If you are a "collector" of period specific hardware- regardless of whether the collection is premised on historic, entertainment, or investment value- there is no doubt that the 3dfx cards are worth including.

These cards played an important role in computing. They literally changed the rules of the game and the landscape of the industry as well. That fact alone is a testament to their "entertainment" value, as well as their historic importance to the industry and it's evolution.

In my opinion the answer to your question is yes. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder". Much like a shooting star... and 3dfx was that as well. A shooting star that changed everything. It defined a standard overnight.

I for one would never consider a collection complete with these cards not represented.

d1stortion wrote:

Since I tried it out a while ago I think Voodoo2 SLI is grossly overrated. Image quality and performance are inferior to a Voodoo3 and there is a nasty interlacing artifacts issue with disabled VSync due to the way the analog SLI works on these boards.

The practically useful cards are Voodoo1 for those old statically linked games and Voodoo5 for newer Glide games with 4xFSAA. And of course Voodoo3 as they can be had for next to nothing still.

Two words - AGP 2x.
Voodoo2 PCI can be inserted in any motherboard from 430HX (1996) up to Q77 (2012). Sometimes even newer motherboards support PCI 2.3 through 3rd party controllers.
The time window of Voodoo3/4/5 AGP is much more thinner.

There are also PCI versions of all the later cards. They might be somewhat expensive, but so are the good Voodoo2 boards. I wouldn't be comfortable running any Voodoo2 without extra cooling as even the heatsinks on my Gainward cards get too hot to touch after a short while...

I can only see a use case for Voodoo2 in terms of having the authentic 1998 solution, and then I would certainly not be running them in much newer motherboards (which also puts even more thermal stress on those cards).

Being worth the money is very subjective because we are talking a hobby here not an investment. I picked up most of my 3dfx cards ages ago when they were barely worth shipping. Currently I am only using a pair of Voodoo 2 12MB in SLI on a rig I play diablo 2 on, and a Voodoo 1 in a Pentium for early glide games. There is also a Voodoo 3 AGP in one machine forget which one. All the others are on the shelf with the spares. The V5 is in its box for a long time, the TNT2 ultras and Geforce 1's are more fun at the moment.

Kind of funny how you compare a setup that costs $100 to something newer that you can get cheaper that is faster. That's pretty much how computer collecting works, what is obsolete today goes for nothing and they mostly get recycled only to be collectable and more expensive 5-10 years later. You have no idea how many items people practically begged me to take of their hands ages ago that now command some serious coin.

Unknown_K wrote:

Being worth the money is very subjective because we are talking a hobby here not an investment. I picked up most of my 3dfx cards ages ago when they were barely worth shipping. Currently I am only using a pair of Voodoo 2 12MB in SLI on a rig I play diablo 2 on, and a Voodoo 1 in a Pentium for early glide games. There is also a Voodoo 3 AGP in one machine forget which one. All the others are on the shelf with the spares. The V5 is in its box for a long time, the TNT2 ultras and Geforce 1's are more fun at the moment.

Kind of funny how you compare a setup that costs $100 to something newer that you can get cheaper that is faster. That's pretty much how computer collecting works, what is obsolete today goes for nothing and they mostly get recycled only to be collectable and more expensive 5-10 years later. You have no idea how many items people practically begged me to take of their hands ages ago that now command some serious coin.

This is why I try to collect what is going for cheap right now.

Voodoo 2's have gone up so much in price now, it's a shame...but apparently that's just the way things are it seems.
I also got mine when prices were at their lowest, even got a bunch of Voodoo 2's for shipping only.

Looking at today's prices...I don't think V2's and 5's are worth their current price. A Voodoo 3 can do most of what a V5 and V2 can do anyway, so get those while you can 😜

imo the special thing about a v2 sli setup is the backward compatibility. there are only a few dos games that do not work.
With V3 there are more.
performance wise v2 sli = V3 2000

anyway ... i recently played the emulated glide TombRaider Steam version ... absolutly great - even musik works!

so - you decide 😉

I got a Diamond Voodoo 2 for 2$ this morning at the flea market. Next question is.. Does it work?

$2 for a Monster 3D II? That's crazy. 8MB or 12MB? OEM bundles?

I personally never bought into the SLI hype, bottlenecks were too strong and if a high res in Glide is absolutely desitred the Voodoo3 makes a nice efficient alternative.

I only really value the 3dfx cards now for their filter which I want to imitate, it has a lot to do with their characteristic appearance that should be preserved as much as possible in software 😀

leileilol wrote:

$2 for a Monster 3D II? That's crazy. 8MB or 12MB? OEM bundles?

It is the 8mb. The dude selling it had no clue what it was. There was this big box full of PCB and CPUs and fans all mixed up, mostly junk with a few valuables thrown in. I rummaged through it and came up with teh loot.
Total cost: 10$ If you want to see what the chips are head to page 201 of Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

I'd say it's worth up to $20, but only if you do have quite a few glide games to play. Then there's Glidos, but I've never tried it. There's all kinds of glide wrappers around, but they can be glitchy, and/or have problems (dgvoodoo breaks some physics in carmageddon). I think a lot of 3dfx hardware can be expensive (such as voodoo 4/5 pci) and not worth it. I second the Voodoo 3, but only for $20.00 or less.

Maybe this is a good comparison:

Not really. The image is tinted, the jpeg artifacts destroy the software side, and the overbrights are lost on the right.

I have a few VGA Voodoo captures on my YT channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4LfByYFv8Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJjqMUxunWg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vijnjjTka4c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCcmbXV0g4c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCkSQTVuOAI

The VGA output on these early cards is a bit, "non standard", I would say. Always a bit cut of on the sides. This wasn't an issue on CRTs, but LCDs struggle. I've been told the Voodoo 3 doesn't have this issue, but I never had one to try it out.

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.

I think prices are way to high, but if you really want one, just bite the bullet...

One night out in the city gives also plenty fun but costs the same as a voodoo 5 and none of my voodoo cards ever gave me a hangover.....

Don`t buy it as an investment because hardware prices can go up OR down rapidly. A few years from now it can well be that nobody is interested in your cool voodoo 5 because they A: have one, or B: don`t even know what it is because they all started gaming with ps3, geforce 8 etc. The card is old so it could also die when you use it.

I have a nice collection of 3dfx cards but if i had to pick one alltime favorite: Voodoo1. Because that is imho the only card that can do something really special: make games look much better! (native dos glide games that is).
After that: the voodoo5 because it is fast and can do AA with old games and that really makes them look great.

On a budget: i agree with the others and vote for a voodoo3 3000.

Sli is great just because it was superb performance of it`s time, it was the first time you could use 2 cards together, and v2`s are more compatible with older games than v3 (but v1 is still best for oldest games).

SLI also allowed 1024x768, you were stuck with 800x600 on a normal single Voodoo 2, 640x480 on a Voodoo 1.

Unknown_K wrote:

SLI also allowed 1024x768, you were stuck with 800x600 on a normal single Voodoo 2, 640x480 on a Voodoo 1.

To be more precise - 1024x768 with Z-buffer can be used in SLI setups only. As the example: Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit can use 1024x768 on a single Voodoo2. Without Z-buffering of course...

If you like or a fan of the game Uprising 1 and 2, my two favorite glide games its worth buying a 3dfx card.
Nglide still produces artifacts and some glitches in the sequel, and both games are software rendering or glide only, no DX or opengl.
Also if your a fan of glide games in general probably worth it.

sliderider wrote:

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.

Unreal is one such case. The image looks washed out in D3D and at least in earlier versions some details were missing from the game. They improved the D3D renderer for UE1.5 games (UT, Deus Ex) though.

Turok 1/2 also run badly in Direct3D when compared to Glide. Lots of visual glitches.

Also 3dfx's OpenGL ICD (note: NOT MINIGL) does not apply their 4x1 filter or gamma.

I forget if their Direct3D implementation does though, I remember the filter in some D3D games and not appearing in others, probably API specific...