3Dfx Voodoo Graphics 加速卡发布 30 周年——1996 年 10 月 PC 3D 游戏迈入成熟期

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG_a3oa5YSY

I cannot believe it's been 30 years since the 3Dfx Voodoo 1 was released. Right around the same time the Nintendo 64 released in the U.S.
There were a few decent 3D accelerators for gaming before Voodoo1, but not many and the ones that were, weren't very easy for developers to program for with a fast API like Glide. in 1997, 3Dfx had captured a large amount of mindshare among developers and acceptance from PC gamers.
Quake got patched with an OpenGL port and rest was history.

But 1997 was also planted the seeds of 3Dfx's downfall when they lost the Sega deal for what would become Dreamcast. Still, 1998 was a big year for 3Dfx with the introduction of Voodoo2 and continued and growing developer support.

Did you game on 3Dfx Voodoo, Voodoo2, Banshee or Voodoo 3 card in the 90s?

Some of the EDGE and Next Generation magazine coverage from 1996-1997

Main rival: NEC VideoLogic's PowerVR

The 3Dfx chip for Sega was apparently based on or similar to Avenger / Voodoo3, so perhaps one 3rd generation PixelFX unit and two 3rd gen TexelFX units. Banshee had one 2nd gen PixelFX unit and one 2nd gen TexelFX unit.

Voodoo3 / Avenger coupled with Hitachi SH-4 CPU would have been a monster in terms of performance but lacked the features and efficiency that PowerVR2 had.

Interview from about a decade ago

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ociCY-EKuV8

A more recent interview

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGWXCHPOGfA

Last edited: Tuesday at 7:48 AM

I had a 3Dfx Voodoo 3 2000 (PCI). It took me out of the software rendering ghetto lol. Plus it open the door to play more PC games that pretty much required a 3D accelerator to work.

My first card was a Canopus Pure3D which had 6 MB of RAM instead of 4 MB like most cards. It was incredible to jump into 3d acceleration.

No video card should ever cost more than $299. If you are paying more than that for your card, you are being scammed.

I didn't have voodoo money so I rocked my TNT2 Ultra for a few years back in the day

I found TNT2 worked better with Direct3D most of the time.

Voodoo's Glide never seemed to work as well for me. I used wrappers a lot to get things working.

I had a 3Dfx Voodoo 3 2000 (PCI). It took me out of the software rendering ghetto lol. Plus it open the door to play more PC games that pretty much required a 3D accelerator to work.

I had the same card.

I skipped the Voodoo 1 and 2 because I was a poor teenager and couldn't afford one and when I started earning money the Voodoo 3 was announced so I got that one and paired it with my Pentium 2 350

Turning on 3dfx Glide for the first time in Unreal felt like I was looking into the future. It was unbelievable seeing that for the first time.

first pc that I owned myself had a 8MB voodoo 2. Remember getting that built and playing Star Wars episode 1 which required a video card.

I went with an ATI 3d rage. It did the job for awhile.

I don't remember anymore but I had a voodoo 2 for sure. I remember playing quake and being amazed at the upgrade it was.

Never got one of these but did get a PowerVR PCX2 and playing Quake and Tomb Raider with bilinear filtering and high frame rate after the pixelated software versions was a revelation.

I would just buy a game if they had a PowerVR logo on the box. And then Direct 3D expanded and the scene changed forever. Those were very exciting times.

Loved it. I remember when I got mine and could use the extra graphics features on Myth 2 Soulblighter.

Voodoo 3 2000 user i was, had to modify it to fit in our family's HP desktop.

Trespasser, Outcast, Moto Racer, Quake, Need For Speed 2 and of course Half Life/Day of Defeat.

Those were the days

I was a 3DFX cult member, the arguments back then between the Voodoo clan and the Nvidia lovers were glorious. Give me Glide or give me death!!

Voodoo 3 2000 user i was, had to modify it to fit in our family's HP desktop.
Trespasser, Outcast, Moto Racer, Quake, Need For Speed 2 and of course Half Life/Day of Defeat.
Those were the days

Oh, man, Moto Racer. I played a full year of that.

View: https://youtu.be/Tb3a7uESO7c?is=HgmVs1Kyswnz-X7h

I was there, Gandalf. With my Pentium MMX 166, 32 MB RAM, 1GB HDD, S3 Virge and 3Dfx Voodoo.

- EDGE and Next Generation in-depth on Voodoo2

Last edited: Oct 10, 2026

Legendary cards. Remember my cousin getting one (and the successors after that) and we couldn't stop playing PC games. He basically introduced me to PC gaming, all I knew back then were consoles. Games on PC were different though so not really comparable to today.

We got a family PC after a while but it didn't have a Vodoo. Don't remember the specs but it could barely run any games.

My first graphics card came with my NEC, it was a Trident3D and worked with basically no games.

I swapped my MB and RAM so I could get a Voodoo3 3000 AGP. It was awesome and better than my friends Nvidia TNT for what really mattered... Everquest because it was Glide based. That only lasted until Ruins of Kunark expansion.

Replaced with a GeForce 2 MX which was gifted to me. It was a great card too

My first card was a Diamond Monster 3D II Voodoo2 12MB. First game I played with 3D acceleration was Half-Life. I remember taking it from 640x480 to 800x600 with a substantially better framerate and much smoother graphics.

Had a voodoo 3 baby!!! That glide with nfl blitz!!!

Didn't pull the trigger until the Banshee.

30?! years ago?! damn...I mean I did game many years before on Amiga and other systems, showing me how old I really am ^^

Yes, I did have a Voodoo card or card(s) over the years, very early already, Voodoo 2 and 3 followed and a Banshee in between (on top) I think it was around the Voodoo 2 card (some games did run better on the Banshee than the Voodoo 2 if I remember correctly), Diamond Monster 3D? etc.? long time ago...

Whoever got hired and changed the direction of the company to manufacture their own boards is the main reason 3DFX died.

Absolute bonkers.

Think I had a voodoo 2. Was AGP instead of PCI

I found two Voodoo 3 2000 PCI cards at an estate sale a few months back. Paid $10 a piece for them and use them in a couple of old PCs I picked up later. One a Gateway with a 400MHz Pentium II, and the other with a 450 MHz AMD K6-2. They still work fine after all these years.

I remember trying to squeeze as much juice out of my Voodoo 3 2000 card after 3DFX folded through using custom WickedGL drivers and 3rd party drivers as well. Good times.

I helped or advised (forget the specifics) my one PC-clueless friend to get a Voodoo 2 to get his crap gaming PC up to snuff for LAN parties. We went to install it and it turned out his PC manufacturer/BIOS/mobo combination or something was a specific, singular case of a known complete incompatibility with 3dfx cards. Had to return the 3dfx.

I would love to V2's see the 22-bit (is that the right number? forget) color rendering again. The lack of proper 24-bit color resulted in that distinctive dithered look. I think some modern shaders have worked to recreate it for better emulation purposes but I haven't investigated much.

I remember buying a Voodoo Banshee and playing the hell out of Tomb Raider. It really felt like the future.

I remember when I first got a Voodoo and installed it in my parents' PC. The first game I played was Jane's Longbow 2 and I was enraptured!

I had a Voodoo3….but how many of you had a Voodoo5?

I actually returned the first GeForce card because performance sucked so bad and grabbed a much faster (on glide supported games lol) Voodoo5!

Stepdad had a Voodoo 2, I eventually had a Voodoo 3 3000. Carried the 3DFX torch in the early flame wars, but jumped to Nvidia with the Geforce 2 after 3DFX imploded. Was just an indescribably exciting time from one month to the next as to what was happening in the gaming tech world.

Vex

Sucked Hecht’s Toes

This was a bit before I started taking PC seriously as a gaming platform but I used to think a lot of those video card box arts were so cheesy lol.

Reminded me of REBOOT the TV show graphics lol. Very retro 3d stuff.

I jumped in the wrong wagon a little bit earlier with a Creative Labs 3D Blaster, and spend some years suffering till I had the budget to get another PC/3Dcard.

I had this badboy and thought it was the coolest thing ever to be able to record console footage on my PC. I had dreams of making a website where I'd post "cool" gaming clips. This was back in like 2000, so years before YouTube or JustinTV.

Unfortunately I knew nothing about web hosting and was way too lazy to actually make my idea happen.

I never got into 3dfx.

It was Rendition Verite 1000 (via Creative 3D Blaster) for me which was my introduction to these special graphics.

It had an enhanced update for Tomb Raider as well as Quake with vQuake and a bunch of other games later on so I didnt see need for 3dfx as well.

Next graphics card I got was nvidia and havent had anything else since.

I'm still here! About a month or two ago I picked up a Voodoo 3 2000 for a retro rig i've built fantastic back then and still awesome today!

Had a Orchid Righteous 3D Voodoo 1, which came in a bundle with Mech Warrior 2.

I can't remember which games I played at that time, but Unreal two years later was insane.

My first video card was a voodoo 3 3000 PCI, I believe when I got it the price was around $100-120. But this made a major difference when it came to playing games or playing emulators. Back then almost any upgrade to your PC made a big difference, simple things like adding more ram made playing games like morrowind more playable.

It was my first gpu purchase. My mom bought it at Walmart for $99 (pretty sure it was a voodoo2) and threw it into my emachines pc to play unreal tournament.

I bought a Voodoo 2 only to be able to use UltraHLE. I'm not the only one in this case, right?

It was all about POD.

I remember going out and buying a Voodoo 2 with my HS graduation money so I could play the copy of Everquest I bought lol. I installed the game and everything was white and untextured and I was all what the hell? Saw that I needed a 3D card and went to Babbage's to buy one right after.

My first 3D gpu was the voodoo banshee I think and then upgraded to the Riva TNT 2 after Quake 2 hit

So many fond memories reading about the latest graphics cards from several different manufacturers other than Nvidia and ATI

I bought a Voodoo 2 only to be able to use UltraHLE. I'm not the only one in this case, right?

I already had the Voodoo2, but I did download UltraHLE on day 1. It was miraculous to see Super Mario 64 running playably on a Pentium 200MHz with 64MB of RAM and 12MB of graphics memory.

I remember getting Rayman 2 as a gift, my first own pc game besides edutainment stuff. I think my father had to get a 3dx card for it to work. Exciting times, even though I didn't really understand pc gaming yet (and have later on only really gamed on consoles afterwards)

Quake 2 on a Voodoo 2 (I think, it was a while back) was my first taste of 3D. Was no going back after that.

I can't remember if there was one big thing that doomed 3dfx into ruin or if it was one of those death by a thousand cuts cases that tend to plague early trailblazers who can't quite keep up.

My first 3dfx card was the Monster 3D. It was so good and playing Turok and Need for Speed 3 was insane.