Fall of Voodoo

#1

Post by discreditable » Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 1:08 PM UTC

Re: Fall of Voodoo

#2

Post by ivankolev » Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 3:23 PM UTC

Still fondly remember my passively-cooled! Voodoo 3, their rendering stack was top quality. Nvidia was the feeble newcomer. Times change fast...

Re: Fall of Voodoo

#3

Post by jwilk » Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 3:41 PM UTC

It feels weird that the article uses the term "GPU". This term wasn't widely used back then. IIRC, the Voodoo cards were called "3D accelerators".

Re: Fall of Voodoo

#4

Post by rayiner » Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 3:46 PM UTC

The 3dfx timeline gives you an idea of how much the computer field has slowed down and consolidated. Voodoo was released in 1996, into a market with half a dozen competitors. Voodoo 2 in 1998, the same year as the first viable NVIDIA card (Riva TNT). NVIDIA released the GeForce 256 in 1999, cementing its dominance. 3dfx released its last card in 2000, just four years after its first. NVIDIA is now still dominant, 18 years after establishing dominance with the GeForce.

Think back on how much consumer computing changed from 1996 to 2000. Four years back from the present, in contrast, is the Haswell-based Macbook Pro and iPhone 5s (a perfectly fine setup today).

Re: Fall of Voodoo

#5

Post by k__ » Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 3:46 PM UTC

ivankolev wrote: post #2

Still fondly remember my passively-cooled! Voodoo 3, their rendering stack was top quality. Nvidia was the feeble newcomer. Times change fast...

Hehe, all my friends had Voodoo GPUs back in the days.

A friend of mine even got a Voodoo 5500 and we tried to get Quake 3 Arena so tuned that we couldn't see any pixels anymore.

I was the first one with a GeForce 2MX, which worked quite well and long considering it was the budget version of the gf2.

If I look at the performance indexes, the Voodoo 5500 wasn't very much better than the GF2MX.

Re: Fall of Voodoo

#6

Post by k__ » Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 3:47 PM UTC

jwilk wrote: post #3

It feels weird that the article uses the term "GPU". This term wasn't widely used back then. IIRC, the Voodoo cards were called "3D accelerators".

Yes.

I even remember the need of two cards. A GPU and a 3D accelerator.

Re: Fall of Voodoo

#7

Post by Gogogogirl » Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 3:48 PM UTC

Still remember enjoying Descent. And how I argued with Commodore staff at conferences on why Amigas didn't move into hardware 3d as it was the clear future to see.

Re: Fall of Voodoo

#8

Post by jlebrech » Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 3:50 PM UTC

Could also be titled: when not to pivot

Re: Fall of Voodoo

#9

Post by fsiefken » Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 3:50 PM UTC

I had the Wicked3D H3D voodoo glasses, 3D on 20 inch monitor gave me > 100 FOV when I put my nose near the screen.

Re: Fall of Voodoo

#10

Post by IndrekR » Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 3:52 PM UTC

k__ wrote: post #5

ivankolev wrote: post #2

Still fondly remember my passively-cooled! Voodoo 3, their rendering stack was top quality. Nvidia was the feeble newcomer. Times change fast...

Hehe, all my friends had Voodoo GPUs back in the days. A friend of mine even got a Voodoo 5500 and we tried to get Quake 3 Arena so tuned that we couldn't see any pixels anymore. I was the first one with a GeForce 2MX, which worked quite well and long considering it was the budget version of the gf2. If I look at the performance indexes, the Voodoo 5500 wasn't very much better than the GF2MX.

And there was simple resistor resolder hack to make GeForce 2MX think it is Quadro. It was very useless and very cool at the same time. Few people got into hardware hacking (read electronics engineering) thanks to this little and yet very positive soldering experience.