The 3dfx Voodoo1 • Hacker News Board

Re: The 3dfx Voodoo1

#21

Post by blt » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 1:21 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #16

It’s crazy how fast stuff moved back then. Voodoo 1, to Voodoo 2 (both hits) to Voodoo 3 (meh), to Voodoo 4/5 (debacle), to bankruptcy was less than 4 years. In the same timeframe, we went from a 200 MHz Pentium MMX to a 1 GHz Pentium 3. What’s happened since 2015, by contrast? Many people still swear by their 2015 MBPs, the last model before the touchbar debacle. That Haswell based machine was getting long in the to…

we hit the energy per mm^2 limit.

Re: The 3dfx Voodoo1

#22

Post by derefr » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 1:22 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #16

It’s crazy how fast stuff moved back then. Voodoo 1, to Voodoo 2 (both hits) to Voodoo 3 (meh), to Voodoo 4/5 (debacle), to bankruptcy was less than 4 years. In the same timeframe, we went from a 200 MHz Pentium MMX to a 1 GHz Pentium 3. What’s happened since 2015, by contrast? Many people still swear by their 2015 MBPs, the last model before the touchbar debacle. That Haswell based machine was getting long in the to…

The obvious comparison to the GPU arms race is the VR hardware arms race. Same number of companies rising and falling in about the same period. Carmack is at the forefront of both, too.

Re: The 3dfx Voodoo1

#23

Post by biesnecker » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 1:22 AM UTC

Such good memories. I spent all of my first few high school job paychecks on a Diamond Monster 3D. In retrospect, adult me says I should have bought $AAPL, but 16-year old me is still pretty sure it was the right decision.

Re: The 3dfx Voodoo1

#24

Post by davesque » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 1:22 AM UTC

I had a Diamond Voodoo card. When I first fired it up on GLQuake, it absolutely blew my 16 year old mind.

Re: The 3dfx Voodoo1

#25

Post by blt » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 1:24 AM UTC

My first 3D accelerator was a Voodoo2, first used on Quake 2. The cast light from the moving rocket on the floor is unforgettable.

Re: The 3dfx Voodoo1

#26

Post by fabiensanglard » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 1:24 AM UTC

starpilot wrote: post #10

julianlam wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... generated? It's just HTML.

Is that a js framework?

No. I dislike JavaScript. Because it bloats pages, slowdowns page loading and you always need libraries to do the smallest thing.

I try to avoid JavaScript as much as possible. There is some on this page to flip the screenshots and that annoyed me.

Re: The 3dfx Voodoo1

#27

Post by fabiensanglard » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 1:26 AM UTC

3dfxiter wrote: post #9

They forgot to mention at the end of the article that 3dfx filed for bankruptcy as they literally became "drunk on their success." Everybody started showing up to work intoxicated. Some investors got left out in the cold.

I would be curious to read the source for this.

Re: The 3dfx Voodoo1

#28

Post by zcid » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 1:33 AM UTC

tmountain wrote: post #5

Blast from the past. I have extremely fond memories of moving into my first apartment in 1999 and having friends come over to play Quake on the “voodoo box”. I had three PCs, a 10BASE-T LAN, and one machine that had been upgraded to a 3dfx card. We would play rock, paper, scissors to determine who got to play on the 3dfx box and spend many an all nighter playing till the sun came up. Those were the days...

I still have my original Voodoo card. It's the one piece of computer hardware I've never been willing to throw away. I still remember spending 8 hours downloading the Quake demo and having my mind blown. The only other time that holds a candle to that is when I got the GLQuake version. No other game has ever taken me on a ride like that.

Re: The 3dfx Voodoo1

#29

Post by craz8 » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 1:34 AM UTC

biesnecker wrote: post #23

Such good memories. I spent all of my first few high school job paychecks on a Diamond Monster 3D. In retrospect, adult me says I should have bought $AAPL, but 16-year old me is still pretty sure it was the right decision.

At least you didn’t by TDFX stock, like I did!

Re: The 3dfx Voodoo1

#30

Post by Zenst » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 1:35 AM UTC

My flatmate owned a Voodoo2, was impressive though the market soon caught up and and when the following year I did get myself a 3500, after a month I sold it and got a Matrox G400Max as it did the 3D level I needed (more so the less demanding games of the time). But more so, the colour gamut was so much sharper and stood out on a CRT of the time.

I was curious so I had a dig on the specs to relive the decision of the time and can see the Matrox did 32bit colour whilst the 3500 was 24bit. Not seen any comparisons in performance but I certainly had no complaints and was happier with the G400Max on many levels (2nd monitor - no problem).

[EDIT ADD] This looks worth a watch for nostalgia circa 1999 graphics cards and compares the G400MAX, 3DFX 3500 and the TNT2 Ultra https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4LvoGQ2lgI