At one level in historical past, a 3dfx-powered graphics card was once just about synonymous with consumer-accessible 3-d acceleration due to heaps of previous Voodoo playing cards again within the 90s equipped with 3dfx {hardware}. And now, two fans are development their very own customized model of a vintage Voodoo graphics card.
Twitter / X customers Oscar Barea and Ash Evans were running at the challenge since 2022, as reported by way of Tom’s {Hardware}. Their customized “VoodooX” card is in accordance with the 3dfx VSA-100 GPU, which has been utilized in many 3dfx playing cards, together with the 3dfx Voodoo4 4500 and Voodoo5 5500. The cardboard makes use of auctioned-off “new” VSA100 chips, made preferred by way of Voodoo4 GPUs, which makes operating the VoodooX with 32MB of RAM inside the vary of VSA100’s 64MB. In spite of this, it’s taken slightly a little bit of effort to make it paintings.
One of the vital spectacular options of this challenge is the strengthen for DVI video output, an improve from analog VGA video. DVI is largely a precursor to the present HDMI structure and the visible bump from DVI for the VoodooX is spectacular. The following hurdle is making a transfer that may toggle between 32MB and 64MB RAM.
VoodooX 3Dfx challenge – I assembled the cardboard and goal is take a look at how works DVI & HDMI output. Unfortunately throughout footage the adaptation between DVI & D-SUB15 isn’t very visual however in actual it’s. DVI has a crispy and transparent symbol high quality even colours seems significantly better. percent.twitter.com/1LN1otDi0JApril 16, 2024
The VoodooX graphics card is a nostalgic travel in computing historical past
3dfx GPUs are an enchanting and important a part of computing historical past. Early in 2023, a antique 3dfx Voodoo5 GPU was once auctioned off for a whopping $15,000. Those portions and prototypes are particularly precious as a result of they’d all been offered following the sale of 3dfx and its property to Nvidia after its chapter in 2000.
Seeing passionate enthusiasts paintings so tirelessly to restore such a very powerful piece of tech historical past is improbable. It offers the remainder of us a glimpse of one thing in accordance with what was once as soon as one of the most very best graphics playing cards ever created — the 3dfx Voodoo.
There’s obviously sufficient love for the corporate that after a — now printed to be a parody — account claiming to be 3dfx emerged on Twitter / X, quite a few tech fans held out a wary hope that we’d be seeing a brand new Voodoo graphics card. The ones days are lengthy in the back of us, as present proprietor Nvidia would by no means put out any other chip in that identify once more, which makes attending to revisit the ones days thru a keenness challenge greater than price its weight in gold.
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