I have owned and used the Voodoo3 2000 as my graphics card for over a year now. It offers good performance compared to similarly priced cards. However, due to recent events, there are a few reasons a Voodoo may not be right for you.

To really understand video cards, you need understand some things about the software behind them. When a 3D program is written, usually it is written using one of three API's -- DirectX, OpenGL, or Glide. This is done because there are so many different types of cards out there. Instead of worrying about the specifics of a video card, programmers just make reference calls to an API that handles all the details. 3dfx cards are unique in that they can run programs written using any of the three API's. That means that they can run your older Glide games, where cards using a non-3dfx chip can't.

Sounds good so far, right? Well, here is the bad news. 3dfx was bought out by their competitor, NVidia. The biggest impact that has on 3dfx card owners is that driver development has stopped for the Voodoo3 cards. The drivers were never updated to DirectX 8. As a result, there can be problems running newer games. People with a Voodoo3 have had problems running Ghost Recon, for example.

The bottom line is that, although a Voodoo3 2000 is a decent piece of hardware, the software can be just as important as the card itself. If you are looking at buying a new video card, you may want to consider an NVidia based card.

Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 100