[HN Gopher] 3Dfx Voodoo Memory Upgrade - 6MB Mod [video]
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3Dfx Voodoo Memory Upgrade - 6MB Mod [video]
Author : mariuz
Score : 80 points
Date : 2023-04-01 11:03 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| tarokun-io wrote:
| Nice. I recently saw a somewhat similar video: "8MB Voodoo 1
| enables higher resolutions in Quake?" --
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4rIDNDQUpU. Fun stuff to watch.
| When I started gaming Voodoo no longer existed, so I appreciate
| all of this historic info.
| consp wrote:
| I also started gaming after voodoo had left the scene but I
| remember buying two 3dfx voodoo 2 cards for SLI way past their
| prime to play Diablo II in glide mode (for niceness and
| 1024x786 res and retro-brag-points). Fun times with cheap old
| hardware.
| jwmoz wrote:
| Made in Taiwan.
| stuaxo wrote:
| The minimally invasive nature - only a single wire soldered on
| the original board is great.
| psychphysic wrote:
| Yeah! I expected him to have to lift that pin before connecting
| it atleast but nope!
|
| So was that pin left floating!? Bizarre!
| t344344 wrote:
| Macbook users have to do something like this when moving their
| SSD drive to other machine! Not very user friendly!
| [deleted]
| ysleepy wrote:
| Related hack: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxbVxaScZQ4
|
| dosdude1 upgrading the soldered on memory in a macbook air.
| [deleted]
| pcdoodle wrote:
| 3Dfx is just plain cool. It was one of the bigger leaps of the
| era. Back then there was a little cross over from car culture
| (mods/hot rodding) too which helped fuel some of the industry.
| This was almost like throwing a 4 barrel carb and high rise cam
| shaft into a 5.7L Chevy, not very expensive and mind blowing
| difference of performance from stock.
| HeckFeck wrote:
| Now that explains some of John Carmack's actions.
| matwood wrote:
| > It was one of the bigger leaps of the era.
|
| I consider it one of the everything changed moments. I played
| Quake a lot more than I probably should have. When I got my
| 3dfx voodoo daughter card, computer games pretty much changed
| overnight.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| This is cool, just on general principle. Upgrades of obsolete
| hardware for no reason other than the thrill of hacking? I'm a
| fan.
|
| However, as somebody who had a 6MB Voodoo (Pure3D from Canopus)
| back in the day I can tell you -- that extra memory is just about
| useless.
|
| Found this article with some benchmarks. The initial batch of
| 3dfx games didn't target the extra memory of the 6MB cards,
| because they were a niche within a niche already. Some _later_
| titles apparently benefitted a bit, about 4% on average:
|
| https://vintage3d.org/3dfx1.php
|
| ...although, unlike the author of the article, I 'm not entirely
| sure it was due to the extra texture memory? IIRC some 3dfx
| Voodoo cards were clocked a bit higher than others by default? I
| know the Canopus Pure3D could be overclocked in software:
|
| http://www.thedodgegarage.com/3dfx/overclocking.htm
| capableweb wrote:
| > that extra memory is just about useless.
|
| Same goes today, unless you're doing other things than just
| gaming. But top of the line cards come with 24GB VRAM, most
| games never come close to using that much VRAM.
| Arrath wrote:
| That is, reportedly, beginning to change. I've been seeing
| reports of TLOU PC port choking on cards with 10gb of vram,
| only getting decent once you crest 12gb.
|
| It may take until the _next_ console generation for 24gb
| cards to get well and truly utilized, but the 12gb seen on
| Nvidia's current midrange cards may quickly feel anemic.
| theropost wrote:
| Looks like new features coming up in DirectX 12 updates
| will allow for more access to VRAM as well.
|
| https://www.tomshardware.com/news/dx12-optimization-cpu-
| gpu-...
| humanistbot wrote:
| > I've been seeing reports of TLOU PC port choking on cards
| with 10gb of vram, only getting decent once you crest 12gb.
|
| That seems more because devs didn't do a good job in
| porting a 10 year old game (released in 2013) that ran
| perfectly fine on a PS3, which only had 256MB of system RAM
| and 256MB of VRAM. The PC TLOU port is not advancing the
| state-of-the-art in graphics, it should not be seen as a
| sign of the new normal.
| crysin wrote:
| TLOU Part I != TLOU (2013). It's a complete remake from
| the ground up built off of TLOU Part II engine
| enhancements. Your point still stands that it's a bad
| port as it runs on the PS5 just fine and shouldn't be
| choking decently spec'd PCs.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| I believe what's being spoken about is the PC port of the
| recently released TLOU _remake_ , which is native to the
| PS5 and designed to leverage its hardware fully. It's
| still a bad port, but not so bad that it's a 10 year old
| game struggling to run on a current generation PC.
| psychphysic wrote:
| It seemed to make substantial difference to Hogwarts Legacy
| when the seasons changed and almost all textures needed
| reloading.
|
| It could have been avoided of course. But the difference
| still existed.
| capableweb wrote:
| Various sources seems to claim that the minimum VRAM
| requirement for Hogwarts Legacy is 4GB and recommended
| being 8GB. Seems to still be far away from 24GB.
| londons_explore wrote:
| I could totally imagine a big map game having 50gb+ of
| textures, and demand loading them. If you have more VRAM,
| there will be less SSD reading/writing as textures are
| loaded and unloaded when you move about the map.
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| GPUs are going to have SSDs or NAND soon, aren't they?
| "Non-volatile persistent texture storage" branded as
| "TextureFlash" or "GameNOW!!" or something like that.
| psychphysic wrote:
| UE4 onwards has this interesting mechanism where it slows
| movement as you move through a zone that triggers asset
| loading. It removes loading screens by imposing a
| movement speed penalty to give it time to pre-load
| assets.
|
| The pitfall is that if you're short on VRAM you can feel
| like you're moving through treacle near doors you don't
| even intend to open! All at 60fps...
| Arrath wrote:
| That seems so much worse than the oft memed about
| "glacially slow elevators" or, more recently, "tiny gaps
| your character crawls through"
| jandrese wrote:
| 24GB of VRAM is awesome for running AI models though.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| Video editing will use all of that and more.
| capableweb wrote:
| Indeed, so will 3D rendering and other things. Besides the
| point though.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| The 24GB VRAM also comes with a ~$2000 price tag. That's not
| really a regular gamer level card.
| capableweb wrote:
| I don't know a single person who had a 6MB 3Dfx Voodoo card
| back in the day, I know plenty of people with a 24GB VRAM
| card today. I don't think they (6MB 3Dfx) were even
| obtainable in my country at the time without special
| contacts. So by any measure, those cards were not really
| regular gamer level cards either.
| dualboot wrote:
| I disagree as technologies like DirectStorage and equiv.
| mature and are adopted.
|
| In addition, undersized vram amounts is one of the ways in
| which Nvidia limits the usable life of their video cards.
| qtip1970 wrote:
| [flagged]
| trackflak wrote:
| In case you hadn't noticed, this is hackernews and not /r9k/
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(page generated 2023-04-03 23:02 UTC)