Careful Now 3Dfx!

Advantages: Good Performance - Easy Installation - Loads of Tools
Disadvantages: DVD Support - "never worked" , Have to chase drivers a lot

...I bought this product with an open mind. I needed very high end graphics capability for my work (DTP/CAD) and also wanted the best performance with my games software, so I popped down the town to see what was on offer: STEP 1 - Be influenced by packaging in shop: I checked out the box which claims DVD player support, my DVD player had had 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 is when the problems began. It took ages to...

Gary_Jones 10.09.2000 · Read review
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Review of 3Dfx Voodoo3 3000

The last ever 3DFX graphics card

Advantages: Good card but not the best
Disadvantages: Very pricey

...If your considering purchasing a 3D graphics card for you PC in the near future then it may be wise to think again. One of the main players in the Graphics card market 3DFX seems to have run into financial difficulties, after over expanding it’s range of high-powered graphics cards. The 3DFX Voodoo 3, 4 and 5 graphics cards seem to have under preferred and not does as well as the company had expected. There was an initial high demand for the cards after the massive success of the Original Voodoo 1 card which revolutionised PC gaming and the astonishing power of the Voodoo2 (At the time) which for the first time could be connected in SLI mode for double the power. Recently other competitors have caught up with nVida’s range of 3D cards, as they have for some time seemed the far superior cards. This was mainly due to...

jamespugh 08.04.2001 · Read review
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Review of 3dfx Voodoo5 5500

AGING BUT STILL POPULAR-3DFX VOODOO 3 3000

Advantages: Ease of fitting, Support, Power.
Disadvantages: Manuals conflicting, Not so great these days.

...I was given this piece of hardware as a gift not last Christmas but the Christmas before, and the power I am getting with it is still impressive. It may be one of the aging original 16 megabyte (standard is at least 32 megabyte on board the card), but peformance is still fairly decent. The support for this card is as good as to be expected, after all 3dfx were the market leaders (until NVIDIA recently bought them)and so there are patches for the hardware's software including it's tools available from lots of internet sites and even on demo discs from PC magazines. Compared to other cards on the market NOW such as the Raedeon and The Voodoo 5 and 6, obviously this is older technology, and so it does not perform such miraculous graphical feats as T&L or 4 times AGP. To someone who wants ultra high end spec graphics on a home...

eaglesas 22.01.2001 · Read review
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Review of 3Dfx Voodoo3 3000

The 1st all-in-one card from 3dfx

Advantages: Powerful for games, easy to use applications, lots of uses, good support
Disadvantages: Only half res. recording, TV picture quality not up to scratch

...I have very mixed feelings about this card. My overall reactions are as follows. For games this does the business. It is a suped up 3000 really with higher memory clock speeds etc, so basically it is going to perform well on any game. Virtually all games are optimised for 3dfx and I have had no real problems to do with the card directly. New drivers are released frequently on their site and they have helped to solve some of the compatibility issues I have had with the card. The TV tuner is easy to use though I don't think much of the picture quality. It only shows half resolution unlike the other TV tuners on the market and it shows. Not good! MPEG recording is also only in half resolution and, unless you have the dogs PC, it will look crap. The card comes with a box of tricks aswell providing composite and svideo inputs/outputs which is...

skyrack 14.06.2000 · Read review
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Review of 3Dfx Voodoo3 3500

Last man standing

Advantages: Good card.
Disadvantages: Not making the PCI slot anymore

...Is it true that the 3Dfx range for the PCI slot is coming to an end? I really hope not. I do know that a lot of older machines are going to come to a grinding halt when upgrading without their technology. At the moment, Voodoo cards are made in two type of of slot fitting. One being the older PCI fitting that nearly everyone has and some people have the newer AGP slot fitting. AGP technology is meant to be vastly improved and the PCI slot fitting cards are becoming outdated. Basically because the newer, high performance cards are just wasted on older type machines. The Voodoo 5500 is one such PCI card. While it offers you great performance, it does seem a bit strange offering it in PCI format. The users who will make the most out of it no doubt already own a high spec machine that comes with AGP slots. I doubt there will be many...

andycharger 16.01.2002 · Read review
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Review of 3dfx Voodoo5 5500

Smooth Operator

Advantages: Cool realistic game playing
Disadvantages: None

...Update: 21.1.2001: Today I noticed that this card was reduced to £79.99 in Electronic Boutique. Can you hear me kicking myself! Please read the comment by member GaryJones - something to consider I wish I had the chance! The Voodoo 4500 PCI Graphics Card is a mid range Graphics card from 3dfx. At £149.99 pounds it is not cheap but well worth the investment, especially if you want to play games with a superior graphical display. The card uses 2D Antialiasing, which basically smoothes out the harsh edges and makes the display look and feel real. The card has 32MB ram and its own fan must be hot! The real technical stuff can be found at www.3dfx.com. Believe me it is good, it brought life to games that my onboard Ati 8MB AGP Graphics card choked!. To install, slot it into a spare PCI Slot, there is an AGP version for those...

clanmac4 14.11.2000 (24.01.2001) · Read review
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Review of 3Dfx Voodoo4 4500

Good, cheap card for older PCs

Advantages: Compatibility, low price, PCI version available
Disadvantages: Can't match the newer generation

..., are more likely to buy budget titles, many of which do only support 3dfx in terms of 3D acceleration. Another point in favour of this card - it is easy and quick to fit. Unlike some other cards I have fitted into my PC, the V3-2000 snapped into place first time, the drivers loaded quickly and without fuss, and there was no need for any messing about - the first game I tried (Grand Prix Legends, which does not have Direct3D support) worked first time. One minor quibble - I do prefer a proper paper instruction manual, rather than just a thin booklet telling you to look at a readme file - but then that's no different from many other products these days. All in all, then, this card can be highly recommended to those with older PCs or on a smaller budget. And one positive side of 3dfx's recent problems is that it should be pretty cheap....

davidbuttery 23.01.2001 · Read review
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Review of 3Dfx Voodoo3 2000

Explode your graphics

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 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...

tomclark 07.05.2001 (06.07.2001) · Read review
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Review of 3Dfx Voodoo3 3000

good for older computers

Advantages: none
Disadvantages: slower than opponents , highest res is 800x600

...the Voodoo is 800x600.Which means that the screen looks ridiculously like one for the badly sighted.What kind of company doesn't think about the people with bigger monitors, obviously not 3dfx. I later sold my Voodoo and bought a Tnt and still had change , it was faster had higher resolutions and made my computer perfect for all of my games. I therefore put 3dfx to the old computer section and only to be bought to give life to older computers.The card is alright if you have smaller monitors but it is useless on bigger screens. I heard lately that 3dfx are stopping in their production of cards , they must have realised they do not have the horsepower to keep up with the big boys of 3d entertainment....

BadBoy 28.06.2001 · Read review
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Review of 3Dfx Voodoo3 2000

Could be better

Advantages: Great performance, reliable, good quality.
Disadvantages: Compatibility issues with some games.

...I purchased this card for the sole reason that I wanted to play more modern games on my PC - and, let's face it, you'll probably only be buying a 3D Accelerator card for that purpose. Installation was easy enough - the manual was extremely helpful, and the card slotted straight into the Advanced Graphics Port (AGP) on my PC motherboard - before purchasing this card, however, you'd be advised to make sure that you do have an AGP slot! After installation, I found the software tools easy-to-use and fairly useful; the performance given by the card is excellent. With 16Mb of video memory running at 166Mhz, this card is currently mid-range in the overall speciications for this type of card - you can pick one of these Voodoo 3's up for around £70. Plus, you get the added assurance that 'Voodoo' and '3Dfx' are two big guns in the industry...

ndf9876 20.01.2001 · Read review
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Review of 3Dfx Voodoo3 3000