3dfx conquered our hearts at the end of the last century, and not even its bankruptcy managed to erase the impact it had on the graphical evolution of our favorite video games. Enthusiasts keep modifying and adapting this hardware, even without updated drivers and with limited documentation. The Vogons forum user known as “sdz” has just written another chapter in 3dfx’s history, converting a Voodoo4 card to the MXM format to enable its installation in a Dell laptop, and as if that weren’t enough, he also expanded its memory.
The VSA-100 graphics processor was 3dfx’s last hurrah before its acquisition by Nvidia at the end of 2000. As expected, Nvidia was only interested in the intellectual property, and it denied support for existing cards, instead offering something akin to a “trade-in plan.” Officially, only two products saw the light with the VSA-100: the Voodoo5 5500 in June 2000, and the Voodoo4 4500 four months later.
Over the years, some very interesting prototypes have appeared, but what brings us here today is the Voodoo4. Why? Because the user “sdz” from the excellent Vogons forum dedicated to retro hardware decided to combine its chip with modern hardware in a very particular way: creating an MXM PCB or “Mobile PCI Express Module” to install it in a Dell laptop.
A Voodoo4 as an MXM Board: A Beautiful Beast
“sdz” explains that laptops with MXM support expect to find an MXM graphics BIOS, but the Voodoo4 has none of that, so he was forced to make several modifications, including an LVDS connector to “talk” more directly with the panel. In summary, the card includes a VSA-100 chip, 64 megabytes of RAM (the original V4 had 32), a PCI Express to PCI bridge, an FPGA (the trained eye will surely recognize the Xilinx Spartan-7), a scaler (the VSA-100 chip cannot do that task), EEPROMs, a microcontroller, and all the power distribution, on a surface of 7 x 8 centimeters.
Now, this is not the first time 3dfx fans decide to completely redesign these cards and add additional support such as an HDMI output. In fact, the Changeling project comes to mind immediately, but that board still uses a classic AGP connector, while the “Voodoo 4 M4800” (as sdz named it) is installed in a Dell laptop from 2013. Impressive, from every point of view.
Access the project on Vogons: Click here
