3dfx/3dhq Revenge superchip.

[rashly]

the drivers have so much patch work it's insane.

but i think for the time, 3dfx had better drivers than nvidia or ati.

 

[OpenGL guy]

the drivers have so much patch work it's insane.

but i think for the time, 3dfx had better drivers than nvidia or ati.

Not really. In those days (Voodoo 1-3 mainly), the big problem with being a vendor other than 3dfx is that all developers were using 3dfx based platforms so your driver had to mimic 3dfx drivers' behavior, bugs and all.

In fact, some of this is still true to this day, else many old applications would cease to work.

Now, if you are referring to GLIDE, I can't comment on that having had no experience with it.

 

[Tagrineth]

The one great thing about 3dfx's drivers is that the pretty much work as they should right out of the box, with a few notable exceptions (not counting games released more than ~4-6 months after 3dfx's demise).

 

[OpenGL guy]

The one great thing about 3dfx's drivers is that the pretty much work as they should right out of the box, with a few notable exceptions (not counting games released more than ~4-6 months after 3dfx's demise).

See my above comment. The reason it works "out of the box" is because every game was tested with 3dfx drivers. Also, most (all?) 3dfx cards didn't have AGP compatibility issues to worry about since they lacked AGP features.

Please, don't get me started on this topic.

Now, you mention that games released after 3dfx's demise don't work so well with 3dfx hardware... want to speculate on why that is?

 

[RussSchultz]

Now, you mention that games released after 3dfx's demise don't work so well with 3dfx hardware... want to speculate on why that is?

Duh. Conspiracy, of course

 

[OpenGL guy]

Now, you mention that games released after 3dfx's demise don't work so well with 3dfx hardware... want to speculate on why that is?

Duh. Conspiracy, of course

Bingo!

 

[Fafner]

The one great thing about 3dfx's drivers is that the pretty much work as they should right out of the box, with a few notable exceptions (not counting games released more than ~4-6 months after 3dfx's demise).

My graphic card these days is a Radeon 9700, its a great card, good IQ, great performance. But the drivers... I... (and not only me if you check the threads at rage3d) have more issues with these drivers than I ever had with the old old old (very old) 3dfx-drivers for my old Voodoo5.

This surprised me a lot.

 

[Althornin]

The one great thing about 3dfx's drivers is that the pretty much work as they should right out of the box, with a few notable exceptions (not counting games released more than ~4-6 months after 3dfx's demise).

My graphic card these days is a Radeon 9700, its a great card, good IQ, great performance. But the drivers... I... (and not only me if you check the threads at rage3d) have more issues with these drivers than I ever had with the old old old (very old) 3dfx-drivers for my old Voodoo5.

This surprised me a lot.

could you please read why?
thanks for coming to the thread!

(hint: the answer lies above!)

 

[Dave Baumann]

DX9 hardware = lots of features, lots of complexity; Voodoo5 = bog standard, plain old renderer (with FSAA). Do the math!

 

[OpenGL guy]

My graphic card these days is a Radeon 9700, its a great card, good IQ, great performance. But the drivers... I... (and not only me if you check the threads at rage3d) have more issues with these drivers than I ever had with the old old old (very old) 3dfx-drivers for my old Voodoo5.

This surprised me a lot.

I don't see that many issues, but, of course, I use all the latest drivers. Even so, things have been quite stable for a loooong time, at least on the D3D side.

When developers use our boards for development, it's great: They notify us of potential problems and we help them with issues that we find as well. But if no one is using your boards for development, then you won't get anywhere near as good of coverage...

And you can bet that we're getting much better coverage now

 

[Tagrineth]

Now, you mention that games released after 3dfx's demise don't work so well with 3dfx hardware... want to speculate on why that is?

Mmm. Of course, because 3dfx is dead, games don't get tested to see if they trigger any majour 'oopses' in the drivers, which I'm well aware are distressingly plentiful. The only exception to this at the moment is Unreal II, in which Dan Vogel himself made sure the game would run reasonably on VSA-100 ^_^

 

[Hellbinder]

My graphic card these days is a Radeon 9700, its a great card, good IQ, great performance. But the drivers... I... (and not only me if you check the threads at rage3d) have more issues with these drivers than I ever had with the old old old (very old) 3dfx-drivers for my old Voodoo5.

This surprised me a lot.

Perhaps you could Specify? exactly what issues YOU specifically have? Not some Generlization about *other peoples problems*...

I am playing every game i own, including little known ones like Endless Ages. Beta Testing PlanetSide etc.. all without a single hitch.