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Earlier Voodoo cards didn't need to worry about video BIOS because it wasn't the primary video card. It used this wacky passthrough system where you still used
by wat10000 2y ago
Earlier Voodoo cards didn't need to worry about video BIOS because it wasn't the primary video card. It used this wacky passthrough system where you still used your normal graphics hardware for ordinary 2D stuff, and then it switched over to the 3D card when you ran 3D software, which had to take over the entire screen. Nvidia and ATI cards handled normal graphics functions, not just 3D, so they needed to be able to come up at boot time. Later 3dfx cards added 2D and also needed Mac-specific firmware.
- duskwuff 2y agoWere those earlier cards ever used on Macintosh systems? I don't remember that ever being a thing.
- wat10000 2y agoI don’t think they ever shipped with a Mac, but they were available. I had a Voodoo in a Mac clone. It was a strange setup. You plugged the monitor into the Voodoo, then ran a second video cable from the computer’s built in video out to a second port on the Voodoo. In normal operation, it would pass the video signal through, and when using 3D acceleration, it would take over the video signal.
- duskwuff 2y agoWild. I never ran into one of those - the only Mac peripheral I knew of which did that was the PC Compatibility Card.