Reply 100 of 107, by VivienM
winuser3162 wrote on 2024-05-10, 20:14:do you recall anyone who purchased a voodoo card ( voodoo 3-4 or 5) during the time nvidia was beginning to take over the 3D market regret their decision not investing in an nvidia tnt, tnt2, geforce 256 or geforce 2 card?
I think you've have to look at the calendar as well... using launch dates from Wikipedia:
- Voodoo 2 - February 1998
- TNT - June 15, 1998
- TNT2 - March 1999
- Voodoo 3 - March/April 1999
- GeForce GTS - announced Aug. 31, 1999, released October 11, 1999
- GeForce 2 - mid-May, 2000
- Voodoo 5 - June 22, 2000
First, look at how insane it is that Nvidia was launching a new chip almost every six months. And with big improvements each time, too.
Second, I don't think anyone would have purchased a voodoo 5 card... that's the entire issue. The Voodoo 5 was late, the GeForce 2 had much better numbers, that's what people would have gotten. No regretting getting a V5 because you didn't buy one in the first place.
Third, many, many people had Voodoo 2s. If you had a one-year-old Voodoo 2 and somehow wanted to buy a new video card already, you'd probably just keep your Voodoo 2 and get the TNT2 or the GeForce. Why not?
Keep in mind this was the infancy of 3D-accelerated games. Pretty much all games had a passable option for CPU rendering. If you were lucky, you had a Voodoo 1/2.
It's funny given the legend status Voodoo has in the retro community (then again, dying in your prime is the best way to become a legend... which applies to video cards and APIs just as much as music or movie stars), but my recollection is that by 2000-2001, no one talked about Voodoo. It was GeForce this and GeForce that and is ATI Radeon going to catch up for more than a few weeks before the next GeForce regains the crown.