A Stroll Down Memory Lane: Best 3Dfx Glide Games

[JetFixxxer]

I started off with a Matrox as someone suggested that I use them instead of getting a 3Dfx card. Card worked ok, but it was an addon and had a lot of trouble with it. Then I went to TNT and TNTUltra 2.

Many hours playing Quake 2... Also Microsoft Midtown Madness 1&2 ( I wish they would do a remake of these)

 

[Brock Kane]

Just Googled it- "AGP 2x".
AGP came out in 1996 and I seem to recall this card had two options (the 3000 defintitely did) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voodoo3 - not sure which I picked as I cannot recall my mobo at the time

I should have done that, but don't have Google! LOL DUH!

 

[total]

Did you have any favorite first-gen 3D games?

At that period of time I had a weak PC (AM486DX2, 16Mb RAM, S3Trio32 1Mb), but my elder brother somehow managed to finish Quake 2 (and Quake 1 of course) on it, I sat behind his back and watched it. How many fps were there, 1 or 2 @ 320x240? And still it was really interesting to watch.
As for me, I played Quake 2 multiplayer on LAN in my school after that, it was cool. There also was Counter-Strike (some of its very first versions), but I didn't like it at all.

 

[ThrakazogZ]

This was the first gaming PC I ever built for myself, and the only time I ever went "all out" with the build. I used a Quantum 3D Obsidian x-24 dual 3dfx chip (SLI on a single card) gpu. I had to build in a monster server case to hold that card and all the other hardware. We had Rainbow Six LAN parties at my place all the time.

 

[Dimitrios]

I usually don't comment on here but my OC Celeron from 400 MHZ to almost 700MHZ and the 3DFX 3200 PCI or whatever it was had a whopping 16 or 32 MB of video ram got me into pc's and gaming ever since. It powered my Jurassic Park Lost World and Half-Life game. I have built over 10 of my own pc's and after that Celeron it was ALL AMD! That Celeron was the newer version that had the same die as the Pentium 3 or 4. Those were the years.

 

[havok585]

Biggest jump in video quality I ever witnessed was GL Quake. Oddly, OpenGL seemed to work better on a TNT2. DirectX couldn't hold a candle to OpenGL it back in the day and some say it still doesn't. Oh, and I have to disagree with Tom about revisiting the old games. For some of us its like a time machine. I actually prefer the late 90's/early 2000's render quality to what came later because it feels more immersive. Maybe its because those lower res visuals engage the imagination more..I'm not sure, honestly. It seems like the more real they try to make things look the more fake it *feels*, if that makes any sense. Skyrim, for example, actually looks *worse* to me than Oblivion. You start seeing unnecessary stylization creeping in as the graphic resources increase; everything tends to look more cartoony. I wonder if I'm the only one who feels this way..

You have a point about engaging your imagination on games that have poor graphics compared to today.

 

[richcz3]

GL Quake was the 1st Glide enabled game which was made available in a downloadable patch. That was followed up by Tomb Raider which was also available in a patch. I remember both very well. Running on a Diamond Multimedia Monster 3D daughter card, which at the time cost $300 ($456 in today's dollars .. for a daughter card).

 

[Abraka]

You forgot Unreal and Forsaken!

 

[wizardB]

And to think Nvidia bought 3DFX just so they could kill off the competition, it's why I'll never own a Nvidia product. They are scum!

 

[wenrachter]

Starcraft, SimCity, RedAlert, Warcraft, Delta Force 1 and 2, Half life....

 

[CrazyDave]

I still have my 12MB PCI Voodoo2 in the original box in the cupboard. Still works too.

NFS2SE was great. FIFA Road to World Cup 98 also had glide support. You could set the weather and see the weather effects in game when using Glide.

 

[Bassfreak25]

Anyone remember the PowerVR cards, a decent competitor to the 3dfx cards...?

 

[Emexrulsier]

Lots of great games listed. Tomb raider was one of the main games that I used to use to show off how good the 3dfx card was. When I first bought tomb raider I had the Matrox Mystique card which made it run smoother but wasn't really full on 3D accelerated. The 3dfx brought it to a whole new level. A few other 3dfx games that deserve a mention are screamer rally, Ignition (top down racing), Unreal and ofc UltraHLE.

 

[bolski]

You guys forgot about the most important one of them all. The one that made gamers put a 3DFX Voodoo I card in their PCs to begin with.

Exactly, but it's Unreal that they forgot about - Unreal was the Quake killer.

Unreal was, well, unreal! Fantastic world. I have it on Steam and fire it up once in awhile. Not sure it was a true Quake Killer, but it definitely made my Quake gather dust once Unreal came out.

 

[bolski]

Unreal was the most incredible graphics I had seen. The water/reflective effect was stunning.

I loved the music. And, I would look up in the sky and shoot the flying creatures.

 

[Soulburn74]

I had the original 3dfx1 card working along aside an ATI all in Wonder (with tv tuner). I upgraded to the Quantum 3d Obsidian x-24 (2x voodoo 2's on 'one' board (really 2 boards connected together, that came with a fan you could mount between the two to keep them from over heating). Voodoo 2, the first SLI able cards! https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/voodoo,85-17.html Was this card completely overkill for its day (and the wallet)? Yes. Was it awesome just the same? Yes!

 

[kmo911]

Got my voodoo 3 3dfx 2000 agp.played many good games.still dosbox 3dfx can be played.gotta lowe 1n it.pci versions too but in lower fps DOH
intel amd 500 mhz 1.3 ghz and a intel p60 mhtz 128 mb ram on gpu vram on games like carmageddon 2 c n software shadow man low to high pc version. still n64 psx1 was playable in some games on pc. nfs 1 2 3 4 5 nice 1 2

 

[Lew Zealand]

Heh, I bought a PCI Voodoo3 2000 for my Mac as soon as the 3dfx beta drivers were released. They never made it out of beta, probably so they wouldn't have to provide official support, which is financially understandable. Unreal was so amazingly better than the crap Duke 3D graphics I'd been using before, it was a revelation. I eventually got Quake III but Voodoo3+Unreal was the most amazing graphical quality upgrade I've ever experienced.

 

[doomworm]

My very first video card I ever purchased was a Diamond Monster Voodoo 4MB add in card. I remember sticking it in my machine and loading up Star Wars Dark Forces 2 and laughing and giggling at how amazing the game looked and ran. I could finally play it maxed out on my system at 640x480. I used that card right up until I bought my next card, which was a Voodoo Banshee 16MB card.

For me, 2 of the most memorable moments in my PC life were installing that first 4MB Voodoo card and years later, installing my first multi-core cpu.

I had a similar reaction when I first saw GL Quake running on a Voodoo add-in. I think my jaw literally dropped.

 

[Jon Tseng]

UNREAL... With its funky reflective marble floors.

Wasn't it Glide only at first? I think the DirectX version was always somewhat ropey...

 

[Carrandas]

Diablo II is hardware accelerated?

I remember upgrading from a Voodoo1 to a Voodoo2 because of FFVII What a difference it made!

Yeah, I thought it was a 2D game..;

 

[gamerk2]

DirectX couldn't hold a candle to OpenGL it back in the day and some say it still doesn't.

DirectX versions prior to DirectX 7 were not great APIs to work with. That being said, OpenGL is just a mess of an API, and it was LONG overdue for a replacement. Even then, with advancements in the DirectX API and Microsofts EXCELLENT development kit, it's simply far easier to do anything in DirectX then any other API out there.

If Vulkan really want's to displace DirectX, then invest in a bloody developers toolkit that matches what Microsoft brings to the table.

 

[Raytrace3D]

At one point I had the Monster 3D, Banshee, Voodoo3 3000 (several actually)... man those were the days of playing Unreal Tournament 16 hours a day. It was a simpler time... lol

 

[amghwk]

I was expecting an article more on the 3dfx hardware itself and how it looked in the games, rather than a reading about a bunch of games that not only had proprietary Glide API but also D3D and others.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

QUAKE 2, Rainbow 6: Rogue Spear, Command and Conquer Tiberian Sun, Soldier of Fortune...

I ran them all in Open GL. Open GL had better color and texture depth.