newst OS's with thier newer technologies.

to me WGF 1.0 should be possible on a Voodoo4/5 but then alittle tweaked.

Obi, I've posted a comment in the other topic here:

http://www.falconfly-central.de/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=news;action=display;num=1122394221

As with that topic, I think we should do the same here as FF instructed.