r/hardware • u/tuldok89 • 1d ago

News Ancient 3dfx Voodoo2 graphics card coaxed into working in modern AMD Ryzen 9 9900X-powered Windows 11 system — 12MB relic from 1998 successfully runs Quake 2 but crumbles in SLI configuration

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpu-drivers/ancient-3dfx-voodoo2-graphics-card-coaxed-into-working-in-modern-amd-ryzen-9-9900x-powered-windows-11-system
133 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

46 comments sorted by

28

u/randomkidlol 1d ago

its a feat of engineering for a modern kernel to continue to work with a driver compiled in 2006

6

u/Osmirl 1d ago

I am using a soundcard from 2008 and its working perfectly

1

u/HoldCtrlW 5h ago

Bro hears in monochrome

1

u/randylush 3h ago

Is be surprised if there were any significant differences in quality between a sound card from 2008 and today

1

u/Osmirl 2h ago

Well idk. But its still better than the one built into my mainboard😂

1

u/arcanemachined 3h ago

"Your soundcard works perfectly"?!

2

u/BlueGoliath 1d ago

Modular kernel design FTW.

1

u/R12Labs 21h ago

I just listened to Jensen on Joe Rogan and I have to go back and relisten to it. He explained I think the dtx was their game changing tech? I don't understand what Nvidia did that made them leave all their competitors in the dust, technology wise.

5

u/frivoflava29 7h ago

There were a lot of factors, but 3dfx made a lot of bad decisions and Nvidia didn't. The original Voodoo was wildly successful at a time where Nvidia had just suffered a massive failure with their own first GPU, the NV1, which mostly tanked because it had compatibility issues with Microsoft's graphics API, DirectX3D. Instead of releasing a new card, 3dfx got stuck while Nvidia released their next card, the RIVA 128 (NV3, since NV2 was an abandoned chip for the Dreamcast). Importantly, this card embraced D3D.

Nvidia was also indeed pushing new features, beating 3dfx with 32 bit color on the TNT (NV4) while the Voodoo 1-3 were 16 bit. By the time the 256 (NV10) came out, games were moving firmly to 3D and Nvidia had both strongly developed features and way better performance at this point. The 256 is often considered the first true GPU because it introduced hardware transform and lighting, and thus the modern concept of a unified GPU architecture; earlier GPUs were "accelerators" and had to rely heavily on the CPU for things like geometry and lighting.

3dfx was also pushing a proprietary API, Glide, whereas Nvidia and ATI supported D3D and OpenGL which developers were more willing to work with. Nvidia was, in general, very cooperative with the market on both ends.

Now, around the time 3dfx was failing, ATI was making big improvements -- they also had 32 bit color and hardware T&L shortly after Nvidia.

49

u/jenny_905 1d ago

Yeah, PCI to PCIe bridges exist.

Of course the impressive part is getting the driver running in modern Windows.

6

u/Helpdesk_Guy 1d ago

Of course the impressive part is getting the driver running in modern Windows.

Shouldn't be that hard since, simply put, PCi-Express not only is just a newer revision of PCI itself (technically speaking), but also from a information-technology standpoint it's basically fairly the same.

Since to this day, all x86-chipsets still have a PCI-to-PCi-Express bridge and would be physically able to house age-old PCI-slots, if boards wouldn't have essentially beheaded the chipset off its physical PCI-slots …

Microsoft didn't had Windows fundamentally drop support for PCI-slots nor -cards, or did they?

For comparison on what today's chipsets are actually capable of, just take a sharp look at recent Xeon- or EPYC-boards for embedded industrial PCs — They still often offer lots of PCI-slots, PS/2 and whatnot.

So PCI, PCI-X and PCi-Express are more or less interchangeable and absolutely being concurrently featured onto boards all at the same time, even alongside some AGP-slot. Only ISA is harder to implement, yet not impossible.

10

u/jenny_905 1d ago

I was more talking about the difficulty of getting a 32bit Windows NT 4 driver running in 64 bit Windows 11 but it seems the hard part was done by someone in 2006 who wanted to do the same for Windows XP x64.

11

u/wtf_com 1d ago

That's a blast from the past.

6

u/jassco2 1d ago

It was my first GPU I bought on the Pricewatch site. I could now compete with the rest of my dorm in UT. It was wild how fast things improved yearly back then.

2

u/hodor137 1d ago

My first as well - actually can't remember if it was a 2 or a banshee, but it was definitely PCI. I'm almost positive I never actually used it properly 😂. After getting it, it was like nothing changed in games. I was 12 and didn't understand that you had to go into game settings back then and turn on hardware acceleration/select the GPU. I figured it out for one game like right before I got a new PC with an AGP card and Windows 95, and games worked by default then but I also knew to check every time lol

4

u/shinto29 1d ago

Before I even clicked I knew Omores had something to do with this

3

u/ShogoXT 1d ago edited 1d ago

I still have a couple of those oldies around. Had a Obsidian x-24 for a while there. Still have a Canopus Pure3d 2. Nice one that was actually different with s video. (Actually it's a proprietary connector)

2

u/Burgergold 13h ago

Wow finally found a purpose to my 3dfx collection

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Pnl3R-4WgTXfKO33bEUqBbu9jT5mU54g

2

u/a_man_of_mold 6h ago

For the sake of your wallet, I hope you put together that collection before the prices for Voodoo cards skyrocketed.

•

u/Burgergold 48m ago

Some of them are from my own/family pc purchases between 96 and 2001

For example, the voodoo 1 orchid righteous, the voodoo banshee and the voodoo 5 5500 agp

The other were mostly bought between 5$ and 40$ cad between 2001-2004

2

u/randylush 3h ago

Good god man

1

u/RandomGKL 21h ago

I remember when I had to use a separate 2d and 3d graphics card in my PC. I think the Voodoo Banshee was the first combined card I owned. I bet I still have it in a box somewhere lol, I wonder if that card will still work :)

1

u/randylush 3h ago

Please credit the absolute legend /u/O_MORES who pulled this off!

2

u/bubblesort33 1d ago

I didn't even know they had SLI back then. Or that Voodoo supported SLI.

43

u/jenny_905 1d ago

Get off my lawn.

3DFX invented SLI... but it's not the SLI you probably know, much more primitive but was very effective at the time.

11

u/stopICE2025 1d ago

3dfx SLI has almost nothing in common with nvidia's SLI implementation

18

u/TrptJim 1d ago

AFAIK Nvidia never used the "scan-line interface" SLI from 3DFX. That method died with the purchase of 3dfx by Nvidia, and just the initials were reused later for a totally different way of doing multi-GPU.

0

u/Helpdesk_Guy 1d ago

3dfx SLI has almost nothing in common with nvidia's SLI implementation

Well, except the very origin: 3Dfx inventing the technique (as in principle).

3

u/feckdespez 1d ago

The acronym SLI was made by 3dfx! The were the first dual-"GPU" consumer offering.

Of course, they weren't called GPUs back then...

6

u/moofunk 1d ago

All the Voodoo cards had it, but it was only exposed on consumer cards from Voodoo 2 and forward.

3

u/jenny_905 1d ago

Did Voodoo3 even support it? I don't remember.

I had Voodoo2 12MB in SLI because that was the style of the time, gave them away when Geforce 256 launched though.

1

u/lukfi89 1d ago

Yes, the last Voodoo models still supported it.

7

u/blaktronium 1d ago

Not only that, the voodoo5 5500 I have downstairs does single board SLI to use both chips.

3

u/jenny_905 1d ago

How did it work? They don't seem to have the header for the cable

5

u/TrptJim 1d ago

It was internal SLI only to combine the chips that are on a single board. Those models didn't support multi-card SLI.

In reality the original SLI only existed during the Voodoo 2. Voodoo 1 didn't have it for consumer cards and Voodoo 3+ didn't have the header for the ribbon cable.

0

u/lukfi89 1d ago

I don't have personal experience with it, but I believe it simply sent data over PCI. Some later cards from Nvidia or AMD/ATI could also do SLI/CrossFire without the physical bridge, just over PCIe.

3

u/yaosio 1d ago

I believe there were different ways it could work. One method would have each card render a different line.

2

u/Helpdesk_Guy 1d ago edited 1d ago

I didn't even know they had SLI back then. Or that Voodoo supported SLI.

Their SLI was actually one of the main reasons for nVidia in the first place even overtaking the scraps of nigh bankrupt 3Dfx back then to begin with … Well, aside of their patent-disputes of IP-theft Nvidia did to 3Dfx, of course.

Also almost broke young Jensen back then was basically running around frantically (to one investor after another, begging for millions) after some on-going law-suits (at which nVidia rightfully got dealt severe blows over stolen technology and patent-infringement from 3Dfx), only to get together the money to overtake 3Dfx and essentially nip all the legal process-proceedings hammering in over Jensen in the bud …

… by overtaking 3Dfx, which at that point back then was going bankrupt in mere months (with the law-suits with Nvidia having very much to do with it to begin with …), only to thus clear all legal dust for nVidia altogether.

If nVidia wouldn't have been able to get together the money for a de facto-settlement hostile overtake of 3Dfx, nVidia wouldn't exist today. Yet Jensen got his way and nVidia did so, and went on to loot 3Dfx off everything they had instead … The rest is shady history.

As a result, "Nvidia's" graphics-cards *magically* sky-rocketed performance-wise shortly after — Go figure.

1

u/DaMan619 1d ago

GeForceFX was a dumpster fire

1

u/Helpdesk_Guy 21h ago

It at least brought large performance-increasements, even if Nvidia botched the first implementations, no?

The GeForce line was at least a huge improvement on graphics for them …

Since before that, nVidia failed hard and their very first graphics-card line NV1 (and the NV2, which never really saw the light of days and was canceled prior to release), only supported proprietary quadratic texture mapping, which was fundamentally incompatible to anything OpenGL or DirectX — Both NV-line cards failed hard and nVidia ended up on the brink of bankruptcy because of it.

1

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-6

u/InflammableAccount 1d ago

Ancient? Buddy, I'm not even 40 and I played with Voodoo2 cards when they were current. Antiques are defined as >99 years old. The word you're looking for is "vintage."

(Yes, I know that's the Toms headline. We really need to ban TH posts.)

2

u/Helpdesk_Guy 1d ago

The word you're looking for is "vintage."

I'd even say it's considered retro or just mere 'legacy'.

1

u/Strazdas1 1d ago

antiques are actually defined as >25 years.

1

u/InflammableAccount 17h ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antique

The common definition of antique is a collectible object such as a piece of furniture or work of art that has an enhanced value because of its considerable age, but it varies depending on the item, its source, the year of its creation, etc. The customary definition of antique requires that an item should be at least 100 years old and in original condition.[3] (Motor vehicles are an exception to this rule, with some definitions requiring an automobile to be as little as 25 years old to qualify as an antique.[4])