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And supporting open source served them well!

Maybe we can convince NVidia to whip out the old Glide API. Woo-hoo! The return of 3dfx!

Man. Sure is awful there's only one video card maker around...

I've got a Voodoo5 5500 in my box, and I tried some beta drivers (availiable at linux.3dfx.com) that really didn't perform very well.

I was unable to get any color depth greater than 8bpp as I recall. This was on xfree 4.0.1 and I followed their instructions to the letter. I tried this on slackware-current (current as of a month or so ago).

The card performs very well in windows (200+fps easily in q3a), but if you're considering buying one to run in X, I'd suggest you stay away from the voodoo4/5 line until they produce some better drivers.

I'm worried about the video quality. When I watch video through the all-in-wonder card, it's not bad but I still seem to notice that video is not going direct to the video input of the TV. I can't quite put my finger on what it is, but I notice a hit in resolution. If I buy a DVD player, I want it to look perfect. I'd be interested to hear from folks who have a hardware DVD decoder board with an S-video output to know whether or not this would really be a problem.

As opposed to what someone else says here, you should be worried.

I have tried 4 different DVD playbacks on a 53" HD projection TV, and the results where amazing to me.

Please notice that I have not tried a dedicated DVD playback card with S-Video out. I suspect that to be better than a video card that has S-Video out (like the ATI and 3Dfx described below), although it shouldn't be.

Here's a list of players, in order of LEAST desired:

1) PC with ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon

Most important features:
- S-Video out (at 800x600)
- hardware DVD decoding

Results:
Horrible, horrible noise on the S-Video out, for only certain colors. Other colors displayed at the same time looked just fine. A really weird problem, which may have been a hardware failure. I was still able to tell the overall quality and decided that I would just return it.

2) PC with 3Dfx Voodoo 3500 TV

Most important features:
- S-Video out (at 800x600)
- hardware DVD decoding

Results:
I still use this to play games and browse on my TV. The sharpness is not as good as the ATI, but I already had this card, plus it doesn't have the noise problem. Without the noise problem I would probably choose the ATI.

However, putting a card like this or the ATI next to a stand-alone player shows is no comparison. The stand-alone players are just soooo much clearer/sharper etc, that you don't even have to do a side by side. You can tell straight away.

I'm sure a hardware decoder card like the Creative _could_ possibly have the exact same hardware as a stand-alone player and should be able to generate similar quality.

However, most will have a VGA overlay kind of thing (even though, for PC monitor playback it would be much better to use VMI, ZV or an other digital bus). What that does to the timing/resolution is still unclear to me.

3) Apex AD800

Most important features:
- Plays about every CD/DVD on the planet
- Component video out with Progressive Scan

Well, the quality of this machine is really not too bad. If they had still have the hidden menu to disable Region Codes I would have probably kept it (as a second machine though...)

You'll only see the difference between this one and the Toshiba if you have a good HD (ready) TV.

4) Toshiba SD-6200

Most important features:
- Component video out with Progressive Scan

This is the one I kept after doing a side-by-side. My TV has two component inputs and supports Progressive Scan. I rented a movie that I already had and thus could do a real side-by-side comparison by switching the TV input.

The difference was noticable in favor of the Toshiba, but it wasn't big. The Toshiba was just a little bit sharper and seemed to have more color depth.

Hope this helps, Breace.

• Nvidia's 3dfx Q&A
• 3dfx's third quarter earnings webcast
• A letter from 3dfx founder Scott Sellers about the sale

The V5 6000 is not a potential failure. As announced on the 13th it IS a failure.

"While we are sympathetic to the disappointment this may cause to a small number of our loyal gaming consumers, we are looking forward to seeing this incredible technology marketed to the visual simulation industry where visual quality is the most important attribute."

actually, you can just go to linux.3dfx.com

but the support leaves alot to be desired and i'm all but certain they'll be dumping this soon after they get back into the "chip" making business.


FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network

Like when you just want to get a video driver or software patch of one of the "commical sites" *cough*3dfx.com*cough* you have to wait an 5 minutes all the NEAT GRAPHICS to load, 5 minutes for the shockwave flash, then another 5 minutes listening to your hard drive grind while it loads the java script, and if you are lucky your web browser doesn't crash, then it takes another 5 minutes to find the link the the software drive though the gobs of marketing PR BS.

I just want to download the software drive, do you really need images, javascript and shockwave flash to do this?

Sure you try to go to there ftp site, but the dir and ls command don't work.

FUN FUN

The only thing that could make these better is if you pour on a 12 minute download of a virtual world and a 20 minute render time, can you do that please? :)

Under $300:
Games, of course - Grandia II, Final Fantasy IX, Majora's Mask -
But you're probably looking at gadgits. So I'll say a GameBoy Advanced (yes, I know the US version is a year away, but I can dream), or a Wonderswan (same deal - but I want to play Final Fantasy I-III (the real I - III, not "we'll call IV FFII and VI FFIII! Bwahahaha!").

The other item would be a Playstation One (small footprint) with the LCD panel and a car adapter so I could take it on trips.

$300 - $1500:
One of two things:
A Voodoo 6000 (128 MB RAM, 4 processors, needs its own external power source - can you say Unreal Tournament at 1024x768 4x AA at 100 frames a second? Oh, yes. Check it at http://www.3dfx.com/prod/vood oo/ v5-6000-overv.html
Creative Labs Jukebox http://www.nomadworld.com/products/j uke box/ - 6 gigs of MP3 storage from a name I trust.

$1500+
It took me a little bit, but I'd want one of those Honda gas-electric cars http://arstechnica.com/ rev iews/3q00/honda/insight-1.html - save gas $, save the planet, and stick it to OPEC all at the same time. (Now, if only they'd make an ethenol version so I could help out Kansas farms at the same time...)
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel

Glide was obviously based on the simplicity of OpenGL. It's designer was Brian Hook who worked at id Software on Quake2, and I think previously worked at SGI on the first optimized (read: non-Microsoft) OpenGL software implementation for Windows.

It lacks the high-level features of OpenGL such as doing matrix transforms, display lists, primitives, texture coordinate generation, etc. Glide was designed for game developers, who generally would prefer to implement these functions themselves, anyway. Since Glide was chipset specific and offered a lot of low-level control, you could come up cool effects with a bit of hacking. What 3DFX now hypes as T-Buffering was easily possible on the Voodoo1 chipset with Glide 1.1. With a couple of lines of code you could get fairly effective full-scene anti-aliasing and motion blur.

Most companies were developing their own APIs in the mid 90's so it was natural that 3DFX would do it as well. Rendition (RIP), 3DFX's early main competitor, had their own called Redline and NVIDIA's first attempt, the Edge3D, had an API that was kept away from anyone but licensed developers. Sidenote: NVIDIA used to imply that the Edge3D could render quadratic surfaces in hardware - I wonder what ever happened to that feature. d:^)

Paul

If you read the FAQs on http://linux.3Dfx.com/ (when the server is actually up), 3Dfx has pledged support to BOTH OpenGL and DirectX. They have regulated Glide to a legacy app.

Hell, I have been trying to get some Voodoo3 drivers all weekend from 3Dfx's Linux Site all weekend. Its been down. (its usual state I might add) So what good are linux drivers if you can't get to them?

You want a PCI version? 3dfx has got one. AGP still isn't a big deal -- sure it's faster, but not by a whole lot.
--

dload xfree86.org linux binaries of 4.01

run xinstall.sh

run XFree86 -configure

edit your new XF86Config till it works properly (hint - do a xf86config & copy details from that to your "-configure" generated one - you need to select "generic vga" as your card though)

get: tdfx_drm-1.0-2.src.rpm & Glide_V3-DRI-3.10-6.i386.rpm from: here & follow the instructions on the page to install them

do a "modprobe tdfx" to load the module (before you "startx")

Quake III should now work, including DGA mouse (YMMV)(hint - create an .xinitrc in ~/ with "exec quake3" as the only command - if you change res ingame it tends to fsck your dektop on exit)

I agree that the documentation is sparse (nvidia does it much better), but it's early days for these drivers, & they are being actively developed.

--

I dont know about other people, but I personally am not interested in what has the best performance on the Voodoo2, seeing as 3dFx now has the Voodoo5, and most people serious about their video cards have at least a Voodoo3 or better. Plus I think a better challenge would be running Quake III. No matter what, the Voodoo5 is awesome

So, where is the difficulty?

It's the 3D stuff. Sure, linux.3dfx.com has a fairly easy step-by-step for the various Voodoo cards, and both nVidi a and the Utah-GLX crew have come a loooong way towards making it easier.

Still, they all practically require recompiles (kernel modules, or in the case of Utah-GLX -- grab the CVS copy and compile the whole thing, then patch your kernel, if you want decent performance). That is a little daunting to Joe average.

Mind you, you only need the investment for Q3, HG2, Heretic2, SoF, and UT (or the older Q1, Q2, or Kingpin), but it's still significantly harder than the equivalent setup under Windows.

Note: I really like Utah-GLX. It makes the G400 in my work box hum and do good things. I also think that the state of 3D hardware under Linux has come a REALLY LONG WAY in the past year. It's where Windows was the first time I tried to get a 3D app running hardware-accelerated (say, 1.5 years ago, or so). We have a ways to go. We have come a really long way. We're getting there.

We will be there for John Q. Average. Just not right this minute.

Also: there have been attempts to bundle known-good versions of Mesa (HG2, Q3A), but that has proben problematic -- after all, just 'cause it works for Q3A doesn't mean it really *is* a good version of Mesa for, say, HG2 which stresses Mesa quite differently.

We've come a long way, baby, but that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement...

The Xfree-v4 DRI driver from 3dfx still goes through Glide. Check out this page at 3dfx. You need the new Glide installed before you can install the DRI X-server.

The IIRC the 3.3.6 X-driver used DGA (and so was full screen only). As a result it is entirely possible that it should be as fast as the DRI solution, or faster if the DRI implementation is not yet as well optimised.

So I am quite prepared to believe that the DRI implementation could be *slower* than the older version at the moment.

I had the exact same experience with ATI--Sure, their hardware is nice, but as a company they suck donkey balls. I wrote them at least twice over the course of a year, politely asking them to release drivers for their Rage/Rage II chipsets. All I got was A) Spam, and B) Bullshit from their spokesman.

I'd Switch to 3DFx..They do a great job of not sucking. They keep linux.3dfx.com updated religiously.


Bowie J. Poag

ATI
First graphics chip to break through the Gigatexel barrier with an awesome 1.5 Gigatexel per second rendering engine.

3DFX
Taking advantage of the revolutionary scalable architecture of the 3dfx VSA-100 chip, the Voodoo 5 6000 AGP features four processors working together to be the world's first 3D accelerator to break the Gigapixel barrier.

Ok, that last one says 'pixel', but 3DFX is probably referring to single-texture polys anyway.

Couldn't find an nVidia reference, can anyone else find one?

Do you not get it? This Linux stuff comes with source. YOU can modify this, YOU can yank out as much multiuser stuff as you want. YOU don't have to use X11R6, YOU can make your own gui for it (OpenGUI formerly FastGL comes to mind)
What about linux.3dfx.com? Have you even visited there?

Source for Glide is available on the Glide source page.
This is the source code to everything listed above. Do you want to hack Glide to make it faster, or add more features? Do you want to port Glide to Alpha or Sparc Linux, or to BSD? Do you want to know how it all works? Then download the source and hack away. And if you're serious about contributing changes and improvements to Glide visit the Developer Page for more information about the CVS tree and mailing list.


If you expect people to do all the hard work for you the way you want it, expect to pay for it. Thats Microsoft Windows. If you expect free beer, then expect to wait for it or contribute a little yourself.
You might want to learn a little more about XFree86 4.0 and the upcoming 2.4 kernel with regards to video performance I think.

Plus now their mouse driver doesn't work with fifo's like /dev/gpmdata (gpm -R) or /dev/jam_ps2:0 (jam imps2) which really pisses me off, because now I'm forced to use only their drivers for mice, which are limited. I have more mice supported in the imwheel version gpm of gpm (with support for wheels/sticks) than their internal drivers, and I can update the jam or gpm programs more often than we see a release of XFree86 come out.

I'm generally disappointed in both the video support from NVidia not being there, the mouse driver being too picky about FIFOs, and the dependancy on random libs that are not included with XFree86 4.0, nor mentioned in the docs. Lucky me I knew what to do to get it working.

write me if you need or can help with mice FIFO vs. XGrabButton methods for IMWheel and gpm or jam. -=<Long Island Man>=-

...the majority of their customers aren't computer geeks.

While the majority of computer users/owners around the world aren't computer geeks, many of them have friends who are computer geeks. Many of these technical illiterati ask their techno-friends for advice when deciding what to buy. I've seen it a thousand times.

In addition, some of us computer geeks are in positions where we buy hardware for our companies. Whenever I have to choose between two products of equal value to my business, I am heavily influenced by which product/vendor has done the better job of making me happy as a geek.

Right now, I've about had it with Aureal because they've been promising Linux drivers for their Vortex lines of sound cards since November of 1999. They even announced that they'd have Linux drivers in February of 2000. Now March of 2000 is nearly over and there's been no sign of drivers from Aureal and there's been no mention of when we might actually see their promised drivers.

I'm about to rip that piece of crap soundcard out of my computer and install a SoundBlaster Live because at least Creative Labs has some Linux support. The video cards in my desktop machines at home are Matrox and 3Dfx and both are well-supported. I don't think I'll be buying a GeForce DDR any time soon if nVidia can't release decent Linux drivers.

And no, I don't want to buy OSS drivers for that Aureal soundcard....

Depth of Field effects will be supported in hardware by 3dfx's Voodoo5 series, scheduled to be be released sometime this spring (most likely in late April/early May). The Voodoo5 has a feature 3dfx calls the "T-Buffer", basically an accumulation buffer which can also be used for Full Screen Anti-Aliasing, Motion Blur, Soft Shadows, and Soft Reflections. All effects require the software to support the feature, except for anti-aliasing, which can be done automatically.

Depth of Field effects will be supported in hardware by 3dfx's Voodoo5 series, scheduled to be be released sometime this spring (most likely in late April/early May). The Voodoo5 has a feature 3dfx calls the "T-Buffer", basically an accumulation buffer which can also be used for Full Screen Anti-Aliasing, Motion Blur, Soft Shadows, and Soft Reflections. All effects require the software to support the feature, except for anti-aliasing, which can be done automatically.

Depth of Field effects will be supported in hardware by 3dfx's Voodoo5 series, scheduled to be be released sometime this spring (most likely in late April/early May). The Voodoo5 has a feature 3dfx calls the "T-Buffer", basically an accumulation buffer which can also be used for Full Screen Anti-Aliasing, Motion Blur, Soft Shadows, and Soft Reflections. All effects require the software to support the feature, except for anti-aliasing, which can be done automatically.

Depth of Field effects will be supported in hardware by 3dfx's Voodoo5 series, scheduled to be be released sometime this spring (most likely in late April/early May). The Voodoo5 has a feature 3dfx calls the "T-Buffer", basically an accumulation buffer which can also be used for Full Screen Anti-Aliasing, Motion Blur, Soft Shadows, and Soft Reflections. All effects require the software to support the feature, except for anti-aliasing, which can be done automatically.

Depth of Field effects will be supported in hardware by 3dfx's Voodoo5 series, scheduled to be be released sometime this spring (most likely in late April/early May). The Voodoo5 has a feature 3dfx calls the "T-Buffer", basically an accumulation buffer which can also be used for Full Screen Anti-Aliasing, Motion Blur, Soft Shadows, and Soft Reflections. All effects require the software to support the feature, except for anti-aliasing, which can be done automatically.

Depth of Field effects will be supported in hardware by 3dfx's Voodoo5 series, scheduled to be be released sometime this spring (most likely in late April/early May). The Voodoo5 has a feature 3dfx calls the "T-Buffer", basically an accumulation buffer which can also be used for Full Screen Anti-Aliasing, Motion Blur, Soft Shadows, and Soft Reflections. All effects require the software to support the feature, except for anti-aliasing, which can be done automatically.

i would expect people in the EmuHQ to be coming up with a emulator for our dear PS2. it's quite scary come to think of it. i own a PS and, looking at the games that i could be playing on the emu instead, what's the point of getting the console, right? all i need is a voodoo 3500 (maybe v6000?) tv out card. multiplayer? well.. nothing prevents those guys from coming a multiplayet, say, thru TCP/IP.. Then people will be playing PS2 games (8 playes?) thru TCP/IP.. try that, PS2... (only 2 players now, sans multitap, and you need to be like 7.7 feet away from each other) makes me wonder why anyone even get console games now that computers can pretty much do EVERYTHING..

I've got a TV tuner card, and I can tell you, it's just not possible to sample a raw movie like that.

3dfx makes a nice TV tuner card which supports real-time MPEG-2 video capture. Granted, it's not 40 bucks, but it does make it possible.

I've got a TV tuner card, and I can tell you, it's just not possible to sample a raw movie like that.

3dfx makes a nice TV tuner card which supports real-time MPEG-2 video capture. Granted, it's not 40 bucks, but it does make it possible.

Wrong. The Utah-GLX project have (more or less working) drivers for Matrox (G200, G400), ATI (Rage Pro), Intel (i810 I think), NVIDIA Riva series and some S3 support. Then there's 3dfx's DRI implementation, and of course NVIDIA's X server + GLX combo. So that's at least five...

I haven't tried the 3dfx fb device, so I don't know, but I can get a 132x60 console display on my Voodoo Banshee using VGA mode selection in a non-fb kernel with vga mode selection support. just put vga=0x030c in your /etc/lilo.conf

To be honest, I don't see the point in using the fb device on systems with native (i.e. non-fb) X servers - (linux.3dfx.com), which support true text-mode in hardware. It's different on an amiga or mac, which have no hardware text mode, and so require the framebuffer to even use the console, let alone X.

You won't be smiling for a long time then. NFS: High Stakes only supports Glide or Directx6.1+.

However, since Glide has been released for linux (along with the specs for the Voodoo cards,) half the battle has been won. Now, EA just has to be more receptive to porting their games to Linux. Until they are, don't hold your breath.

Of course, this doesn't help the people out there who do NOT own a Voodoo-based card (or do it yourself.) For you guys, you're going to have to get some generous programmer to write a Linux Glide wrapper for your video card. Good luck.

And ... we all now that pursuing the possibility of DirectX on Linux is a futile effort at best ... but then again, you never know ... stranger things have happened.

There's no mention, or indication, anywhere that this will be open source.

Until there's more than a press release from Nvidia, I'll support 3dfx (and Matrox). 3dfx's Linux effort has released specs, open-sourced code, and their 3d cards are better supported/faster.

"There are no databooks available for the 3Dfx 3D hardware; there is a 2D databook, so Xi Graphics has been able to offer support for some 3dfx hardware in 2D/X mode. AFAIK, XFree86 relies on using a binary library provided by 3Dfx (GLIDE), which is not open source/GPL/whatever. The IP remains in the hands of 3Dfx and free software offers an interface to the real binary proprietary driver. "

arse.. I should check my own URLs
here is the correct link
--

According to FAQ #16 on 3dfx's FAQ page Linux will be supported along with BeOS... On the other hand, I really don't care because I will not buy one of these cards anyhow. Who integrates a DVD decoder on their card and doesn't put a TV out on the board because "very, very few end-users want to play PC games on a TV." Ok, fine. Gamers don't want to play the games on TV but what about those of us who would like to watch DVD's on our TV? Come on 3dfx, use your brain...

Macintouch is reporting that the PCI version is already supported by the company's existing Macintosh drivers. You can read the FAQ yourself. No doubt, if there is enough interest, drivers for AGP Macintoshes will be forthcoming.

THE GOOD

• LinuxCare's little bootable Linux recovery CD kicks ass. No bigger than a business card, it fits in the 3" diameter groove in CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive trays and has the potential to save your butt when lilo eats itself. They also had some Linux stickers that now adorn the case of my 386... (Yes, it runs Linux.)
• IBM had a presence. Although certainly not the largest or flashiest booth in the show, Quake 3 on a rather large plasma display attracted lots of attention. Dual PII-400 Intellistation + Voodoo 3 3000 + large plasma display. Mmmmmm. Thanks to the guys there for letting me get some game time on that mammoth thang...
• O'Reilly also had a presence, and their trade show pricing kicks much booty. Picked up a few books for 20% off list and got a shirt to boot...
• Mad props to VA Linux Systems for not only having a cool booth and giving away lots of stuff but for supplying the machines used for public Internet access. Their Debian boxed set is pretty cool and sports Learning Debian GNU/Linux from O'Reilly. (Yes, I was one of the people who stood around in line for ten or fifteen minutes to win this...)
• Thanks to the Sun and Rave Systems folks for all the free stuff. Learn to play Quake 2 without cheating before next year's show... :-) (Now where's my complimentary Sparc 5?)

THE BAD

• None of the shirts I got fit. None. Zero. Zip. Zilch. I'm 6-foot-3-inches tall and weigh 295 pounds. Show me the big-assed shirts!
• The IBM guys told me that the Showcase had a T-1 connection to the 'Net. I couldn't verify -- the packet loss and latency was horrible on the connection. I'm hoping this is only because lots of geeks were pounding on the connection like a pack of wild monkeys...
• Food choices were few, and lines were long. Within the Galleria, your choices were Subway, some cafe whose name I don't remember, Ruby Tuesday's, and Chick-Fil-A. If you were bold, you could go to the movie theater downstairs and buy a big tub of popcorn. The group I was with walked across the street to another mall and ate at Arby's. Yum... I think.

THE UGLY

• Where the hell were the Slackware people? I wanted Slackware apparel... Hmmph.
• Linux merchandise places came out of the woodworks to hock their goods. Yay capitalism...
• Don't eat at Shoney's. Our group waited over an hour for food before giving up and leaving.

THE REST

• The andover.net/freshmeat.net/slashdot.org booth was smack dab next to the linux.com booth. Taken together, it looked like one big congregation of slackers with laptops. All things considered, however, I wouldn't have minded flopping down on the couch for a rest after walking around for a few hours...
• I will seek revenge against the guy in the Debian shirt who shot me in the arm with a Nerf dart... muahahahaha
• The Debian folks had a Sun Ultra 5 running XaoS, Netscape, and some Tetris clone in separate windows. Just for kicks, I maximized the XaoS window. Can we say slideshow?
• I had nothing interesting enough to trade with the lady at the VA Linux booth, so I didn't get one of those nifty enlightenment shirts. Dammit.
• NetBSD was there. Go figure.

Overall, it was a pretty cool show, but I wish I didn't have the 2-1/2 hour drive. It was put on very professionally and appeared to be very well organized. I was only slightly disappointed that the show wasn't any bigger... The nifty canvas bag attendees got and the included CD made up for that, though.

I would't be surprised to see Apple offer more options on their own site when more AGP cards get Mac driver support.

You know, If you check out 3Dfx' website, they've included beta drivers for MacOS 8x and their VooDoo3 series of cards... now... with an AGP Voodoo3 2000, a G4 500MHz System (with agp) and the beta drivers, perhaps the alternative is possible.

Regardless of prevailing /. opinions, I say good job to Apple. They're trying and that's what counts.

Daniel

> Do we have a link to this story? Check out http://www.3dfx.com The announcement is there.

Apart from the fact that 3dfx has a lousy attitude, UltraTNT2 offers 32 bit and AGP texturing. The only bad thing is you can't play your old glide-only games anymore....
Creative tried fixing that so people wouldn't have to buy/keep an V2 along with their UltraTNT2 and that is the ONLY reason 3dfx are suing. A reason why a V2 next to your TNT2 is a bad thing you ask ?
1. Graphic Quality. Even if you don't own a TNT2 or Matrox, the difference between directly on the card or looped through the V2 is clearly visible at 1600x1200.
2. Heat. Everybody who felt how hot a V2 gets knows this is a real problem.
3. It's another unavailable PCI slot (or two).
So you can see, apart from idealogical reasons (API's should be public domain IMHO), unified whould acctually offer better quality over V2.
BTW the official URL to the article is http://www.3dfx.com/view.asp?IOID=248

I found one!!!
http://www.3dfx.com/view.asp?IOID=241

3dfx Interactive: Voodoo 2 Linux Reference Drivers

search for linux at this Earl :
http://www.3dfx.com/view_io.asp?ID=20