Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The 3dfx Voodoo1

fabiensanglard.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 241 posts

Re: The 3dfx Voodoo1

#41

Post by corysama »

blt wrote: post #21
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.

Right around 2002. http://www.gotw.ca/publications/concurrency-ddj.htm

Re: The 3dfx Voodoo1

#42

Post by jeffbax »

chongli wrote: post #17

Wow, the lack of gamma correction in the Voodoo1 screenshot completely ruins the mood of the game.

Fortunately modern Quake engines handle making it look closer to the software renderer in those regards...

Re: The 3dfx Voodoo1

#43

Post by corysama »

shereadsthenews wrote: post #35

Maybe it was the voodoo 2, but I seem to recall that 3dfx cards could render into a chroma-keyed window, not just full screens. In any case the main problem with them was they made your 2D desktop look like junk for the 99% of the time you were not playing Quake, due to the extra analog-digital-analog conversion.

One of the best features of the Voodoos was that they were a cheap, early-adopter way to get dual monitor debugging. Full-screen debugger on one monitor. Full-screen game in a breakpoint on the other.

Re: The 3dfx Voodoo1

#44

Post by newnewpdro »

shereadsthenews wrote: post #35

Maybe it was the voodoo 2, but I seem to recall that 3dfx cards could render into a chroma-keyed window, not just full screens. In any case the main problem with them was they made your 2D desktop look like junk for the 99% of the time you were not playing Quake, due to the extra analog-digital-analog conversion.

Voodoo 1 and 2 were simple analog VGA pass-thru, they'd take over the VGA output when in use. I don't think the VGA input was even wired to anything other than the pass-thru switch, you may be thinking of something else. There was no such conversion.

Re: The 3dfx Voodoo1

#46

Post by pfranz »

derefr wrote: post #22
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.

They talk about a 4 year timespan. The Oculus Kickstarter was in 2012. DK1 was released in 2013, DK2 in 2014, and the final Rift in 2016. The Rift-S is rumored to be released in 2019. None of those have had quite the leaps 3d did back in the late 90s.

Re: The 3dfx Voodoo1

#47

Post by int_19h »

shereadsthenews wrote: post #31
pault wrote: post #4

I remember the first time someone told me about a card that you could put in your computer that would make quake run faster. It sounded so strange and exotic. Then I saw the screen caps with all their anti aliased glory and was devastated that I could never afford it on a movie theater clerk's salary.

On many computers it did not run faster just differently. Regular quake and glquake were two totally different programs.

How would it not run faster, given that otherwise CPU had to shoulder the rendering entirely, in addition to everything else? Even high-end CPUs at the time would struggle with that, especially with resolution and bit depth being equal. IIRC the original Quake didn't even allow more than 256 colors in software rendering for this purpose, and even then I recall having to run it in weird resolutions like 400x300 to get framerates comparable to what Voodoo owners had for 640x480x16bit.

Re: The 3dfx Voodoo1

#48

Post by int_19h »

pault wrote: post #4

I remember the first time someone told me about a card that you could put in your computer that would make quake run faster. It sounded so strange and exotic. Then I saw the screen caps with all their anti aliased glory and was devastated that I could never afford it on a movie theater clerk's salary.

It was even worse with Unreal, especially when you saw the live intro somewhere. That money could buy this was unexpected - even after Q1 and Q2 - and amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqdeyseQAP4

Re: The 3dfx Voodoo1

#49

Post by andrepd »

blt wrote: post #21
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.

Not quite ;) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s_principle

Re: The 3dfx Voodoo1

#50

Post by codegrappler »

BuckRogers wrote: post #39

Being 14 years old and getting to experience and see it evolve first-hand with a Commodore (at home), the Apple II (at school) and 286, 386, 486 and Pentium era with a Diamond Multimedia 3dfx Voodoo card was amazing. People who missed it either being busy with other things in life or weren't born yet, believe me, as a technologist being there from the beginning of the home computer market till about 2000 was amazing.…

Thank you for putting into words something that’s been difficult for me to articulate!
Post reply on HN