Now that 3dfx have sold their assets to nVidia the future of Voodoo looks uncertain. A shame, because 3dfx produced excellent graphics cards, one of which being the Voodoo 3 3000 (PCI).
The installation was very easy. You get a video tutorial on the CD of how to put the card in. After putting ... Read review
Advantages: Brilliant picture quality, excellent frame rates, good compatibility Disadvantages: Poor software bundle, hard to find drivers
Now that 3dfx have sold their assets to nVidia the future of Voodoo looks uncertain. A shame, because 3dfx produced excellent graphics cards, one of which being the Voodoo 3 3000 (PCI).
The installation was very easy. You get a video tutorial on the CD of how to put the card in. After putting the card in the machine you just need to run the CD to install drivers and software that the card needs to run - the program does all of this ... ...exactly what was included. The 3dfx software which controls the card allows you to change gamma values and a few other options, but not much else.
Another problem is getting driver updates. The 3dfx site has now closed down, and the only places I could find drivers for this card were on unofficial sites.
Having said that, this is a worthy investment and the price is very reasonable. If you buy the PCI version of this ... more
Now that 3dfx have sold their assets to nVidia the future of Voodoo looks uncertain. A shame, because 3dfx produced excellent graphics cards, one of which being the Voodoo 3 3000 (PCI).
The installation was very easy. You get a video tutorial on the CD of how to put the card in. After putting the card in the machine you just need to run the CD to install drivers and software that the card needs to run - the program does all of this for you. Remember to slot the card in firmly though, as it needs to be completely secured before it will work.
The card works with countless 3D games and software packages thanks to its OpenGL, Glide and DirectX features. In Quake III Arena I could get super-smooth frame rates even at high resolutions, even though I only have a lowly Cyrix processor. The picture quality was flawless and I was mesmerised by the realistic images that I was able to achieve. You shouldn't have a problem running the card even if you have an old computer.
If you want to see how good the card is, try running dxdiag from Start > Run and running the Direct3D test under the Display tab before and after you install the card. You'll be impressed!
I wasn't so impressed by the software "bundle" which consisted entirely of a few game demos. The packaging should have mentioned exactly what was included. The 3dfx software which controls the card allows you to change gamma values and a few other options, but not much else.
Another problem is getting driver updates. The 3dfx site has now closed down, and the only places I could find drivers for this card were on unofficial sites.
Having said that, this is a worthy investment and the price is very reasonable. If you buy the PCI version of this card just remember that you will not get a TV-out option, and if you buy it in the UK don't expect any software bundle. The card is ideal for 3D gamers and also for those who just want a smoother display.
Advantages: Great performance, reliable, good quality. Disadvantages: Compatibility issues with some games.
...software is fine!) - even now, the Voodoo 3 still suffers from compatibility problems with a lot of games.
Overall - Not a bad card, but with 3Dfx now efectively non-existant, and some compatibility issues with certain games, you may find the nVidia or ATI branded cards a better bet. ...
ndf9876 20.01.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of 3Dfx Voodoo3 3000
Advantages: very compatible, good support Disadvantages: not the most powerful on the planet
Everyone's heard of 3DFX haven't they? The Voodoo3, while not the latest in a long line of quality cards, and by no means the most powerful available, is still selling well because the support and compatibility are both excellent.
The Voodoo3 3000 16Mb AGP is another example as to why - up until recently - 3DFX were leaders in their chosen field. The Card installs without major problems and can pretty much be used straight away, however I would ... ...from 3DFX.com just to be on the safe side.
Shop around, and you can pick up a new card with TV out, for around £60. They're excellent vlue for money and work brilliantly with the AMD processors. Everyone I know has, or has had, this exact same card, and they're universally recommended.
Newer, more powerful cards are available, but they're £100 or more. I'll stick with my Voodoo until it dies on me I think. ...
ddonline 03.01.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of 3Dfx Voodoo3 3000
Advantages: Good performance Disadvantages: lacking some features
...problems then you can reach 3dfx by a toll free call or by looking around in the 3dfx newsgroups.
With it's 350MHz RAMDAC, GDI hardware acceleration, and support of resolutions up to 2048x1536 you will be ensured to find the best resolutions for your desktop with the sharpest display that can rival any of the best cards known for their 2d quality. Your text will be crisper and sharper than before, your windows will minimize and maximize faster, ... ...for 512X512 texture size. 3dfx will have an OpenGL ICD by the time Q3test is released for the windows platform and not every texture in Q3 will be 512X512. Where the large textures are being used the V3 will scale them down and the difference in quality will only be noticeable if you pause the game and examine each scene side by side, do you want to do this when you are in a middle of a huge frag fest? The image quality will be a bit better on a ...
JamieMckeen 28.01.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of 3Dfx Voodoo3 3000
Advantages: Good Quality Cheap Disadvantages: There are none
I was struggling for performance, and I needed to improve the graphic, I had a very bad FPS on all games, and even then the quality was set on the lowest, so i saved up and bought my self a Voodoo 3 3000 card, and it is brilliant, I am now getting about 4-5 times the FPS I was getting before, and the resolution was much better, I can run all games on 1024*928 with a reasonable FPS, there are no problems with this crad that I can find, just that if ... ...disable this properly, if you don't disable it you will not be able to use your nice High Performance card, and trust me, it is well worth the money, if you have a spare £150 get this as your next addon, it is very cheap, and comes with some very good instructions. ...
duhdude 14.11.2000
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of 3Dfx Voodoo3 3000
Advantages: Good Performance - Easy Installation - Loads of Tools Disadvantages: DVD Support - "never worked" , Have to chase drivers a lot
...trouble with full screen, so 3DFX won the final vote from N-Vidia. Unforunately the connector was incompatible with my DVD player which is a far way from " easy provides DVD support" - because it doesn't!
STEP 2 - Installation:
So out went my 8Mb ATI video card and in went the Voodoo 3 (easy enough installation)
STEP 3 - See What We Have Got:
Having experienced the Voodoo 2 with Half-Life, I thought I would use this software to benchmark. This ... ...you may do as a 3DFX card user.
3DFx use Glide (a kind of graphics card programming language, if you like) and also have kinda shabby support for Windows Direct 3D. Every piece of software will run with Direct 3D, only 3dfx optimized products will use Glide properly.
In short while there may be many products that support Glide, all of them use Direct3D, if your software does not give you the option to use Glide, you may see some fairly shabby graphical ...
Gary_Jones 10.09.2000
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of 3Dfx Voodoo3 3000
Speed
Stability
Ease of Installation
Picture Quality
Value For Money
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Advantages: Was such an awesome card for its time Disadvantages: is no longer an awesome card
i remember back to when i had my voodoo33000. it was an awesome card, one of the best. it was quick and boasted a huge 16mb of memory ;-) overall its support was really good, with most games having a special 3dfx mode for the 3dfx range of cards, giving most games a signifcant speed boost and improved graphics. My voodoo33000 also boasted a modded heatsync and fan, allowing me to overclock mine to speeds well beyond the factory settings, meaning i could get even more power out of the beast, much to the envy of my friends. but however, it came to my attention that cards cannot run at these kinds of speed all the time and it came the time when it gave up, and was replaced by a much never and up to date nvidia card. now 3dfx have been taken over by nvidia. but i still remember the days when the voodoo cards were all the rave. ahhh ...
ir8munk33 12.01.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful Review of 3dfx Voodoo3 3000
Advantages: 32 megs onboard memory, 300 mhz ramdac, 32 bit resolutions, can't beat the price Disadvantages: lack of cooling, could possibly be too expensive for your needs
After my 3dfxVoodoo33000 fried it's way out of my agp slot, I was in need of a new video card. First off, it had to be an AGP. a PCI would just not do, and if I have the AGP slot why go PCI? Second, it needed to perform just as well, if not better, than the Voodoo33000 did. Third, it had to be cost-effective, I felt I had overpaid for my Voodoo3 so this was my chance for revenge.
I'm not going to bore you with the specifications and technobabble here, if you want that check out www.nvidia.com and they will tell you all about refresh rates and gigaflops and all kinds of nice stuff. First off, the card was easy as heck to install, coming pretty close to "true" plug-n-play. Once I had my system started I immediately wanted to check out the 32 bit color display since that was one of it's selling points. nice. not overwhelming, but nice ...
Advantages: good for older systems with no AGP, reasonably cheap Disadvantages: only 16 Mb memory, not massively fast, no 32 bit
The Voodoo3 2000 was the basic 16 Mb version of the then new offering from 3dfx, the Voodoo3. The distinguishing features between the different models of the Voodoo3 range ie 2000,3000,3500 were basically a quicker chipset as you move up and also the introduction of TV-out and little features like this. Also the core graphical processor unit speed was increased throughout the range upto a maximum 166 MHz which isnt a bad speed for a card of its generation.
However you'd be foolish to ignore the faults of this card. Firstly its not that particularly quick with things like S3's Savage 4 equalling it and Nvidias TNT2 also an equal and both these at lower cost. Secondly theres the old 3dfx problem of none of the Voodoo3 range of cards being able to do 32 bit colour, they are only capable of 24 bit colour so even though in a game you set ...
