New DIY project shows that the 3dfx Voodoo graphics cards are still alive in the hands of hobbyists

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The project has been in development for a good two years

The Spanish 3dfx enthusiast Oscar Barea shares new impressions from the project called “VoodooX”, in which a legendary GPU is at least somewhat modernized.

Why this is important: The Voodoo 3dfx graphics cards are considered the forefather of 3D accelerators, which was acquired by Nvidia in 2000. Projects like this revive the “golden age of GPUs” again and again.

In detail: The founder of the spanish 3dfx museum Oscar Barea has shared pictures of a new project on X/Twitter: The “VoodooX”, which is equipped with 32 MByte RAM and DVI output, among other features

  • The VSA-100 chip, which was used in the Voodoo4 4500 and Voodoo5 5500, among others, serves as the basis.
  • The chip itself operates at 166 MHz and 32 MByte RAM; the prototype “A1A-0324” was chosen as the circuit board, which is completely black for aesthetic reasons.

According to the hobbyists, the work itself began around two years ago and is likely to continue for a while yet.

  • Among other things, a switch is to be added that allows the available memory to be switched back and forth between 32 and 64 MB of RAM.

As “AshEvans81”, who is involved in the project, explains at the start of the project, the chipset comes from an auction and was described as “as good as new”, so that the basic functionality should be guaranteed.

DVI instead of VGA: While the older Voodoo graphics cards still used the VGA output, Barea uses a DVI-D interface for the video output.

  • Basically, DVI-D has a better color representation and image sharpness than VGA.
  • In the future, the VoodooX will also have an HDMI output.

Do you still know the 3dfx Voodoo? Which GPU did you have back then – or did your graphics card journey begin later? Let us know your experiences in the comments below