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The Glorious, Hulking History of 3D Graphics

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fuchikoma
05/19/09

In reply to The Glorious, Hulking History of 3D Graphics
It all started to go wrong when certain programs required a VGA card to be on a VESA bus...

Then you had to have the right proprietary mix and match of parts to play games you wanted until... about DirectX 5 since the earlier ones were kinda brutal and crash-prone.

This often meant a Sound Blaster sound card and a 3dfx video card, otherwise your games like MechWarrior 2, Tomb Raider, or Carmageddon wouldn't be 3D accelerated at all, and you couldn't guarantee you'd have sound effects.
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Hello Mister Walrus
05/19/09

In reply to The Glorious, Hulking History of 3D Graphics
When will we have sentient AI chips for our PCs?
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EVEs_Mako
05/19/09

In reply to The Glorious, Hulking History of 3D Graphics
I cry out for my old Voodoo! VOODOO!

Good times.....good times.
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Hello Mister Walrus
05/19/09

@EVEs_Mako: Yeah, what happened to 3dfx? (and Matrox and S3 for that matter).
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FrankenPC
05/19/09

In reply to The Glorious, Hulking History of 3D Graphics
I remember every one of those cards. Clearly the Voodoo revolutionized 3D acceleration.

Now, let's talk about sound cards. Anyone remember the AdLib synthesizer on a card?
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Hello Mister Walrus
05/19/09

@FrankenPC: I remember that, and Roland-something or other. But really, Soundblaster was the one that made the most difference. It let the computer play actual sound clips, not just synthesized sounds. Pew pew pew!
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Inception
05/19/09

In reply to The Glorious, Hulking History of 3D Graphics
Haha, the funny thing is that I actually use an S3 Virge card at work. Works with old linuxes out of the box! :D
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Hello Mister Walrus
05/19/09

@Inception: What? Does your computer have a "turbo" button too?
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