3dfx Voodoo
Hacker ApprovedRanked 9 of 42 graphics cards by recommenders
People recommend it for its fast, great-looking 3D gaming in Quake and Glide games, and drivers that worked. Critics note it needed a separate VGA card and was expensive.
People recommend it for its fast, great-looking 3D gaming in Quake and Glide games, and drivers that worked. Critics note it needed a separate VGA card and was expensive.
39 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 34
- criticize it
- 5
- approval share
- 87%
Recommended in 10 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 34 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 6.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 10 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Much faster, smoother 3D than earlier cards
“The night and day difference of gaming on a Trident card vs a Voodoo card made grown men cry.”
Comment from 27 Oct 2026 in “Behind the scenes at the NeXT Computer office” “That was the the other big unlock of 3dfx voodoo, it could do 640x480 at 30 fps.”
Comment from 16 Oct 2026 in “I love software rendering” “the early consumer cards(voodoo) could run rings around them”
Comment from 7 Apr 2026 in “Every GPU That Mattered” - Comment from 21 Jun 2026 in “CSSQuake”
- Comment from 25 Sep 2026 in “Pentium II at 600Mhz with Voodoo 3 Emulated on 86Box with M6 Mac Mini”
- Comment from 20 Jun 2026 in “CSSQuake”
- Comment from 18 Oct 2026 in “Nvidia's first GPU: GeForce 256”
Memorable experience when first played
“When I played Quake (and ran the time test) the first time on that Voodoo, I knew computer gaming had changed.”
Comment from 16 Sep 2026 in “Recreating Voodoo Graphics and a Late-1990s Gaming PC on an FPGA” “The Christmas when I got my 3dfx Voodoo1 card was magical.”
Comment from 19 Aug 2026 in “Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full” “A year or so later - we then had 3dfx cards. Good times!”
Comment from 27 Aug 2026 in “Windows 95 released August 24, 1995” - Comment from 15 Jan 2026 in “The 3D Software Rendering Technology of 1998's Thief: The Dark Project”
- Comment from 25 Sep 2026 in “Pentium II at 600Mhz with Voodoo 3 Emulated on 86Box with M6 Mac Mini”
- Comment from 7 Apr 2026 in “Every GPU That Mattered”
Runs Glide games and Quake well
“I really wanted a 3dfx Voodoo card for Christmas so I could play all the sweet 3D games that only supported Glide”
Comment from 10 Jan 2026 in “RTX 5090 and Raspberry Pi: Can It Game?” “thanks to the Voodoo I could play Unreal Tournament without problems”
Comment from 7 Apr 2026 in “Every GPU That Mattered” “Whatever, Glide was amazing! So much so that Nvidia bought them.”
Comment from 9 Jan 2026 in “RTX 5090 and Raspberry Pi: Can It Game?” - Comment from 24 Mar 2026 in “IRIX 3dfx Voodoo driver and glide2x IRIX port”
- Comment from 16 Sep 2026 in “Recreating Voodoo Graphics and a Late-1990s Gaming PC on an FPGA”
Good driver support, including Linux
“I exhausted my teenage savings to buy the Voodoo 1 due to the Linux support.”
Comment from 22 Mar 2026 in “Building an FPGA 3dfx Voodoo with Modern RTL Tools” “It's was a 3D card with drivers that actually worked.”
Comment from 26 Aug 2026 in “OpenAI Jalapeño: Better than Nvidia Blackwell” “it had great driver support for ppc32/macos9”
Comment from 22 Mar 2026 in “Building an FPGA 3dfx Voodoo with Modern RTL Tools”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Needed a separate VGA card
“The Voodoo was fast but also expensive, and you needed an additional VGA card.”
Comment from 23 Mar 2026 in “Building an FPGA 3dfx Voodoo with Modern RTL Tools” “Voodoo 1 and 2 had the ugly VGA passthrough hack.”
Comment from 13 Oct 2026 in “Intel D270 GPU AI Accelerator–Up to 480 GB LPDDR5X” Felt dated and disappointing
“3dfx lost because it kept optimizing for yesterday”
Comment from 25 Sep 2026 in “Pentium II at 600Mhz with Voodoo 3 Emulated on 86Box with M6 Mac Mini” “still felt like a let down”
Comment from 25 Sep 2026 in “Pentium II at 600Mhz with Voodoo 3 Emulated on 86Box with M6 Mac Mini”
Other graphics cards people recommend
The four most recommended other graphics cards, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 | 116 | 21 | 85% | 12 | 5 yrs14 owners | Approved |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 | 102 | 37 | 73% | 12 | 1 yr3 owners | Approved |
| NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 | 77 | 26 | 75% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Nvidia GPUs | 67 | 67 | 50% | 11 | 6 yrs3 owners | — |
| 3dfx VoodooThis page | 34 | 5 | 87% | 10 | — | Approved |
What people said
38 of the 42 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“The night and day difference of gaming on a Trident card vs a Voodoo card made grown men cry.”
“The Voodoo 1 graphics was way better.”
“That was the the other big unlock of 3dfx voodoo, it could do 640x480 at 30 fps.”
“it was nice to not take out the desktop when someone borked up their OGL homework”
“Voodoo 1 and 2 had the ugly VGA passthrough hack.”
“lacking the MPEG 2 decoder that it had, at one point, been advertised to feature”
“still felt like a let down”
“3dfx lost because it kept optimizing for yesterday”
“all the pixelation and jerkiness was suddenly gone”
“I bought it in 1995 and it was amazing.”
“just staring at the water for a bit and being amazed by it”
“When I played Quake (and ran the time test) the first time on that Voodoo, I knew computer gaming had changed.”
“Quake 1 was amazing on it”
“3dfx hardware didn't run anything but Glide very well”
“A year or so later - we then had 3dfx cards. Good times!”
“It's was a 3D card with drivers that actually worked.”
“The Christmas when I got my 3dfx Voodoo1 card was magical.”
“The driver for it was very crash-prone”
“Was night and day on my 486 DX4 100 with and without”
“it would run silky smooth on a Pentium-120”
“doing all the blending modes for free”
“offered better performance/price ratio”
“the early consumer cards(voodoo) could run rings around them”
“It felt incredible at the time.”
“you knew you were about to have a good time”
“thanks to the Voodoo I could play Unreal Tournament without problems”
“runs fine on PC with a Voodoo 1”
“The Voodoo was fast but also expensive, and you needed an additional VGA card.”
“it had great driver support for ppc32/macos9”
“The Voodoo cards had no right to look as good as they did for their time.”
“I exhausted my teenage savings to buy the Voodoo 1 due to the Linux support.”
“it had a problem with my PCI version”
“you'd be remiss to not use their hardware in a vintage quake pc build”
“Was absolutely mind blowing as a 13 year old.”
“I really wanted a 3dfx Voodoo card for Christmas so I could play all the sweet 3D games that only supported Glide”
“Whatever, Glide was amazing! So much so that Nvidia bought them.”
“Solution was switching to x1 mode, disabling sideband signaling or just swapping to a 3dfx card.”
“at least until Voodoo 1 / QuakeGL”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.