I WANT 3DFX BACK!!!!!!

[miniMUNCH]

Me and my friends sometimes go to the computer section of best buy and ask technical questions when we want a good laugh (afterwards, of course). One of my friends is so good at keeping a straight face, it's scary...

Anyway...Radeon is awesome. Runs great in win2000. I personally am a little confused by all the win2000 driver bad press because I haven't seen any of it. My friend runs 2000 exclusively... I'm about to set up another 2000 system with a AIW Radeon.

Oh...and I still think 3dfx/GP technology is guaranteed to surface in major proportions in nVIDIA products within a year...defered rendering and tiling is just too nice to pass up, it answers so many problems without creating any new ones.

But on the whole nVIDIA sucks matter: AMEN brother! nVIDIA blows the big one IMO. nVIDIA is a PR machine...their products are not superior...their marketing, developer relations, and PR are exceptional. They must have some strategic gods in their business development office because nVIDIA is feeding a pile of crap to developers and the public and a lot of people are eating it up.

 

[Yoshi]

The demise of 3Dfx was sad indeed. Remeber when V2 SLI was the $hit??

I don't share your opinion of nVidia. I have a TNT2 and a GeForce256 DDR and have never had trouble getting games to run.

Don't know much about Radeon, have never tried one out.

 

[Wingznut]

What nVidia did correctly, was make their card perform real well in benchmarks (Q3 and 3DMark). That's all reviewers write about anymore, and all that the "attention span challenged" look at... the pretty bar graphs. After all, the nVidia card has the longest bar in 3DMark, so it must be the best solution... right?

 

[Oyeve]

Too true Wingznut PEZ. My geforce was a bitch in some games, like Deus-ex. Christ, I loaded and reloaded so many damn referance drivers that I had to reinstall my OS from scratch a couple of times just to get the games to run! I still cant play NFS PU without it locking up at least once! I never had these stupid problems with my voodoo2s!

 

[Stark]

Wingnut PEZ,

You wouldn't be referring to anyone we know now, would you?

I think there's a general rule developing to go along with "never fight a land war in Asia..."

"Never invest all your money in a video card company."

 

[Guygye]

What nVidia did correctly, was make their card perform real well in benchmarks (Q3 and 3DMark). That's all reviewers write about anymore, and all that the "attention span challenged" look at... the pretty bar graphs. After all, the nVidia card has the longest bar in 3DMark, so it must be the best solution... right?

Good point, I too am sick of Q3 benchmarks especially since I don't play Q3. Loved Doom after that just a remake of the same sh$t.

However, you raised a question and it doesn't sound as if you have a solution.

 

[Soccerman]

Leo V, amen.. linux support for Aureal cards is amazing.. I was incredibly surprised!'

I too think that the demise of 3dfx sucks @ss, becuase their rampage (no innovation my @ss) was about to come out..

I think though, that those of you with problems with nVidia cards should try either reformatting, or clearing all 3dfx drivers 9and traces of them) from the computer.

I only do not like nVidia, becuase overall, they haven't been quit as good in terms of quality (3d was crap with the 128, the TNT was not what it was made out to be, the TNT2 was good though, but becuase these cards are created by other companies, you can have problems).

3dfx's idea of producing the board and CPU all at once is alot better IMHO. as we saw, their execution sucked quite a bit.

if it wasn't for their execution, they would have had a Voodoo 5 out about the time the Geforce came out, along with a Voodoo 4, thus it would have generated quite a bit more revenue, becuase it was competitive with the GTS, let alone the Geforce DDR.

this revenue is what they needed badly to keep them afloat till the Rampage (I still think it would have beaten the NV20).

 

[han888]

damn, i am always got freeze on my system when i play fakk2 with geforce card, i try 4 new denator already, but still, lucky i am still have another system with voodoo5 card, so i am still can play the game.

 

[kami]

My V3 served me well for 19 months..it played everything FINE, but I had to upgrade anyway to my GF2 GTS.

 

[Instigator]

gcliv,
amen brother. I only use Voodoo cards in my systems and for the very reason you mentioned. Nothing worst then getting a brand new game and it keeps locking because of the video card. They will be sorely missed.

 

[MGMorden]

I agree w/ miniMUNCH as to the Radeon Windows 2000 drivers. They run great over here. I've yet to have any stability problems and the newest drivers are almost just as fast as the Windows 9x drivers (NVidia drivers take a hit in 2000 too).

gcliv: I say go for a Radeon. The OEM 32mb DDR ones (though having no fan and being clocked lower) are only $109 shipped now, and you can overclock them to the same level as the retails (or higher).

 

[Midnight Rambler]

<< I too used to love 3dfx. I switched to the geforce side when 3dfx stated &quot;you dont need 32-bit graphics in games&quot;. WRONG, I need it. >>

This is exactly the type of BS that helped to kill 3Dfx, in addition to G. Ballard's poor management. At the time when every web review and hype site was bashing 3Dfx so badly that it hurt their reputation enough to drive off potential OEM deals, there were how many games that required 32-bit? Zero. There were how many that even supported it? A couple, tops. And at that, people still switched to 16-bit to get their desired FPS. So the V3 series was put down for what was essentially a meaningless feature (at the time). And no where did 3Dfx get any credit for how well the V3 handled Unreal or Tribes, two highly popular games that crippled nVidia products of that time period. All of this is relevant because the V3 was the chip that was really &quot;make or break&quot; - they bought the STB manufacturing capacity to support their OEM plans for the V3 more than anything else, and if they had won the big OEM contracts they would have been sitting pretty with their JIT-friendly location to Dell, Compaq, among others.

 

[chuckieland]

only if V5 5500 come out when it suppose to
release the same time as the Geforce SDR.
it would surely kick Geforce ass all the way back to stone age.
but no. v5 has to be delay, thanks to the &quot;great ass management&quot;.
3dfx has the good stuff, Nivida has the PR department.
Guess in this world, have #1 PR department is more important then have good product.
P4 been the perfect example

 

[TGCid]

I haven't run into any problems with my TnT2 Ultra but maybe that is because I don't play a lot of games. Of the two you mention, Deus EX and UT, however, are based on glide. These games are therefore optimized and coded for 3DFX cards. Kinda stupid to insult nvidia cards by using them as tests.

 

[Shockwave]

I've got the Radeon 32 DDR, used drivers that came on cd. Ha ha ha ha!! No go in 3D, continually locked. But, downloaded newer drivers from the great big net, and Whoa! Heh heh, 2D looks good, 3D, well, lets just say my girlfriend finally has some competition, because this thing looks sweeet!

 

[Sunner]

A list of 3D cards I've owned
1 Asus Riva128
1 Creative V2-12 MB
2 TNT's, one Creative and one Asus
2 V3's, one 2K PCI and one 3K AGP
1 Creative TNT2-Ultra
1 GF-DDR

I have no major complaints about any of these cards, the V3-3K was a tad troublesome in the beginning, but aside from that they've all worked fine.

But I must say, since the TNT2, I've been much more impressed with nVidia cards overall.
More features and more speed, excellent drivers, and no problems.
Especially when the GeForce was introduced, it was just so far ahead of everything else out there.

Thats not to say Im not sad to see 3Dfx go though.
And yes I spelled 3Dfx with a capital &quot;D&quot; intentionally, looks better, and reminds me more of the original, innovative, great 3Dfx that brought us the Voodoo GFX and Voodoo2.

 

[Oyeve]

Its not BS Midnight Rambler, I dont like companies telling me what I need. 32-bit was coming along quite nicely when 3dfx said we, the customers, dont need it. I like to live on the cutting edge as do most gamers, who, by the way would buy 3d cards, and 32-bit was an exciting prospect. 3dfx apparently didnt like to take necessary risks, which in my opinion was STUPID. They take the worng risks (like making their own cards), refused to OEM their products and look at them now! HA! dumb bastards deserved it! Look at ATI, their first implimentation of 32-bit graphics in games SUCKED big time. But they stuck it out and are still around, make tons of money and have great product. Same with early nvidia based cards. These companies saw the future and gambled while 3dfx sat back and was chicken.

 

[Wingznut]

While I agreed that 32bit color was not a practical feature at the time, 3dfx should've known better than to tell consumers that they didn't need it. Just another situation where the PR department dropped the ball.

 

[Boogak]

I agree with the original poster. I returned a Voodoo5 and got a Elsa Gladiac GTS a few days after 3dfx called it quits. While CounterStrike looks gorgeous on it, I'm having severe ghosting problems in 2d on my 19&quot; KDS Trinitron and Everquest looks like it got beat with an ugly stick.

 

[FordLorider]

Posting your opinion is different from listing a pointless topic about your bad experiences with Nvidia tryint to start a &quot;intelligent - un no - opinionated&quot; discussion. Do a SEARCH (using your right mouse button click on the search tab) to see that Trolls just like yourself have posted this same discussion only about 75 times.

 

[Wingznut]

Wow... What got your panties in a bunch, FordLorider?

Since there are 44 replies in this thread, I'm guessing that people are interested in this topic.

 

[Noriaki]

<< Of the two you mention, Deus EX and UT, however, are based on glide. These games are therefore optimized and coded for 3DFX cards. Kinda stupid to insult nvidia cards by using them as tests. >>

Why?
Unreal Tournament is one of the most popular games running. I don't give a crap if the game is optimzied for D3D, OGL, Glide, or bloody Apple's AltiVec. It's a good game, I want to play it. To me it matters how well the nVidia cards work in it. I don't care if it's 3dfx or nVidia, or why it works or why it doesn't. But facts are facts, UT is a good game, that many people want to play, so why is it unfair to test nVidia cards in it?

 

[Sunner]

Its sort of a grey area if you should test in in Glide on the 3Dfx cards and D3D on all other cards IMO.

But saying nVidia cards suck cause they dont perform well in these games is stupid, considdering the game engine is what sucks.

 

[Wingznut]

I've always said that cards should be reviewed to the best of it's ability. Don't disqualify Glide (which has been open sourced for a while I might add), T&amp;L, large texture support, and any other feature.

 

[Oyeve]

Its not a matter of performing well, its a matter of performing AT ALL in some cases. The fault in these cases are more due to the developer rather than the vid card manufacturer. NFSPU is the best case scenario. I remember reading countless threads on this game. It didnt like ANYTHING other than a 3dfx based card and that is just wrong.