If you're the 'bottom feeder' sort of collector the time of the easy-to-find Glide deal is over, though you can get lucky from time to time on eBay. So from the point of view of someone in "accumulation mode" and on a budget, the typical prices you see now are probably prohibitive.

But if you're the focused, patient, quality-over-quantity type, current prices are no more outrageous than when these cards were selling in the stores the first time around and in fact they are often a good deal cheaper in inflation adjusted $$$. The argument could be made that they present a decent value for the collector who is also an avid gamer looking to experience [or re-experience] the vast catalog of games from the mid-90's to early 2000's in all their flaming glory.

So in a practical useful sense a couple of 3dfx cards make a compelling choice. But from the "look at it for 5 minutes, carefully wrap it in an anti-static bag and stick it in the old storage tub for god knows how long", perhaps it's a pricey indulgence. And yet we all indulge from time to time...

About 10 years ago, I snapped up a bunch of boxed Voodoo accelerators. Mainly as a collector, not as an investment. I figured they'd disappear. I guess they slowly are - but I'm shocked at how much more they are going for these days.

I remember picking up a pair of sealed 3dfx-branded (post-STB) V2 1000 12MB PCI's for something like $15 bucks on eBay (with shipping). I could probably get a spare capacitor for that price now...

As to whether they are worth the money - if you need Glide support, then you don't really have any other choice.

Personally, I would still go in debt to get a Rev3700/3900 V5 6K* or a Daytona or Rampage board. But then my life priorities are clearly skewed.

*About 5 years ago I had a chance to get a PCI reworked V5 6000 rev3700A for about $750. I thought it was too much. I'm still kicking myself for that decision.

sliderider wrote:

konc wrote:

Correct me if I'm wrong but I have the impression that among all other things already mentioned running a game with a real 3dfx card offers a unique appearance, the graphics that only with a voodoo one can experience (as long as it supports it). For me it's not about performance, framerate or anything else, all those can be better covered with other cards. It's about seeing the game with different graphics that any other card. I'm not implying better, just different. Especially when you've actually lived that period this is something to look for.

Of course all these apply when running on real hardware, I've been seeking a cheap voodoo card myself but as I don't yet own one (for the second time in my life 😀 ) I'm still using nGlide to get again "that look" in games I used to play.

I always thought that Glide games looked like the old movies and cartoons that were filmed in Technicolor. The colors seem a lot more vivid to me than in the OGL or DX versions of the same games. Some say that it is only the default gamma setting in the 3dfx drivers that brings out the colors, but I'm not so sure about that.

It really depends on the card. On my first Voodoo graphics acellerator the default gamma was awfully bright, with black looking like 50% gray and I had to tweak autoexec to get a somewhat normal picture.

(Deleted. No longer relevant anyway)

Oh well... just picked up a Voodoo 3 3000 from a local shop for basically nothing. If I'm impressed with its performance, maybe I'll decide to sink some more money into 3dfx hardware. Cheers to everyone who offered their opinions!