Just need to compare Tomb Raider on the PC (without Voodoo) and PlayStation with the 3dfx Voodoo patched version 😀

It was a leapfrog in graphics. I got a V1 when I was young and it was simply out of this world. Past V2 there are likely better options but 3dfx set the foundation and raised the bar.

I understand the technical aspect of it, software rendering vs dedicated hardware. But surely there were comparable alternatives to voodoo at the time, right? Just like how ati (AMD), and nvidia (i know they bought 3DFX) both have comparable in performance cards. Or were they the only ones at the time?

dosquest wrote:

But surely there were comparable alternatives to voodoo at the time, right?

Which ones 😀

dosquest wrote:

I understand the technical aspect of it, software rendering vs dedicated hardware. But surely there were comparable alternatives to voodoo at the time, right? Just like how ati (AMD), and nvidia (i know they bought 3DFX) both have comparable in performance cards. Or were they the only ones at the time?

There were competitors, e.g. PowerVR and Rendition.

3Dfx just had market share because the price was low, AFAIK. Supposedly it was faster and better-looking than its contemporaries as well.

Also, none of the competing cards were compatible, they all used proprietary APIs (in contract to ATi/nVidia today, who both use Direct3D and OpenGL)

V1 didn't have any market share, it was a brand new product 😀

It just blew everything out of the water. I don't remember any products that were competitive. All the magazines wrote glowing reviews and so I got a V1. And pretty much anything worked with the V1, that was a big plus I guess.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

V1 didn't have any market share, it was a brand new product 😀

What I meant by that was its popularity meant games targeted it, so it was "the card to have".

There were no competitors in high end performance and support to Voodoo until at least Riva 128, but there were competitors with better price/performance.

As for my card, what gives?

There was no market until 3dfx made one with the Voodoo 1. All the games that were trying 3d were using low resolution software rendering and they looked like shit. You have no idea what it was like playing Tombraider and then getting the 3dfx patch and playing it in decent 3D resolution, same with Quake 1. By the time Voodoo 3's were out we also had Aureal with 3D audio, that was so much fun.

Like anything else over time we get used to killer 3D video and pretty much any card you buy now will play like any other (only difference is max playable resolution is). You can't really get how jaw dropping video was with 3dfx at the time because we are used to much better now.

From what I understand, one word: "Glide" everything looks amazing and works great in a lot of games under it. Also the drivers for the Rage128 might just not be optimized for Quake, whereas the Voodoo is. Just my understanding from a couple years now creeping on this forum, if im wrong or only partly right sorry 😀

dosquest wrote:

So, I know that the voodoo cards were the first cards to introduce feasable 3D acceleration into the consumer market, but other than a few software based gimmicks wirh certain games that took advantage of it, why were they "the card" for early into mid nineties? Also, I have an ATI rage 128, 16mb card and it seems to perform poorer on quake I than a 12mb Voodoo 1, what am I missing? Or does my card really not have 3D acceleration? Or is my card also clocked lower? I think mine is 40mhz.

A 12MB card would be a Voodoo2, much faster than a Voodoo1.
A Rage 128 should have at least 80 MHZ. At that speed its theoretical performance (fill rate) is lower than Voodoo2, at higher speeds it should be faster. And Rage 128 possibly uses 64 bit memory interface which would slow it down.
Performance will also depend on the driver, and I suppose that Voodoo2 will have an advantage with slower CPUs.
So depending on the exact model Rage 128 will be somewhat slower or faster as Voodoo2, but not extremely so.

I'm finding conflicting info. Some say the 128 I have is 2d only some say its 3d. Ill try my rage pro 3d after I benchmark my trident 3d imagè card.

I take it dosquest that you didn't experience that era between software rendered games and hardware rendered games?

I thought Quake 1 never got 3dfx support? I'm not talking about Quake 2 or other windows versions (GLQuake etc), just Quake 1 that's mentioned twice already in this thread having a 3dfx patch and drivers optimized for it.

For what concerns topic starter's question, in a few words when Voodoo's came out they offered way better looks than anything else being sold that time. Combined that in some cases it also had better speed, smoother movement and lower price than competitors, what else do you need? 😀

konc wrote:

and lower price than competitors

What? It was the most expensive 3D acceleration card, and it did not offer any 2D capabilities. Carmack at ID Software belived the 3DFX cards to be too expensive hence they initially went for supporting the Rendition Verite in Quake. Luckily for 3DFX there were a huge dip in DRAM prices in the summer/autumn of 1996 making them able to reduce the price by 100 dollars. This changed everything.

The competition were cheaper and some gave the consumer more for his/her money than buying a Voodoo + 2D card as already mentioned by Putas.

Also in Q4 1996 there were no decisive winner between Rendition and 3DFX. The bundled games didn't show off the capabilities of the 3DFX card (even though theoretically it was better). Rendition had Quake as its big selling point and if you compared early titles which supported both cards like Descent 2 and Tomb Raider there is no clear winner as both games run well. It wasn't until Janurary 1997 with the release of GLQuake that 3DFX really got the edge. 3DFX was quick to release the excellent MiniGL drivers which was bascially the bare minimum of OpenGL API required to run Quake. The performance differences between GLQuake running on Voodoo cards and Quake running on Rendition Verite spoke for themselves and after that most gamers went with 3DFX.

dosquest wrote:

I'm finding conflicting info. Some say the 128 I have is 2d only some say its 3d. Ill try my rage pro 3d after I benchmark my trident 3d imagè card.

Rage 128 is next generation architecture after Rage Pro. It can do everything better, and I would expect it to match Voodoo2 even with 64 bit bus. But 3d imagè is most fun anyway 😎

konc wrote:

I thought Quake 1 never got 3dfx support? I'm not talking about Quake 2 or other windows versions (GLQuake etc), just Quake 1 that's mentioned twice already in this thread having a 3dfx patch and drivers optimized for it.

Quake was THE killer app for 3dfx. The miniGL driver did the job. Patching games to support 3D accelerators was nothing unusual back in the day.

I have always been into racing games.

Back in the day i had an Intel 200mmx system with a 2mb s3 virge card. I got a demo of formula one 97 and i wanted to play it soooo bad!

It was a complete slideshow and nowere near playable (but hey, i kept trying!)

Then i saw a test in a magazine about the voodoo cards and they kept saying how much faster it was. I bought one (reasonable price since the v2 was just in the stores i believe) and WOW! i couldn`t believe my eyes....
The game was looking much better and it did fly!

Became also a big fan of the first screamer games (dos glide) and do still play them occasionally.

Ever since i had some big love for the 3dfx cards, they were amazing. Through the years i bought some expensive graphics cards and did some big upgrades but i never experienced again the enormous boost my V1 gave me.

After V1 i had V2 and then went SLI. Awesome setups. First non 3dfx card was a geforce 2 because it supported TnL and more and more games did benefit from it so V5 was no option for me. (when it came out it wasn`t bad but i bought a new card much later as my sli was still kicking hard)

vetz wrote:

What? It was the most expensive 3D acceleration card, and it did not offer any 2D capabilities. Carmack at ID Software belived the 3DFX cards to be too expensive hence they initially went for supporting the Rendition Verite in Quake. Luckily for 3DFX there were a huge dip in DRAM prices in the summer/autumn of 1996 making them able to reduce the price by 100 dollars. This changed everything.

Yeah I have no objection to this and I'm not implying that it was also the cheapest card right from launch, I didn't even bought one myself until late 1997 because of its price. I might have gone too far generalizing 3 out of 4 years (what I consider to be the 3dfx golden-playing solo era is until Voodoo3 when real and strong competitors appeared). But hey, that's what I've experienced! I honestly believe/saw that before the years of Voodoo3 there was really nothing else worthing to be considered as a wise choice in terms of looks, performance, price AND supporting software. I might as well be totally wrong as I'm describing real personal experiences, possibly spoiled and imposed by youth...