So I bought really cheap one VillageTronic MacMagic on eBay (sorry for the bad quality pics):

http://i41.tinypic.com/2nvwg1e.jpg

http://i42.tinypic.com/33eld8o.jpg

It is completely black with no signs whatsoever... only thing readable (also in black) is v1.2
Is this actually VillageTronic MacMagic, as looking at this pics there are couple of differences:

http://tdfx.de/pic/macmagic_01.JPG

http://tdfx.de/pic/macmagic_02.JPG

I am missing the heatsinks, white lines, components are not marked (R, C, L)... It almost looks like painted (although it's not made by hand, but by machine) and there is a green?! PCB showing below... So really curious what actually is this and is it stock look...



While looking at info over the net, I accidentally found this article:
http://www.purepc.pl/karty_graficzne/historia_3dfx_voodoo_narodziny_i_upadek_legendy_fakty_i_testy?page=0,5
Does anyone actually have a VREngine/VD-1 or VD-2?! Would really appreciate some high resolution pictures...

http://www.purepc.pl/files/Image/artykul_zdjecia/2012/3DFX_Historia/voodoo_2_TL_1.png

No idea, but it looks fantastic!

Probably an oversight or one of the last PCB's used?

As for the VREngine, it's elusive. There are if (I'm not mistaking) 3 VREngine's; a Voodoo Graphics based version, a Voodoo 2 based version and a Voodoo 2 SLI version.

I have NEC TE4E card which seems to be RealVision VREngine/TE-1
That means GA400 chip was real :)
http://vgamuseum.ru/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/IMG_20131003_214852-1024x768.jpg

NitroX infinity wrote on 03.10.13 at 13:48:52:

Probably an oversight or one of the last PCB's used? As for the VREngine, it's elusive. There are if (I'm not mistaking) 3 VREngine's; a Voodoo Graphics based version, a Voodoo 2 based version and a Voodoo 2 SLI version.

I didn't know about V2 SLI. But there is also a V3 version


http://extreme.pcgameshardware.de/attachments/547743d1337098540-rip-ehemalige-grafikkarten-giganten-von-3dfx-bis-xgi-welche-kennen-sie-noch-v3_tnl.jpg

Or that one has another chip for T&L?

Wasn't that the voodoo3 card which had an external DAC, it can be found on gary's site under prototypes

@ultima This is actually Voodoo 3 + Mitsubishi IMPAC-GE T&L :)

Seems these VREngine VD1 and VD2 are pretty hard to find...

Any other ideas about my card guys?! :)

Yes, there is a V3 with geometry engine, but it was an internal 3dfx thing done by Hank. He still has the card last time I heard. It is the card on the image.

The V3 with external RAMDAC is another card.

Do you know if the voodoo3 actually works and tge geometry chip as well?

One could expect it' performance to be  faster then a normal voodoo3, right?

Even if the hardware is working, I doubt somebody actually did the drivers for it...

ultima wrote on 06.10.13 at 15:24:48:

Do you know if the voodoo3 actually works and tge geometry chip as well? One could expect it' performance to be  faster then a normal voodoo3, right?

Microcode for the g engine wasn't finished.

Hi,
There is a chance that VREngine cards are not only fake. Them may exist. A long time a go i downloaded from realvision main site this brochure.

http://3dfx.pl/files/VREngine.pdf

sorry but only in Japanese language

PS.
I can't see any information about Voodoo1 from Realvision

I'm trying to imagine a V5 6000 with a T&L chip. That would be probably one of the most "good looking" card.

That what one of the things that I liked about 3dfx - they had not only great performance, but also great looking cards... V2 was awesome - 3 chips... a lot of memory modules, separate chips for ramdac, all only for a 3D addon card.

V3 was boring as hell - 2D+3D+ramdac in one sinlge chip...

Varus wrote on 06.10.13 at 22:43:02:

Hi, There is a chance that VREngine cards are not only fake.

They are NOT fake indeed, and I don't know how you could ever think of:

NEC GA-330 + Voodoo Graphics
http://tweakers.net/ext/f/N1gwodZqEGFWaogHGEEPxsnQ/full.jpg

The VREngine/VD-1 posted previously is a Voodoo2 equipped with NEC GA-400 geometry engine.

VD-2 variant should be simply the same with a daughterboard that brings a second Voodoo2 chipset + memory modules, like Obsidian2 X-24/200SB cards.

Btw talking about HW T&L, wasn't supposed V5 6000 to have one when announced, but then plans changed I guess?

Also is there any Rampage with Sage chip out there?

Hi,

Some notes about T&L chip:

* SAGE chip - 3Dfx engineers were expecting silicon within days of when they closed the doors. It is an experimental use of external GEOMETRY engine for CAD applications.

* NOT Rampage card with T&L chip.

* V3 with Mitshubishi chip is the only card from Sage Project. The IC  Mitsubishi geometry engineCard is non-functional due to lack of drivers. It did work at  One time though, the boards engineers had to hack the drivers into identifying the chip as a V3 3dfx chip.

Regards,
Oscar.

osckhar wrote on 07.10.13 at 11:18:54:

* V3 with Mitshubishi chip is the only card from Sage Project. The IC  Mitsubishi geometry engineCard is non-functional due to lack of drivers. It did work at  One time though, the boards engineers had to hack the drivers into identifying the chip as a V3 3dfx chip.

don't you hate it when companies decide to put stuff on your electronics but disable them to piss you off?

For example, many boards have fan pins removed, but if you're stubbord enough, you could solder some metal pins back there to plug fans there! They just remove the damn pins so you couldn't use those features, because you paid for a "less expensive" version of their boards. But in fact, it took them time and efforts to remove those pins and rebrand the whole board from "Deluxe" to "SE" or "LT" or something...

It's kinda like paying more for raw sugar, while white sugar has been refined and all that and should be the more expensive one instead...

just some rant, sorry about that.

RaptorZX3 wrote on 09.11.13 at 02:59:15:

osckhar wrote on 07.10.13 at 11:18:54: * V3 with Mitshubishi chip is the only card from Sage Project. The IC  Mitsubishi geometry engineCard is non-functional due to lack of drivers. It did work at  One time though, the boards engineers had to hack the drivers into identifying the chip as a V3 3dfx chip. don't you hate it when companies decide to put stuff on your electronics but disable them to piss you off? For example, many boards have fan pins removed, but if you're stubbord enough, you could solder some metal pins back there to plug fans there! They just remove the damn pins so you couldn't use those features, because you paid for a "less expensive" version of their boards. But in fact, it took them time and efforts to remove those pins and rebrand the whole board from "Deluxe" to "SE" or "LT" or something... It's kinda like paying more for raw sugar, while white sugar has been refined and all that and should be the more expensive one instead... just some rant, sorry about that.

About removing pins for fans etc, I think yer seeing it the wrong way round. Every card starts as a  bare pcb and stuff gets added to it, so they didn't take it off, they just didn't put it on there. :)

hmm ok, but then why there are solder points but no pins sticking out? just to fill in the holes?

This is silly though, since you could just use a 3-pins to Molex adapter, and then if it spin too fast or too noisy, you can use adapters to slow it down...it's just more tedious to do, but when you don't have choice because some brands were dumb enough to try to make you pay a lot more only for fans connectors on the board...i've seen some boards only having 1 or 2 3-pins connectors on them, that's horrible. But anyway, we're getting off-topic now.

It would have been great to see a Voodoo card with T&L, it would have helped greatly in later games such as Midtown Madness 2.

Because the PCBs are the same just for one reason - cost wise. If you make different PCBs for every card, this will be really expensive. So they start with one PCB for all and then add different level of "extras".