The increased resolution (for Voodoo 2 cards) might be why you feel later 3Dfx games weren't as "edgy" (jaggy?). Not sure if some Voodoo 2 games also had better textures as it had more memory for textures too. The latter, IIRC, had more frame buffer memory so its games could be run also in the 800圆00 resolution, not only 640x480.
One thing to keep in mind though is that "3Dfx support" in games can mean either for the early Voodoo era cards, or Voodoo 2.
Artifacts that you'd see if running the Playstation version, or the PC VGA version (without 3D support). 3Dfx Glide support just made sure that there were none of those irritating floating and twisting textures while you moved around, textures were smoothed out, the water surface had transparency effects, and of course that you could run it in a higher 640x480 resolution at a good speed. its top-notch animation (at least for Lara itself), which in itself didn't have much to do with the used graphics card I guess. Some of the things I like in Tomb Raider graphics even today are also e.g.
help increasing the polygon count of 3D models as those were still calculated by the CPU, while nowadays 3D cards have a dedicated GPU for that, allowing higher polygon counts. After all the 3Dfx cards were pretty dumb cards, they could only smooth out the graphics output somewhat (texture filtering, perspective corrected textures, alpha blending (=transparency effects) etc.), they didn't e.g.
but having said that, I personally didn't find it that 3Dfx (Voodoo) games would have become considerably better later on. Well, it is one of the earliest 3Dfx Glide games so it might be later games had improved support. To me the first Tomb Raider never looked like that, the 3dfx version is still very grayish/brownish and edgy. They are colourful and smooth, soft light and not really edgy. Like pixel-art the graphics are maybe old, but they have also a comic look that let you still today enjoy the graphics. In my eyes many of the 3dfx games still look very interesting today, as they have a special style to me. But my impression is that he is looking for really impressive looking games. It's really a question of taste I guess.ĭukeNukemForever: If you are into that type of games, of course he should give it a try. To me, the first Tomb Raider never looked like that, as the 3dfx version is still very grayish/brownish and edgy. They are colourful and smooth, they have a soft light and are not really edgy. Like pixel-art are the 3dfx graphics maybe old, but they have a comic/painting style that let you still enjoy them today. In my eyes, many of the 3dfx games still look very interesting today, as they have a special style. If you are into that type of games, of course he should give it a try. TR got the 3Dfx support in a patch, the release version didn't support 3Dfx (nor other 3D accelerators) out of the box. Tomb Raider was one of the earliest commercial games to support 3Dfx, if not even the first one (not counting games that came bundled with the card itself, like the special 3Dfx version of Mechwarrior 2 and Fatal Racing/Whiplash). I think it looks ok even to this day, and it totally blew my mind back when I saw it the first time in the late 90s. Timppu: Why not? It is still the best looking version of the first (original) Tomb Raider game.