1999 — it wasn’t just red vs green. It was the beginning of dominance for some, and the beginning of the end for others. ATI Rage, Savage4, TNT2, Matrox G400, and the infamous 3dfx Voodoo. What was your pick?
Posted by Beige_Box_Enthusiast@reddit | vintagecomputing | View on Reddit | 51 comments
phido3000@reddit
I have a Diamond 32Mb Savage4 Extreme. It was fine as a graphics card. It was much better than the S3 Virge I bought 18 months before. The Savage4, could play Unreal, Half-life, quake, Quake II, etc just fine.. All D3D titles were fine too. TNT2 was faster (But its natural competitor was a TNT vanta or M64), but not loads, and the image quality on the S3 was better/as good. Effectively free trilinear filtering, fast 32 bit colour, large compressed textures, AGP capabilities, decent dos and it even had decent windows drivers. It was perhaps the best mid range graphics card.
Texture compression was incorperated into opengl/d3d, and S3 died.
It was better than 3DFX which was still 16 bit with dithering, my older brother had a Banshee, which was, fine, but not good with large textures or 32bit colour. But it had glide.
MWink64@reddit
It would be hard to do worse than the S3 ViRGE. There's a reason people often refer to it as a 3D decelerator.
suzypulledapistol@reddit
I like an underdog, so I had a Rendition Vérité V2100
MWink64@reddit
I was wondering if anyone would bring them up.
MWink64@reddit
Not sure what years but I had an ATI Rage, Riva 128, and Voodoo 3 3000.
QuentinEichenauer@reddit
Quantum 3D Raven 16MB
omega552003@reddit
In 1999 I was doing a Rage 3D Pro with a Matrix M3D accelerator. Then in 2000, I switched to the Voodoo 3.
frenchretronerd@reddit
In 1999 ? I was running an Ati Rage Pro 8MB... But it was fine as I had never experienced something better YET
EarthAndSawdust@reddit
Why's Voodoo infamous?
randylush@reddit
Words don’t mean anything anymore
Sh0ckValu3@reddit
1998 built my first PC.
Voodoo 3000 graphics
Turtle beach sound
21" monitor. Which at the time was considered huge.
Stormwatcher33@reddit
21 inch in 4:3 is pretty damn big still
muse_head@reddit
Must have cost for fortune... My family still had a 14" monitor at that time and I was jealous of my friend's 17"!
Torkum73@reddit
Voodoo up to 5500 AGP, with Matrox Mystique mixed in, then Ati, then nVidia, now Intel A770 FE
DecentlySpaghetti@reddit
Software mode.
87RPM@reddit
Poor back then, still stuck on hand me down TNT. Still opened my eyes to gaming!
ugra-karma@reddit
TNT + voodoo1 combo still back then Both Diamond branded. Poor student budget and with mechanical kvm the vga became porridge.
schmosef@reddit
The first PC I ever built, around '95 or '96, had a Matrox Millennium graphics card.
Matrox used to have the best DAC. It generated the sharpest images over VGA.
But then DVI came out and the DAC became moot.
That little Quebec company didn't have the R&D budget to keep up with 3dfx and nVidia.
frudi@reddit
None of the above. My first 3D card was the original TNT so I skipped this entire generation, as well as the geforce 256. My next upgrade was a geforce 2 MX (the original one, before the 200 and 400 models).
redditshreadit@reddit
The cheepest AGP card I could find, probably ATI or Diamond.
Illustrious-Peak3822@reddit
G400 Max. Fastest RAMDAC for crisp analog image quality at high resolution.
Aleni9@reddit
I think I had a riva TNT2 around this time
Effective_Iron8188@reddit
Team voodoo, Nvidia after that... now AMD... next? Don't know...
WingedGundark@reddit
I got Creative TNT2 Ultra. In 1998 I bought P2 400 with Millenium G200 and threw V1 from my Pentium to give that Glide compatibility. G200 was great card but in 1999 it couldn't quite keep up.
To me, TNT2 Ultra was no brainer over the competition. Glide wasn't also mandatory by that point, most games had D3D or OGL support by that time.
Jack55555@reddit
ATI Rage 128 Pro in 2000. I wanted a Voodoo, I thought they were still relevant, we weren’t very informed back in the internet dark ages.
Vizth@reddit
This was mine as well. Came in my dell.
The_Grungeican@reddit
i actually bought a Rage 128 Pro, around like 1999 or so. i fired up a game, was disappointed in it, and took it back. i threw a little extra money with my refund and bought a Voodoo 3.
it was fucking glorious.
Significant_Fuel_268@reddit
toms hardware and hard ocp ... very well informed
mayerjohn183@reddit
I chose Voodoo 3 2000 after using S3 Savage 3D and getting tired of the freezes. Came with Ultima IX: Ascension. Voodoo 3 3000 was too expensive.
FAMICOMASTER@reddit
No Intel 740?
InfiniteStream@reddit
Voodoo3 3000, huge step up from the Diamond Monster 3D I had before.
West-Way-All-The-Way@reddit
I think I had ATI Rage, but don't remember which one exactly. What I remember is that it was a budget card, underpowered and just not enough. It worked tho and I played some games, but never really shining.
Ragnarsdad1@reddit
I currently have a Matrox G400 in my multiboot retro rig as they have drivers for everything from 3.1 to XP on thier website.
grover99@reddit
All I could afford for my first PC was an Nvidia Vanta. With a K6-2 450 it was enough to play Unreal Tournament.
The_Grungeican@reddit
i had that same CPU, but i paired mine with a Voodoo 3 2000.
thejpster@reddit
Back in the day I had a Savage 3D, and I had nothing but issues with it.
Right now I have a TNT2 Ultra, a Voodoo 3 and a Matrox G200. Plus I think there’s a Rage 128 in the Macintosh G3.
I recently bought the Voodoo 3, but it’s been disappointing because it has poor compatibility with MS-DOS Glide games. The Windows Glide games generally also support Direct 3D and for that the TNT2 Ultra is unbeatable in my view. Well, except for a GeForce, obviously.
The_Grungeican@reddit
there was a time where Glide was ahead of D3D support. it all caught up before too long. but on some of the older titles Glide looked a bit better and ran a bit smoother.
Significant_Fuel_268@reddit
but really what games did you play... voodoo only had a few
The_Grungeican@reddit
glide was a pretty dominant API. so while there may have only been a 'few' games, they were games like Unreal, Quake 2, etc.
Accomplished-Camp193@reddit
InnoVision TNT2 Pro, but there was a catch. It only had a 64-bit memory bus for some reason, and while it overclocked decently, it was barely any better than an M64. At least it could do 32-bit colors and resolutions above 640x480, unlike some overrated trash that goes for 5 digit price tags these days.
Retrowinger@reddit
ATI Rage 128 peasant here
RevolutionarySeven7@reddit
still have my voodoo 3 pci box in mint condition (its amber orange)
Ynoxz@reddit
Early 1999 I had a Voodoo Banshee
End of 1999 I had a TNT2 Ultra.
Tech moved insanely quickly back then. Was a great time to be involved with it.
momentimori@reddit
Voodoo 3 2000 PCI
Dutch_Disaster@reddit
Voodoo
sadelape@reddit
I have both of those gpus in a retro build right now and noticed the Voodoo 3 is slightly better than the TNT2 M64 in Warcraft 3 and way better in anything with a glide api like Unreal. It really makes me want to try a normal TNT2.
stq66@reddit
Had almost all of them. For sure a Voodoo and Voodoo2. Then a RivaTNT2, a Rage was in a used PC which I have exchanged for A Matrox Parhelia (or G400? - can’t remember for sure)
Maeglin75@reddit
By end of 1999 I already had a Geforce 256.
Before that I had a Matrox Mystique to which later added a Voodoo II card from Diamond.
Least_Tangelo_8620@reddit
Diamond Viper TNT2 Ultra! 32mb!
I still remember upgrading and then playing half life. Man the advancement between years back then felt insane.
codykonior@reddit
Voodoo was good but so expensive. I had one but next gen I got TNT 2 Ultra. TNT2 are still plentiful but Ultra are rare and expensive now.
I always dreamed of a Matrox though. 2D acceleration and bump mapping was pretty cool.
jolly_rodger42@reddit
I was the proud owner of a TNT2 32MB 3D accelerator.