appiah4 wrote:tayyare wrote:I believe Voodoo1 is a very good fit for 486 systems. 1995-1996 was the time during which original Voodoo was introduced and most popular. And during the same years, a Pentium was still an expensive proposition and high end 486 (DX4 100, 5x86,etc. ) was the mainstream PC for most of the common folks, at least in where I live. I had my first 486 in late 1994 and my first Pentium in early 1997.
Voodoo 1 was released in late 1996, 486s were certainly no longer commonplace by then. I had a DX4-100 at the time, and a good friend of mine had a Pentium 90. In early 1997 he got a Voodoo 1, a Pure3D card. While I envied his setup, my first upgrade was to get a Pentium 133. My experience mimics that of the poster above, I did not get a 3D accelerator until 1998 when I upgraded to a Pentium II 300 and got a Diamond Monster3D II 8MB. I don't recall anyone I know going for a 3D accelerator before a Pentium (and in some cases, a few weird friends who went for a Cyrix mII - the K6 was nonexistant where I grew up) but I would be interested in hearing any stories of people who actually used a Voodoo card in a 486..
During that time (late 1994 to late 1996) me and my mates were a considerably large gang of computer users, newly graduated younglings, generally having their first jobs ever, earning their own money for the first time. Almost nobody was rich, but at least not dependent to their families anymore. By 1995, everyone of us had a 486. Earliest one was in early 1994, mine upgraded from an 386SX in summer 1994.
In early 1995, I was still upgrading HP Vectra 386s of the research institiute that I was working for at that time, to 486s. First Pentiums (P90s) start coming in early 1996. Serious work was being done on DEC, HP, SG workstations, PCs was not there yet for rocket science. 🤣
First ever Pentium upgrade in my gang of mates came in late 1996. I was also one of the early ones, which happened in very early 1997, from Cx 5x86 120 to P120.
So looking at this, you are probably right, Pentium was the thing to get during late 1996/early 1997, although probably already installed computers were still mostly 486s.
Two of my mates (the heavy gamers of the gang, and the richer ones 😊) had already their voodoos in their 486s by mid 1996. I still clearly remember our awe, watching the falling snow in Need for Speed for the first time, which we mortals with S3 cards had no chance to see before 🤣
Personally, I never had a seperate 3D accelerator, Voodoo or other, back in the days.
Wow, I'm telling stories about my youth and really enjoying it. I'm formally an old fart now... 🤣
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Diamond Monster 3D 12MB SLI
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120GB IDE Samsung/80GB IDE Seagate/146GB SCSI Compaq/73GB SCSI IBM
Adaptec AHA29160
3com 3C905B-TX
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