I never had a Voodoo card in the 90s, they were just way too expensive for me (for example, when Voodoo 2 came out in 1998, its price was almost 3 x the monthly median income in my country).
Under those circumstances, it was a real miracle that I even had a PC back then (and I have my mother to thank for that and for my whole career basically, since having a PC was crucial for it)
So, obviously, until the year 2000 I played exclusively in software mode, with my trusty Ati Rage II 4MB 3D decelerator.... 😁 Anyway, in December 2000, I finally bought a Riva TNT2 M64. Man, I will always remember how I ran to the bus station, took the bus, got off the bus, continued running to the computer store, purchased the card, ran back to the bus station, and so forth, until I finally arrived home out of breath 😁. I quickly replaced the card, booted into Windows 98, installed the drivers aaand... BSOD (the ATI driver had not been uninstalled properly). So I did a fresh Windows 98 install and reinstalled Need for Speed Porsche (a game that my Rage II was unable to render with actual textures 😀 ). And, boy, did my jaw drop when I saw how the Alps, Schwarzwald and Cote d'Azur levels were supposed to look and how "smooth" it ran (in hindsight, it wasn't that smooth, it probably ran at 20 - 25 FPS max, but it was PERFECT for me). I remember playing it until 4 AM, being absolutely mesmerized. I never had this feeling with any upgrade since then, and never will.
So... having said that, I am now obsessed with 3dfx cards, so I have quite a few (but definitely not as many as I'd like):
- 3 x Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
- 1 x Voodoo 3 2000 PCI
- 2 x Creative 3D Blaster Voodoo 2 (used in SLI)
- 1 x Gainward Voodoo 2 (the one with green heatsinks)
- 2 x Diamond Monster 3D Voodoo 1 4MB
Still looking for a Voodoo 5. Actually, I just "purchased" one from eBay for $50 (shipping included), from a seller in China with no previous activity - even though the account was one year old. I decided to take the risk, but right after I purchased the card, the account was deleted by eBay on suspicion of "shady activity", so I immediately reported it to paypal. Funny enough, even though the seller's account was deleted, eBay notified me that the item had been shipped and actually gave me the tracking number 😀) So now I'm quite curious to see what I will actually receive (probably a few pebbles).
1 x PLCC-68 / 2 x PGA132 / 5 x Skt 3 / 9 x Skt 7 / 12 x SS7 / 1 x Skt 8 / 14 x Slot 1 / 5 x Slot A
5 x Skt 370 / 8 x Skt A / 2 x Skt 478 / 2 x Skt 754 / 3 x Skt 939 / 7 x LGA775 / 1 x LGA1155
Current PC: Ryzen 7 5800X3D
Backup PC: Core i7 7700k