The story of the 3dfx Voodoo 3D is a basic case of being the precise firm with the precise tech on the proper time. 3dfx launched its revolutionary Voodoo Graphics chipset simply as absolutely polygonal 3D graphics hit the mainstream and PC avid gamers needed a straightforward and accessible method to get them.
In late 1996, Quake and Tomb Raider had simply been launched, the Nintendo 64 was out in Japan and North America, and the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn have been nonetheless of their first 12 months. Reliant purely on CPU horsepower, and with little in the way in which of devoted 3D {hardware} on even the very best graphics playing cards to again it up, the PC was starting to lose its place because the king of gaming platforms.
Positive, it had a bunch of 2D/3D accelerator playing cards, however they have been too rattling gradual to make any distinction. With the Voodoo Graphics chipset, 3dfx performed an even bigger function than another graphics {hardware} producer in turning round that scenario. In doing so, it made 3D acceleration an absolute, cast-iron must-have characteristic.
The delivery of 3dfx Voodoo
3dfx was based in San Jose, California in 1994, by a trio of ex-Silicon Graphics (SGI) workers, Ross Smith, Scott Sellers, and Gary Tarolli. On the time, SGI was by far the largest title in 3D graphics, with its enormously costly workstations used to create the pioneering CGI results in Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park.
What’s extra, SGI was already concerned in 3D gaming {hardware}, growing the core parts for what would ultimately develop into the Nintendo 64. Presently, nonetheless, a few of SGI’s engineers have been pondering that there have been critical alternatives being missed in growing 3D {hardware} for PCs.
One group would ultimately depart to discovered an organization known as ArtX, which might later get purchased by ATi (which might then be purchased by AMD). In the meantime, Smith, Sellers, and Tarolli based a brand new startup, Pellucid, in 1992, with the intention of bringing inexpensive 3D {hardware} to the PC.
In 1993, Pellucid was purchased by Media Imaginative and prescient, an organization that had grown wealthy from promoting multimedia kits for PCs in the course of the CD-ROM revolution. Pellucid had proposed the design and manufacture of a PC 3D gaming chip, and Media Imaginative and prescient needed a few of that motion.
Sadly, Media Imaginative and prescient had its personal (principally authorized) points, and went out of enterprise. Nevertheless, simply when the scenario regarded bleak, Scott Sellers met Gordon Campbell, founding father of the pioneering graphics chip producer, Chips & Applied sciences. Campbell requested the trio what they needed to do, and helped them to search out the enterprise capital to do it.
With Smith working as vp of gross sales and advertising and marketing, Sellers and Tarolli used all of the know-how they’d constructed up at SGI and Pellucid to design a cost-efficient 3D structure constructed particularly to deal with the polygonal rendering pipeline utilized in 3D video games.
With Sellers engaged on the {hardware} and Tarolli on the core algorithms, the 3dfx workforce got here up with the concept of an add-in card that solely accelerated 3D, and left 2D graphics and Home windows acceleration to a separate graphics card. At first, all they’d working was a software program simulation in-built C and operating on a Pentium 90 processor, however this developed right into a card based mostly on two closely optimized processors.
The primary, the Body Buffer Interface, took polygon scene information from the CPU and utilized Z-buffering and Gouraud shading, monitoring which polygons have been seen, and making certain that solely these have been drawn and crammed, then making use of shading to offer an impression of simulated mild and shade.
Every body of the picture would then be transformed into scan strains from prime to backside, after which despatched on to the second chip. The Texture Mapping Unit, or T-Rex because it was recognized, utilized perspective-correct textures, full with mipmapping (the method of utilizing smaller, less-detailed textures as an object will get additional away) and bilinear or trilinear filtering (smoothing out blocky textures when displayed at their largest dimension near the perspective).
What’s extra, the T-Rex supported alpha mixing, for convincing transparency results. No different consumer-grade graphics {hardware} was capable of deal with this on the time. Every chip labored with its personal body buffer or texture reminiscence – a financial institution of 2MB of high-bandwidth (for the time) EDO RAM, and the ensuing scanlines have been fed out to a DAC, which output to a superb, old style analog VGA output.
The primary 3dfx Voodoo playing cards
The truth that the Voodoo Graphics chipset was 3D-only helped to maintain down the value, however it did make utilizing the cardboard just a little unusual. Whereas the cardboard itself may discuss to the CPU and system RAM via the PCI bus, it labored in tandem with an current 2D graphics card for 2D DOS and Home windows acceleration, solely taking up when there have been 3D graphics to be rendered.
This occurred via a D-Sub pass-through cable operating from the output of the 2D card to an enter on the Voodoo Graphics card. Whereas some 3dfx playing cards dealt with the switching electronically, others really had a mechanical change. On these, you may actually hear when the Voodoo Graphics card kicked into motion.
3dfx by no means manufactured its personal 1st-generation playing cards. As an alternative, the designs and chips have been offered and licensed to third-party producers, with Diamond and Orchid first out of the gate with the Monster 3D and Righteous 3D (pictured above) in late 1996. These first playing cards offered for about $350, which was so much however not exorbitant for a PC graphics card on the time.
What’s extra, these beauties may carry out wonderful feats with even pretty modest PC configurations. At a time when even Intel’s Pentium 133 processors have been struggling to ship persistently good body charges with the usual software program renderer in some demanding video games, you may slot a Monster 3D into your Pentium 90 system and see great-looking, silky-smooth visuals.
But 3dfx’s work went past designing the structure to creating an API that allows recreation builders to help the cardboard. On the time, there have been no 3D engines that supported 3D {hardware} and no customary APIs for growing 3D video games. OpenGL was targeted primarily on CAD and workstation graphics, whereas Intel was unwilling to launch its new 3DR rendering library to be used on {hardware} that may run DOS video games. Microsoft had but to develop what turned Direct3D.
Because of this, 3dfx developed its personal API, GLide. This was based mostly on OpenGL, so it wasn’t unfamiliar to skilled 3D builders, however it pared again the calls and directions to concentrate on these utilized in real-time 3D video games.
To point out off Glide’s capabilities, 3dfx didn’t simply have its personal inner demos, such because the astonishing Valley of Ra (proven under), however a variety of Atari and Halfway arcade video games, together with the racer, San Francisco Rush, and the beat-’em-up, Mace: The Darkish Age. These ably demonstrated what the brand new {hardware} may do. All that was wanted have been some suitably superior PC video games.
The most effective 3dfx Voodoo video games and demos
This was 3dfx’s one downside at launch. The know-how itself was spectacular, and the playing cards got here with some first rate demos, together with a slick 3D fight demo, Valley of Ra, which featured wonderful reflective surfaces and Gouraud-shaded characters, and a shocking dolphin sim, Grand Bleu. Orchid and Diamond took them round to point out to keen PC journalists, and jaws persistently hit the ground, however there nonetheless wasn’t a killer app.
At this level, the early 2D/3D graphics playing cards all tended to help the identical video games, and we’d develop into used to seeing the likes of Descent 2, Actua Soccer, Terminal Velocity, and MechWarrior 2 with solely mildly improved, filtered 3D textures operating at body charges that hardly climbed above what you may get with a software program renderer. The Voodoo 3D ran these video games sooner at greater resolutions, however no one was going to pay $350 for that.
Fortunately, 3dfx quickly had two absolute bangers. The primary was Tomb Raider. Lara Croft’s debut was already one of the crucial stunning-looking video games round on the Sega Saturn, Sony PlayStation, and PC, however the pixelated, low-resolution graphics meant that you simply weren’t seeing it at its greatest.
Nevertheless, just some months after launch, the writer, Eidos, launched a patch that allowed you to run Tomb Raider below GLide. The impact was wonderful, not solely smoothing out the blocky textures and including clear water, however permitting you to play the sport at a 640 x 480 decision at near 30fps. You noticed it and also you needed Voodoo in your life.
An much more spectacular transformation awaited us with id Software program’s Quake. I first performed Quake on a Pentium 133 laptop computer with 16MB of RAM, and the sport was solely simply playable at a 360 x 240 (or half SVGA). And once I say playable, I imply the precise facet of 20fps.
Then 3dfx launched MiniGL, a cut-down model of OpenGL designed to deal with simply the capabilities utilized in Quake – id responded with a port of the sport, GLQuake, which may benefit from the MiniGL wrapper. The port had its issues, together with gloomy brightness ranges, however the bilinear-filtered textures went from wanting barely tough to wanting superior, and you may now run the sport at 640 x 480 in superb 16-bit shade and nonetheless hit 30fps.
Critical PC avid gamers noticed Quake operating unaccelerated after which accelerated, then voted with their wallets. Positive, the brand new Pentium MMX CPUs launched in 1997 may run the sport at a good lick, however did it look nearly as good as Voodoo? Not even shut.
GLQuake offered 3dfx playing cards, and a rising person base boosted recreation help. True, 3dfx had rivals. Videologic’s PowerVR tech was inexpensive and environment friendly, however it additionally used an unconventional tile-based rendering pipeline and wanted a sooner CPU to get the very best out of it. Rendition’s Verite chipsets regarded promising, however have been too costly and struggled with their 2D efficiency.
3dfx grew to develop into a type of de facto customary simply as the following wave of 3D video games began taking off. From Want for Velocity II SE to Delusion: The Fallen Lords, Shogo: Armor Division, and Unreal, Voodoo Graphics made the best-looking video games of the period look even higher and run at what appeared unbelievable speeds. The PC was again on prime as probably the most technologically superior gaming platform of the period.
3dfx continued via a wonderful interval. Its 1997 Voodoo Rush 2D/3D graphics chipset was admittedly a dud, affected by a scarcity of reminiscence bandwidth and sync points with the onboard 2D graphics chip. Nevertheless, 1998’s 3dfx Voodoo 2 was a worthy successor, arriving just some months after one other iD showcase, Quake II.
This purple interval wasn’t to final, as GLide fell out of favor and ATi and Nvidia delivered high-performance all-in-one graphics chips, such because the Nvidia Riva TNT and ATi Rage. Nevertheless, we owe 3dfx an enormous quantity for bringing 3D energy to the PC when it wanted it most – and serving to to point out the world the total potential of hardware-accelerated 3D graphics.
Quick ahead to in the present day, and 3dfx is in fact not with us, however ray tracing is arguably having a equally transformative impact on PC gaming visuals as the primary 3D playing cards.
We hope you’ve loved reminiscing with us in regards to the early days of 3D graphics acceleration within the Nineties. When you have a comfortable spot for revisiting retro PC tech, then be sure you additionally try our full information on the way to construct a retro gaming PC, the place we take via all of the {hardware} you want and the way to put collectively the rig.
