The Voodoo 1 (1996) was the first 3D graphics card for PCs, allowing 3D gaming like Quake. It had 4MB RAM and 50MHz power. The GeForce 8800 (2006) was a major upgrade with 768MB RAM and 578MHz power, enabling better shadows and lighting in games like Ghost Recon. The Radeon HD7990 (2013) has 6GB RAM and 1GHz power, providing highly detailed graphics with 20,000-30,000 polygons per character in games like Battlefield 4.

1. The progression of graphics cards in PCs
Voodoo 1
The voodoo 1 was released in 1996, it was the first
ever 3D graphics card for PC, it allowed players
to experience 3D gaming for the first time with
‘Quake’, also released in 1996. The Voodoo 1 used
up a mega 4MB of RAM to play games (In
comparison, Angry Birds on a mobile device uses
around 30-40MB of ram to play...) it was a huge
leap forward in gaming. IT also had 50 MHz of
power and 0.043 Bt/s of speed, hardly impressive nowadays but back then this
was revolutionary.
this is how quake looked on the Voodoo 1, amazing, I know. But in all
seriousness ,this was the first ever 3d game on PC and it was revolutionary.
you could walk around things, see your gun in front of you and when people
died, real (squares) of blood flew out! it was amazing (for its time), of course
it did not have any shadows or any differential in light for that matter, but
what it did have was polygons, Polygons are used to make a mesh on the inside
of a 3d character, the more polygons the more movement and interaction a
character can have. Quake uses 200 polygons within its characters. The
character skins look very flat, with hardly any texture or depth to the
character, it is almost like the skin was a 2d image just flattened around the
3d mesh, and that is how the very first basic 3d characters were made.
Will Cafferkey! Unit 34

2. Geforce 8800
The Geforce 8800 was the next big
step up in graphics cards and 3d PC
gaming. it was released in 2006, 10
years after the Voodoo 1 and it has
768MB of ram, a huge step up from the
voodoo. This graphics card also used
a fan because it worked much harder
and faster which causes it to heat up
very quickly. The geforce 8800 has
578 MHz of power, which again is a big
improvement from the Voodoo’s 50
MHz, also a huge improvement is its
36.8 Bt/s of speed, much faster and
stronger than the Voodoo’s 0.045 BT/s which is obviously nothing compared.
Tom Clancy’s: Ghost Recon Advanced
warfighter is a very popular game
that excelled using the 8800, its
graphics were improved greatly
from the times of Quake,
introducing moving and changing
accurate shadows as you can see in
the image on the right, dynamic
interchanging lighting and of
course much better detail in the
environment and on character
models. They used more than 15,000
polygons per Ghost (character),
this was about the size of a whole
map on an early PS1 game.
This was an incredibly
big step up compared to
the minuscule 200
polygons used to
create Quake’s
characters. You can
however notice how the
hand is merged to the
gun and does not yet
look entirely realistic.
Will Cafferkey! Unit 34

3. RADEON HD7990
In 2013 the Radeon Hd7990 was
released, this is the benchmark best
graphics card right now. Coming in
with a whopping 6GB of Ram (6000MB)
and 1GHZ of power. These cards play
the newest games in the best quality
possible, one example of this is the
first person shooter franchise
known for its incredible graphics,
Battlefield. Battlefield 4 is an
example of how good the radeon really is, for one character they used
around 20,000 to 30,000 polygons for the ultimate realistic look. The
shadows and light detail is amazing, the way light cuts around trees and
other objects, even dust and debris can be seen floating in the light. With
1GHZ of power, more than the mac I am using right now, and 256 Bt/s of speed,
the Radeon is the ultimate PC gaming experience.
Will Cafferkey! Unit 34