Windows XP - My story 3dfx

About 2 years ago I purchased a voodoo5 right after it was released for 300 dollars and was very satisfied with the quality of the card and the glide etc. Being a die hard 3dfx customer I wish I would have just stuck with the old voodoo3 it still ran all my fps just fine.

Not soon after 3dfx went out of buiness and I was stunned. Then when directx 8.0 was released I soon realized what microsoft was up too. They gave up completely and even in the new updated release of directx they did not support the voodoo5. My games still ran fine some had a few issues but you could work around them a bit.

A lot of games were designed specifically for glide and don’t run well without a 3dfx card, games such as Diablo II.

A while after Windows XP came out I decided it would be a good investment for my buisness, so I went out and bought the professional version and it looked good and all. Flashy, lots of those “Microsoft” Promises.

I upgraded it over my win98 se and was very pleased with how smooth everything was and a lot of the new features. But as soon as I went tweaking around and looking into my Device manager I realized that my voodoo drivers weren’t up to snuff. I tried running diablo and getting glide to work, fat chance. I tried everything that I knew to try and get XP to acknowladge the glide. Now all my games that use to run perfectly run like I am using a 8 bit video card.

Its a big joke, microsoft and n’vidia monopolizing the computer industry. I thought well damn I have to buy a new video card and thought well the only company that windows is really supporting right now is n’vida so i went and checked out their prices. Nvida’s prices are outragous and they can do that because microsoft is forcing people to use their video cards to run their games correctly.

I may just pruchase a Geeforce3 but if i can get by with 3rd party drivers for my voodoo5 I will.

Hopefully there is more 3dfx die hard fans out there!

Thanks for your time. Any comments would be appreciated

Blame 3dfx not MS. MS does not write drivers for 3rd party devices(sometimes not even there own). 3dfx made a business decision to sell part of there company and shutdown the rest of it. Nvidia bought the technology but not the support so they are not really obligated to write drivers either. Buying a product from a company who then goes out of business(sic)is sometimes a losing deal. Sometimes you have legal options sometimes you don’t. Blaming MS for not writing 3dfx drivers is like blaming The XFree86 Project for not writing GeForce drivers. Neither has the legal right to do so without permission from the specfic companies(copyright holders) which have not granted it.

Dave

PS I run Linux and BeOS as well as WinXP

I never said that they should make drivers but they should at least have configured it to run correctly with windows xp…

I agree, they could have put the support for these cards in with the rest. I too, am a diehard Voodoo fan, and run one as well. I won’t upgrade from 98SE to XP (even though I want too) because Directx 8+ will NOT support my 3Dfx card. Directx 7 will thankfully. I just can’t get openGL to run w/o locking up. Oh well…**it happens…

It is the Driver from 3dfx that has to support DirectX 8+. There is a WinXP driver floating around somewhere that was written by an ex 3dfx employee I believe.

Dave

Here is a website with drivers for XP that include glide opengl and directx. My not cover all cards and my blow up your computer Also nvidia has updated 3dfx.com and will not support the cards.

Dave

sorry forgot address http://www.ntcompatible.com/3dfxfaq.shtml

Dave