First post, by Stiletto
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- l33t++
Decided to publish the results of an old interview today:
http://mamedev.emulab.it/undumped/index.php?title=POD_Arcade
There was a throwaway line I hadn't quite noticed at first, I'll point it out for swaaye:
Ubisoft received two prototype 3Dfx cards during development (with a special version of the 3Dfx Glide SDK). These cards were each effectively two 4 MB Voodoo Graphics ("Voodoo 1") cards on one PCI card, giving a total of 8 MB of VRAM and two GPUs. We believe this might be a prototype of the Quantum3D Obsidian prior to their spinoff on March 31, 1997. Reportedly these cards were "made by Rendition" but that does not make sense because as far as we know Rendition only ever designed/made Vérité chips before eventually being acquired by Micron Technology. Regardless, in theory, only two prototype 3Dfx cards means that only two prototypes were ever made.
So said my interviewee in 2002. But I think it more likely it's a prototype of a Quantum3D Obsidian.
Looking for HW pics? Sorry! This stuff never made it out of Ubisoft AFAIK. I was never sent any.
Looking for SW? All that's out there is the Arcade track which has been modified for POD retail binaries.
Hopefully this is a good forum to mention this. Arcade forum is dead, and this is weird, collectible hardware. I thought maybe one of the 3dfx gurus might know something about this. All I know is it predates Quantum3D Quicksilver and "Heavy Metal" systems 😀
"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen
Stiletto