from the same-old-voodoo-follows-me-about dept.
https://hexus.net/tech/news/graphics/147447-3dfx-voodoo-5-6000-recreated-via-reverse-engineering/
Graphics firm 3dfx was a pioneer in PC 3D acceleration and ploughed a deep furrow in the PC industry from about 1996, until it went insolvent in 2000. Just before the lights went out it launched the Voodoo 5 5500, one of a quartet of VSA-100 GPU-based graphics cards that it had showed off at Comdex, Las Vegas, in November 1999. You can read the HEXUS review of the Voodoo 5 5500 if you want a trip down memory lane.
At the aforementioned Comdex event, 3dfx showcased the VSA-100 processor including the products Voodoo 4 4500, Voodoo 5 5000/5500 and Voodoo 5 6000. The graphics chip was codenamed Napalm, packed in about 14 million transistors, and was built on the 250nm process. One of the goals of the VSA-100 was scalability (VSA = Voodoo Scalable Architecture) and thus the Voodoo 4 4500 was the only SKU with one VSA-100, the Voodoo 5 5000/5500 used a pair of these processors, and the Voodoo 5 6000 was slated to pack in four VSA-100 chips – but it never arrived in commercial quantities. Only about a thousand Voodoo 5 6000 graphics cards were produced in an initial batch, and they hardly ever turn up on the used market.
Earlier this week a modder and enthusiast called Anthony revealed that he had built his own Voodoo 5 6000 graphics card by purchasing a number of VSA-100 chips, SDRAM modules, and applying a sizable pinch of electrical engineering know-how. The finished full working sample is pictured above.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Monday September 26 2022, @10:39AM (4 children)
While I do think it is kind of cool I do wonder what the market is for them - windows 2000 enthusiasts that really like to play 3D games from that era on time specific SOTA hardware? Is it so you can play the original Counter-Strike?
Still building one if he/they would share the PCB design is at least $200 but more probably more like $300 or $400. Just the main VSA components was $80-100 before this was even common knowledge. Add in the other various components and the 8-layer PCB. Then hand-soldering this is probably a bit of a pain.
Finding a modern or new card that is about 10 years old that is going to do laps around this creation is less or around $100 so you have to build this one just cause you want one for some reason and it has to make sense in that regard. That said people buy really old hardware cause they like it, not cause it makes sense. After all why buy old 8-bit hardware etc when you could just emulate it unless the hardware somehow evokes nostalgia or some other feeling. I guess in that regard nostalgia just moved up a bit in years to now include the early 2000's and not just the 70-, 80-, and 90:s. It's going to be weird when people have some kind of OS fetish for Windows 95 etc ... *shudder* ...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aafcac on Monday September 26 2022, @01:10PM
I'm not sure it's worth it, but it would be nice to have a card that's capable of properly playing i-76. Last time I tried playing, it was unplayably broken due to the way it interacted with my GPU.
That being said, this is going to be a niche card, DosBox has had emulation for colored lighting effects for a while now, and that's the main thing that people are likely to miss. Over time, I expect that emulation and wrappers will be more than sufficient to give you an accurate experience.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HammeredGlass on Monday September 26 2022, @01:44PM
There were community modded drivers that permitted considerable workarounds adapting to a DirectX8 and WinXP environment(of course not implementing it fully). One friend of mine rocked a Voodoo 5 5500 for years passed its expiration date.
(Score: 1) by GloomMower on Monday September 26 2022, @02:51PM (1 child)
The article said used voodoo 5 6000 cards go for $1500. But I'm sure it isn't all just about the money. There is probably some fun part of being able to design a card and having it work like the original. Especially since I apparently it isn't an issue getting the VSA-100 chips.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Friday September 30 2022, @12:13AM
There's really only two reasons to do this, one is for the technical challenge and the other is for historical preservation. For most other uses, you're better off with emulation and/or wrappers.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday September 27 2022, @05:37PM
This is a cool hobby project but I was surprised the guy used vintage retro hardware components instead of a very large VHDL/Verilog file and a very large FPGA. I mean its cool either way, sure.