Voodoo 3dfx: a graph that marked the 3d (history and models)

The world of graphics cards was not a concern in the 1970s, when the first personal computers were devised. However, the first video card would emerge in the early 1960s, although computers would not have a monitor, they would be treated as mere printers that printed messages to visualize everything that was happening.

If you want to know the history of the Voodoo 3DFX, we advise you to stay because you can find all the information below. Let's start!

Index of contents

Voodoo 3DFX 1, 1996

In 1994 3dfx Interactive is founded by Ross Smith, Gary Tarolli and Scott Sellers in San José, California. It is a company specialized in the manufacture of 3D graphics processing units that would later be dedicated to graphics cards.

This company released its Voodoo graphics chip on October 7, 1996, which would come out with Orchid Righteous 3D as the first model to launch this chipset. However, its goal was not consumers, but was to be a graphics card distributor for companies that designed, manufactured and sold their own graphics cards, but that included the Voodoo chip.

In fact, this graphics card was used in the first arcade machine with the ICE Home Run Derby video game. Later many more titles would come, such as the San Francisco Rush: Extreme Racing, a video game released for arcade machines, but that would also be released for Nintendo 64 and PlayStation.

At the end of 1996, the price of the EDO DRAM fell to the ground, when 3DFX took advantage to enter the consumer market, offering an inexpensive graphics card that would serve to move games like Doom or Quake, legend of video game history.

3DFX Voodoo GLIDE

It would do so with a PCI expansion card that consisted of a DAC, a frame buffer and a texture mapping unit. It would have 4MB of EDO DRAM and its graphic core would start at 50 MHz. Voodoo 1 brought 3D acceleration, but needed a daughter card for 2D graphics.

We must mention Glide, the 3D graphics API developed by 3DFX for its graphics cards, which would compete with Microsoft's Direct3D and Silicon Graphics' OpenGL. Initially, it was created for arcade machines, but this technology was transferred to video games that could be consumed at home.

In the case of Voodoo 1, the MiniGL driver was revealing, allowing the Quake to be moved; in fact, it could get to move the Quake III, which meant a full-blown advance, some visual graphics that impacted for the time and a first plate for what would be Voodoo 2.

As an interesting fact, this card cost around 35, 000 pesetas in Spain, which would be around € 210.

Voodoo 3DFX 2, 1998

Following the success of its predecessor, 3dfx released Voodoo 2 in February 1998 to replace its previous chip. This card worked at a clock of 90 MHz and used 100 MHz of EDO RAM, being available as PCI. The Voodoo 2 had two models, one with 8MB of RAM with 2MB of TMU; another with 12MB of RAM and 4MB of TMU.

In the case of the 12 MB version of RAM, it could support a maximum resolution of 800 x 600 pixels, which meant a tremendous leap in the quality of graphic textures. And is that the Voodoo 2 had a bandwidth of 800 MB / s for each chip. Voodoo 2 relied on a program that optimized the second TMU (English Texture Mapping Unit).

Its arrival on the market was very different, since there was great competition with ATI Rage, Nvidia RIVA and Rendition. Like its predecessor, it needed to work with a 2D graph. However, it was the only card capable of texturing two cycles into one, something Quake II and Unreal would take advantage of.

Voodoo 3DFX SLI

With this graph came the SLI. Does that sound familiar to you? The Scan-Line Interleave consisted of the parallel connection of two Voodoo 2 cards, which allowed increasing the memory and raising the maximum resolution to 1024 x 768 pixels. Unfortunately, the TMU could not be doubled because each card needed to duplicate the scene data.

In summary, we had a card with these specifications:

90 MHz clock. 135 MHz RAMDAC. It worked in full screen in DOS, Windows 98 and Windows 95. It needed another 2D card connected by VGA cable. Maximum resolution of 800 x 600; in SLI, 1024 x 768.180 million pixels per second.3 Chips TMU.2 versions: one with 8MB of RAM; another with 12 MB.

It was the graphics card that marked a before and after in the world of video games, taking an unprecedented leap in quality.

3DFX Voodoo Banshee, 1998

3dfx had a problem to solve: remove dependency on another additional 2D graphics card. Thus, in late 1998, Banshee was born. It was a single-chip solution that combined a 2D video card with a single Voodoo 2 TMU.

As a consequence, the Voodoo 2 was faster in scenes with a lot of 3D graphics loading. On the other hand, in scenes with little graphic load, the Banshee could perform the same or even faster.

Banshee's 2D acceleration was the first to come from 3dfx and it worked really well. It was made up of a 128-bit engine and a 128-bit VESA VBE 3.0 core. Its graphics chip was capable of speeding up DirectDraw and was compatible with all Windows GDI.

Although it is not as renowned as its two predecessors, it was a product with a more than respectable number of sales, taking into account the rivalry of Matrox, Nvidia and ATi of that time.

Voodoo 3DFX 3, 1999

The beginning of the fall

In 1999 3dfx Interactive released a Voodoo 2 that would only be compatible with OpenGL and Glide on Windows 2000, not Direct3D. This was a serious mistake because video games were switched to Direct3D, so consumers opted for Nvidia and ATI, companies that did offer Direct3D compatible graphics cards.

Although it was announced at COMDEX in 1998, it was launched on the market in 1999. It was based on the old Banshee and was manufactured by 3dfx and STB Systems. The novelty of this Voodoo 3DFX was its Avenger chip, which was the core of Banshee with an additional TMU, since the Banshee only incorporated 1.

We were entering an era where competition was fierce, with Nvidia eating 3dfx market share . Nvidia released the TNT2 which was a better product since the Voodoo 3 was more limited. While the 3dfx one handled textures at 256 × 256 resolution, the Nvidia one was able to do it in 2048 × 2048.

The Voodoo 3 has good sales numbers, thanks to certain new video games from 1999 that were optimized for its architecture, which was stagnant. Its specifications were behind the competition, the end was near.

Voodoo 3DFX 4 4500, 2000

A product that was born dead

The market for PC components is very cruel and devastating. In the graphics card industry, a grueling career of 14 months to 14 months was fought. They were all fighting for the best technology, best performance, best specifications; in short, get the best graphics card on the market.

3dfx decides to buy from the STB factory and manufacture its graphics cards independently. We understand that this is the first step towards failure because you win many enemies or rivals who were allies before: " whoever embraces much, does not press too hard."

The company decides to control everything, which becomes a mistake because everyone who was its allies would go with Nvidia. Also, the STB factory was not working, 3dfx lost John Romero (Id Software and 3dfx defender) and then Napalm would come.

Geforce 2

This Napalm and Voodoo 4 project was nothing more than a remodeling of a Voodoo 3, while Nvidia was presenting its GeForce. They do not even go on sale because it was not viable against the competition. Nvidia innovated in architectures, 3dfx stopped doing it.

However, above all this bloodbath, 3dfx brings out an architecture called VSA (Voodoo Scalable Architecture) that allows combining several processors to double power, that is, a lot of hardware and little software. The problem 3dfx runs into is named GeForce 2, a round product from Nvidia.

After canceling several models, the Voodoo 4 4500 graphics card finally comes out on October 13, 2000. With a 166 MHz 32 MB core clock, this product is not enough to compete against the Geforce 2, which, on top of it, were cheaper. As a detail, not even equipped a DVI output.

Voodoo 3DFX 5 5500, 2000

The Californian company would release its last graphics card on June 22, 2000. It would be called Voodoo 5 5500, it had an AGP 4x bus interface, 64 MB, but it still had a 166 MHz clock.

The company, completely desperate, began looking for comparisons that favored it, but it was far from comparing to an Nvidia.

It must be said that there are numerous 3dfx projects that never came out, such as: Voodoo 4 4000, Voodoo 4800, Voodoo 5 5000 and Voodoo 5 6000.

All designs were discarded because manufacturing costs were soaring and they were unable to bring graphics cards to the market at a competitive price.

The end of 3DFX

The end of 3DFX would be that same year, in which I enter bankruptcy. So, in 2001, 3dfx was purchased by Nvidia for $ 113 million, which was considered a great deal because of its low purchase price.

It is true that you could not value much more because 3dfx was indebted to the eyebrows and its technology had very little value. Years later, there would be no support for Voodoo users, Nvidia deleted everything that had to do with 3dfx, in a framework starring the fight between ATI and Nvidia.

Finally, 3dfx became a company that revolutionized the 3D graphic world in 1996. We can remember it as the one that devised the SLI, the one that brought Quake to all corners of the world and the one that, for 4 years, was indisputable in the world of graphics cards.

We recommend reading the best graphics cards on the market

If you want to know more in detail, we recommend Martín Gamero's book " The legacy of 3DFX ". A 100% recommendable reading book that is in Spanish. What memory do you have of the Voodoo 3DFX? Did you have any What opinion do you deserve the performance of Nvidia?