First post, by songoffall
- Rank
- Member
I've been dreaming of a 3dfx card since the late 90s, when I saw how Aliens vs. Predator was running on a friend's PC, I think in 99.
For context, my country was part of the USSR, and it took a while for technology to catch up, and 286 class PCs - or having a PC at all - was a luxury in the first half of the 90s. My first computer was a Compaq Contura 430C with a 486DX4 and it wasn't really a gaming system - a passive matrix LCD, only PC speaker sound, Dangerous Dave was playable, Prehistoric already had too much ghosting.
In 99, on the lower end, you might get S3 Trio64, S3 Virge, Rage3D Pro onboard graphics. Matrox Mystique or Millennium on the higher end, and a TNT2 as a top of the line option. My first more or less gaming-capable GPU I got in 2001 - a GeForce2 Mx200, and it was seen as a high-end option.
So I think you'll understand how hardware accelerated graphics in 99 looked like magic to me. Sadly, couldn't afford one then - and Voodoos were in vogue in a very specific window in time.
I've been itching for a Voodoo card - I actually wanted a Voodoo2 for my Compaq DeskPro 2000 - but I think you've all seen the prices on Ebay.
So I saw a Voodoo3 3000 AGP on sale for about $120 and snatched it, will be delivered to me in the beginning of January.
I guess there must be some 3dfx veterans here. Any advice for a newbie? Fun stuff I can do with it? What's the best CPU pairing for a Voodoo3?
Compaq Deskpro 2000/P2 300MHz/256Mb SDRAM/Matrox Mystique/Sound Blaster AWE 32 Value/Aureal Vortex 2
MSI 865P Neo/Pentium 4 HT 3.0GHz/512Mb DDR DRAM/GeForce FX 5500/Creative Audigy 2
Asus P5Q Pro/Core2 Quad Q9400/2Gb DDR2/GeForce 8800GT/Creative X-Fi