I thought it was a Voodoo 3 1000, but it's a Voodoo 3 3000 without the heatsink. Is it worth anything like this? I found it on an abandoned computer case many years ago and I never tried running a video game until now.
>No power connector because it's that old (1999) >No heatsink >16 megs of memory >AGP x4, I think? >VGA and S-Video outputs >It works (tried Windows XP 32 bits with Age of Empires II)
What would you do with it? Build a retro PC? Which OS would you pick? 98 SE or XP? What games would you play on this?
I guess it's only going to be good for pre 2001 video games since I tried running GTA III and it showed me an error that said "You need at least 12 mbs of video memory". I changed the Windows XP resolution to 800x600 16 bits and it launched the game, but starting a new game during the first cutscene the game hangs.
I also have a Geforce MX 440 64 mb AGP x8, so I don't know if the Voodoo is worth keeping.
I have a Voodoo 1 and a Voodoo 5 somewhere in my old parts box, but no machine old enough to put them in.
9x is a better choice for anything 3dfx, if I remember right, I believe XP (and NT in general) didn't play nice with the V5, or any other dual-chip card of that era (ATI Rage Fury Maxx got cucked, too) You do need a heatsink on that thing, though, even if it's not the original one. Play some Quake 2
Daniel Morales
Quake 3 released the year during Voodoo 3’s release
Cooper Taylor
Yeah but Q2 was better
James Hernandez
Ha, very funny.
Dominic Stewart
Yeah, so if I remember correctly the Voodoo 3 is 16-bit color only. They did something clever to reduce the dithering but it's not 32-bit color capable, the Voodoo 5 is.
It does support the Glide API natively, so that could be a nice reason to keep it around. Also 3dfx has many fanbois who seem to be willing to pay the premium on it.
Ayden Powell
A Pentium 3 build would probably be ideal, but ridiculously priced these days. I'd actually recommend getting a mobile Northwood Pentium 4, they are a lot cheaper and relatively low power consumption. That way if you want to play early 2000's titles you just put in later AGP GPU (like a radeon 9800) and you're good to go.
You should probably aim a little lower than GTA3, some titles to try: - Unreal - Unreal Tournament 98 - Tomb Raider - Quake 2/3 - Blood - RTS games like C&C and AoE2 - late DOS era
Joshua Collins
What would you do with it, friendly user?
>9x is a better choice for anything 3dfx I'll look into it, thanks
>You do need a heatsink on that thing, though, even if it's not the original one Really? Would a very ghetto 3 pin fan zip tied over the chip be "ok but niggerlicious" or should I get a real heatsink for something like a raspberry pi and attach it... Somehow. I know nothing about that, but I did that (ghetto fan over heatsink) with an old gpu once.
>Play some Quake 2 Maybe it's time to finish it a third time
A better single player experience for sure. I loved the level design.
>Also 3dfx has many fanbois who seem to be willing to pay the premium on it. I checked eBay and was surprised over the silly prices. Is it nostalgia or truly they were "that good" gpu chips back then? I remember ads for them too but they were too pricey for my young self.
>support the Glide API natively But not every game uses that API right? The first Unreal did IIRC.
Thanks user. The PC is a Pentium III build. 256 mb of SDRAM and a 864mhz P3. No cool soundcard though, it's the motherboard one.
By the time voodoo3 released nVidia was top dog with Riva TNT2 but not by much. Their next release was the first GeForce with TnL though and it was all over for the rest of the industry
Grayson Stewart
A pair of V2s was top of the heap by some ways in the P2 era, V3 was competitive but (IIRC) didn't do 32-bit color. VSA-100 had some neat AA tricks but just plain couldn't catch e.g. a GeForce 2 Ti.
>Would a very ghetto 3 pin fan zip tied over the chip be "ok but niggerlicious" or should I get a real heatsink for something like a raspberry pi and attach it... Somehow. It needs some kind of metal on it. Doesn't need to be huge, especially if you're giving it some airflow (late '90s cases had some truly atrocious airflow by today's standards) but it should be there. Get a little 40mm square heatsink, you can find two- and four-packs of them on Amazon, with pre-applied thermal tape (good enough for this) for under ten bucks. I guess if you wanna be more original you could try and find a Blue Orb somewhere, those were all over graphics cards and chipsets in that era.
Isaac Johnson
Voodoo3 is the best possible retro card you're ever going to find. The 3D is pretty good, but what everybody ignores is the DOS compatibility - Voodoo3 is compatible with a huge number of DOS games and is second only to the S3 Savage4 in that department, which however is worse for 3D. Not to mention 3dfx cards support Glide which was the best API at the time and a lot of things supported it. This makes for a very wide range of games you can run, from very early stuff from the late 80s all the way to 1999-2000 3D games like unreal tournament - basically it's good for the entire 90s game catalogue.
Yes, Nvidia's TNT2 had 32bit color while the V3 had to use dithering to fake it but that doesn't matter much these days. Actually i think the dithering gives it a bit of an "aesthetic" like the PS1's crappy texture jitter is considered "stylish" now.
Zachary Young
This was my first GPU. I wouldn't do anything with it other than maybe stick it on a shelf and occasionally smile when I see it. AGP slot.
Ryder Phillips
V5 dual gpu card had the raw fillrate for nice AA but lacked hardware TnL and thus was outclassed other than AA. 3dfx was already doomed by that release and nvidia bought their IP (htf was that allowed)
Nicholas Lee
I you don't want to play certain games from before 1999 then having a voodoo is meaningless anyway. You can get a better card for like 10 bucks if you don't have games that require 3dfx proprietary drivers But 3dfx is a meme so you can sell it to some retard for like $100
Christopher Edwards
This was my first GPU. I regret throwing it away so bad
Kayden Taylor
Put a heatsink on it and it's worth about $170
There's more demand than you'd think for obsolete HW. Both from collectors and from systems running business critical things that they can't update for modern systems.
Easton Sanders
The PS1's texture jitter is very comfy and horrendous at the same time.
I could do that too I guess. IT technology history showcase.
I should finish Deus Ex.
Would this one be ok? It's the best I could find available in my zone, and it's 40 x 40. The seller says it's adhesive. I could plug it to some free molex connector from the PSU.
