this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2025
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Vintage 3dfx Voodoo 2 cards may inevitably fail due to pyroelectric capacitors — retrocomputing channel investigates [Bits and Bolts] and recommends preventive maintenance (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 1 week ago by cm0002@libretechni.ca to c/retrocomputing@lemmy.sdf.org
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Original YT Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oZlt9Dl43I

The 3Dfx Voodoo 2 and the Nvidia Riva TNT were the pinnacles of the early era of 3D graphics. Both were released in 1998, and while I owned the latter, the Voodoo 2 was the faster of the two, despite the inconvenience of requiring an existing 2D graphics card. The Voodoo 2 is naturally memorable, and it's a regular presence in retro PC builds. As the YouTube channel Bits und Bolts (Bits) found out, the cards' capacitors can and will fail in time due to the rarely discussed pyroelectric effect.

In a lengthy video, Bits diagnoses why one of his Voodoo 2 cards is intermittently failing with graphical corruption, with no apparent pattern other than the issues appearing after a short time of use. After much digging, he figures out that the problem seems related to the card's power-delivery circuitry by inspecting how resistance changed at the component that converts 5 V to 3.3 V.

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[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

If you're still using one of those in 2025: It might be time to upgrade.

[–] Pistcow@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Man, used to be the shit if you had a voodoo card.

[–] bus_factor@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Someone I knew had two 12MB Voodoo2 cards in SLI. I couldn't believe anyone could shell out that much. My build was a single 8MB Voodoo2, which was already mind-blowing, especially since I never had 3D acceleration before that.

[–] Venator@lemmy.nz 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Voodoo2 12mb was released at $299 USD, thats about $594.29 today, so would only be like $1200 for SLI, not bad 😅

Although this review from the time says SLI only gave around 1fps more in a quake 2 benchmark: https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1998?amount=299

[–] bus_factor@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

Plus the cost of a regular graphics card. You also had to buy a sound card in addition to all the components you still need today. And I was 15 years old, so coughing up another ~$700 for two of the beefier cards would mean a whole lot more working during summer break.

[–] Tim_Bisley@piefed.social 2 points 1 week ago

I have 2 voodoo 2 cards that never did boot. Always got a black screen. They've been sitting in a box for years.