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A top of the 3dfx cards (Read 518 times)
RaverX
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A top of the 3dfx cards
26.11.11 at 16:05:52
 
It might seem stupid, but I would like to know what are your favorite cards, ideally a top of them.

For me it's like this:
1. Voodoo2
Best 3dfx card ever made. It was a very powerful card and you could run 2 of them in SLI. In SLI configuration it remained king of 3D even after TNT appeared and in a lot of games it was faster even than TNT2.

2. Voodoo Graphics
The first 3dfx card. No card could match it for quite a long time, Riva128 was slighty faster in some games, but the image quality of Riva128 was poor.

3. Voodoo3
V3 3500 was very nice, it was a powerful card, it had TV Tuner, what more could anyone wish. Hmmm, maybe 32 bit support in 3D and 32 MB. V3 2000 wasn't bad either, it was very cheap for it's speed.

4. Voodoo4/5
I'm sorry to say it, but V4 4500 and V5 5500 weren't what 3dfx fans expected. V4 4500 was quite slow for it's time, V5500 was ok, but it was too expensive. If only V5 6000 could make it at time... And if they could make it run at 200 MHz it would been a hit, maybe 3dfx woundn't go bankrupt, who knows.

5. Voodoo Banshee
Banshee was an "ok" card, but personally I think that 3dfx could made it much better. Diamond version runs at 125 MHz and it's a really sweet card, but most cards run at a default of 100 MHz and in games that use multitexturing they are behind V2 (a much older card).

6. Voodoo Rush
Worst card 3dfx made. I like a lot how it look (it's big, it has a lot of chips), but the performance it's not ok at all, it's 10% bellow V1 (and that's an older card).

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« Last Edit: 26.11.11 at 16:06:14 by RaverX »  
 
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FalconFly
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Re: A top of the 3dfx cards
Reply #1 - 26.11.11 at 21:46:26
 
- Voodoo1
For being the first and the most groundbreaking quantum leap, bar any competition at its time. For everything 3D, it was basically a must have... GLquake LAN-Parties in all their glory.

- Voodoo2 SLI
Again without any competition, expensive for early adopters but fairly cheap when extended later. 1024x768 Resolution at fast framerates and crisp Textures (12MB option). Playing Unreal on that rig was simply.... unreal, a yaw-dropping experience.
Its only caviat : fast CPU required, 2 PCI slots gone


- Voodoo5
Despite it being late&expensive, this one as well never disappointed me. Visual Quality was - with the right Driver settings - ahead of its time and yielded beautiful results. In late UT99 LAN Parties, I remember owners of far more modern NVidia owners spontaneously stopping by my screen and immediately wondering what card I had running, as it still rendered the best images... For these reasons, I held onto that card for a long! time.

- Voodoo3
Coming from a Voodoo2 SLI setup, the Voodoo3 actually disappointed me at first. As my 1st was the Voodoo3 2000, performance was actually reduced. Only the Voodoo3 3500/TV satisfied me, which TV part I actually used&enjoyed. Additionally in defense of the V3 I must say, that it took modern games to see it clearly excel over the V2 SLI, which it did nicely. Its main advantage however, was visible right away : Textures, it yielded much more crisp filters and with 22bit POST Filtering enabled, it easily made up for any benchmarks with unbeatable image quality.
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trevormacro
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Re: A top of the 3dfx cards
Reply #2 - 27.11.11 at 00:08:52
 
RaverX wrote on 26.11.11 at 16:05:52:
If only V5 6000 could make it at time... And if they could make it run at 200 MHz it would been a hit, maybe 3dfx woundn't go bankrupt, who knows.


Hello RaverX,

My Voodoo5 6000 Gold Second Edition run @201 MHz Smiley
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RaverX
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Re: A top of the 3dfx cards
Reply #3 - 27.11.11 at 01:50:28
 
trevormacro wrote on 27.11.11 at 00:08:52:
RaverX wrote on 26.11.11 at 16:05:52:
If only V5 6000 could make it at time... And if they could make it run at 200 MHz it would been a hit, maybe 3dfx woundn't go bankrupt, who knows.


Hello RaverX,

My Voodoo5 6000 Gold Second Edition run @201 MHz Smiley


Wow, I'm impressed.  Roll Eyes

I'm sure you can do much more, find some really fast SDRAM and use liquid nitrogen to cool the card. With a little luck you could hit 250 MHz.

But unfortunately that's not the point, the ideea was that 3dfx could make a 200 MHz V5 6000 with stock cooling and mass produce the card then they might continue to exist on the market.

I see that FalconFly likes V5 5500. It's a nice card, I must admit, a really cool piece of hardware. And yes, the quality of the images rendered by V5 5500 is very good. But Radeon aslo has very good image quality.

And V5 5500 was way behind Geforce2 GTS, even GF2 MX could beat it in some games, and MX was a mainstream card, quite cheap. And no T&L... Too many problems for a card that was quite expensive.

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FalconFly
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Re: A top of the 3dfx cards
Reply #4 - 27.11.11 at 10:54:05
 
I would like to add, that beginning with Voodoo3 times, NVidia began implementing all those benchmark cheats and visual quality hacks.

While that made NVidia win benchmarks even with inferior hardware, it came at a high price tag for NVidia owners.

I owned a GeForce2 MX myself, and its acclaimed T&L performance was so absymal low, turning OFF Hardware T&L actually TRIPLED its performance (AMD AthlonXP). Rendering 32bit shattered any performance it had left, going 16bit yielded poor quality on top of already performance-hacked rendering.
This was symptomatic for NVidias PR- and Driver policy these days.

I'll call the GeForce2 GTS a winner over the V5 only for one reason : VRAM bandwidth. It was the first time NVidia realized what 3dfx had done already, and it payed off. If it wasn't for those hacked drivers&cheats (the GTS would have faired well enough without them, the DX7 T&L was used in only few games anyway outside 3D Mark 2001)...

It really wasn't until the GeForce3 that NVidia clearly made it fair top.
(and actually real Games that started using DX7 T&L, which was quickly deemed to unflexible by game developers, setting the scene for DX8)
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« Last Edit: 27.11.11 at 11:00:15 by FalconFly »  
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RaverX
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Re: A top of the 3dfx cards
Reply #5 - 27.11.11 at 12:27:07
 
It depends, there were some Geforce2 MX boards made by oscure producers with low quality components. They had horible image quality and they used low frequency memory + 64 bit. Even Voodoo3 2000 beat those cards in Quake3. In UT it was even worse, 3dfx ruled in that game.

But a "real" GF2 MX wasn't that bad and it worked very nice especially in computers with slow CPU.

GTS was a good card, but GF2 Ultra was really fast (and really expensive too). GF3 was a beast, one of the best card ever made.

Regarding image quality and cheats I want to add one more thing: a lot of people was convinced to buy Nvidia by checking the screenshots from magazines and websites. But they were wrong, the screenshots for V3 cards were very ugly because the screenshots didn't have the 22 bit dithering. In reality the V3 have a very good image quality.
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trevormacro
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Re: A top of the 3dfx cards
Reply #6 - 27.11.11 at 13:02:01
 
@RaverX :

V5 6000 Gold SE modded with EtronTech "EM638325TS-3.5"
3.5ns 128bit 86pin sdram's

EM638325TS-3.5 /285 mhz (Sdram on my Voodoo5 6000 Gold Second Edition)

Sdram's History :

EM638325TS-3.5 /285 mhz
EM638325TS-4 /250 mhz
EM638325TS-5 /200 mhz
EM638325TS-5.5 /183 mhz
EM638325TS-6 /166 mhz
EM638325TS-7 /143 mhz
EM638325TS-8 /125 mhz

----------------------------

The revision 3700 A comes with VSA-100 rev. 355-0026-320.
The 3dfx Voodoo5 6000 rev.3700 A supports speeds up to 220MHz Max !
Impossible to could hit 250 MHz.

Thank you Smiley

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« Last Edit: 27.11.11 at 13:10:38 by trevormacro »  
 
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goriath
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Re: A top of the 3dfx cards
Reply #7 - 27.11.11 at 13:27:26
 
RaverX wrote on 27.11.11 at 12:27:07:
Regarding image quality and cheats I want to add one more thing: a lot of people was convinced to buy Nvidia by checking the screenshots from magazines and websites. But they were wrong, the screenshots for V3 cards were very ugly because the screenshots didn't have the 22 bit dithering. In reality the V3 have a very good image quality.


Yes, the V3 was better than people belive. Unjustly mistreated and underestimated, what a pity.

I had very good days with my Voodoo3 2000.


For what concerns the topic, I should copy and paste the first FalconFly's post; I completely agree Cool
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RaverX
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Re: A top of the 3dfx cards
Reply #8 - 27.11.11 at 16:32:18
 
trevormacro wrote on 27.11.11 at 13:02:01:
The 3dfx Voodoo5 6000 rev.3700 A supports speeds up to 220MHz Max !
Impossible to could hit 250 MHz.


"Impossible" and "never" are 2 words that should not be in the dictionary. With enough skill you can do *anything*

If V5 6000 would not be a rare card and I could afford a few I could make it run at 250 MHz. I repeat: it all depends on your skill. Of course that if all you do it slap a big heatsink on it you cannot expect magic. If you make a good voltmod and you have proper cooling (LN2) and you know some other tricks that I won't mention here then 250 is easy.

Back to topic please Smiley
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Dexter
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Re: A top of the 3dfx cards
Reply #9 - 26.01.12 at 10:56:01
 
Having only PCI slots in my machine, I couldn't test the best card I have (V4 4500).
So, as far as I've used them, I can state that the Voodoo 3 2000 has been quite a trustworthy friend in the '95-'99 game incursion.
It's been almost a week now since I've managed to put together the V2 SLI config and, as I was saying in another thread, I can't quite figure the whole performance picture... yet.

The games seem to run a little smoother but some of them don't work at all anymore : Fifa '99 for example.

I sure hope to find a V3 3500 on PCI for sale somewhere...
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« Last Edit: 26.01.12 at 10:56:55 by Dexter »  

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