New Voodoo?

Sorry folks,
but ive been sleep, now awaken by despear, ive found out that nvidia just bought out 3dfx. I have a Win 98, 64mb, 450 mghtz computer that lacks a AGP slot. My computer DOES NOT handle games good, in fact I have to run unreal at 340x200 to barely play it. So i said to myself, “SELF, we need more video ram, lets go out and get the maxium amount for less!!”. So i looked around and found a local has a voodoo 5 pci for only 100 bucks and i want to buy it, any ideas. After 3 months, rumor has it that 3dfx will, indeed, release a update for the card, and after that Nvidia will, any comment, please help! Also, will OpenGL and directx continue to make updates for the card?

First off, it isn’t OpenGL or DirectX who make updates for any particular card. They aren’t companies, they are merely graphics standards, so they can’t make updates for a particular card’s drivers. That is the responsibility of the card manufacturer, in this case, 3dfx. Now, since 3dfx does not exist anymore, you can expect NO support and NO updates.

Personally, I wouldn’t go for it. You can get a GeForce2 MX PCI from nVidia for 70-80 bucks and have full technical support, regular driver updates, and very comparable performance to the Voodoo5.

j

[This message has been edited by j (edited 05-28-2001).]

Visiting the 3dfx website they still offer support. As far as updates are concerned, is Nvidia making updates? Why do I even bother with the V5? It’s the only 64 mb PCI card available for my shoe-string budget! I know this is a OpenGL board, put what will both, Nvidia and 3dfx do for the million who blowed there whole check for a the new V5 of V4. Then again, some say that’s how the business work…

Any Voodoo owners?

Well, if 64MB is all that matters you should realise that even though V5 has physically 64MB it’s not effectively 64MB. It’s only the framebuffer that is shared, or more correct: each chip takes one half of the framebuffer. That means that it has effectively much less than 64MB, more realistically something like 40MB varying with the resolution used. In 1024x768x32 tripplebuffered and 32bit Z it’ll effectively have 38MB memory.