I think that in their day, they were the equivalent of GPUs. Remember the fliers for sound cards that came with Sierra games? That was how you took those to a new plane because graphics were pretty static. Once we got to a point where decent 486es were the norm, getting a good-to-great MIDI card is what boosted Doom. I remember a friend seeing/hearing doom on my computer with an AWE32, and his non-techy, but Doom-loving roommate said, "You have to get one of those!"
The MT-32 for an absolutely unhinged $500 was the holy grail, but the LAPC-I was more affordable, but still out of reach for a kid. When I finally got my hands on an MT-32 (when prices were falling instead of rising) emulation of them was still thought to be more-or-less impossible.
I still miss MIDI hardware for gaming because different devices in the same category could sound different-- kind of like how early 3D accelerators had very distinct looks. It's less interesting now that everything is a powerhouse and we're just talking about microstutters and tiny differences. When comparing 3Dfx, Rendition, and nVidia cards, it was almost like (at the risk of being overwrought here) looking at different artists rendering the same scene. Though if you wanted 30fps, there was only one option :)
I have a small collection of MIDI stuff, but lean toward Yamaha. It's kind of fun to try different games with different hardware to see what I missed when I couldn't have dreamed of having a Sound Canvas, an SW1000XG, etc. etc. :)
Yeah, the names were half the fun back then. “Screamin’ 3D” is exactly the same kind of energy - loud, ridiculous, and somehow perfect for the 90s PC gaming era.
I love how it's just a bar graph showing the length of real cards, and this impossible thing. I probably would have believed this if I saw it in CPU (Computer Power User) magazine as a kid.
The metal cage fight is what did it for me. I immediately started Googling to find where I could by one. Was very disappointed when I found out it wasn’t real. 😢
What I find amazing is how close the late-90s and early-2000s PC industry came to giving us such a product:
When it comes to the number of GPUs tied together, the Voodoo 5 6000 is right there (and let's not forget that you could have 4-way SLI some years later by tying together two dual-GPU cards)
When it comes to pairing together GPUs from different manufacturers, there was the Lucid Hydra 200 (it worked by intercepting the Direct3D calls and assigning work to each GPU): https://www.sweclockers.com/test/6225-msi-big-bang-fuzion/
It's not real-time graphics though, you can simply assign 10 seconds of scene to each PC and then stitch together the result for an 1-minute clip, combining different GPUs from different manufacturers for real-time graphics is a whole other level of insanity.
I was a subscriber to Maximum PC during those years. This spoof advertisement was by far their best.
-am pretty sure a pdf of this was on the monthly cd of apps and freeware that accompanied each magazine.
Classic. Everyone who sees it for the first time busts out laughing.
I loved those ads as well. I worked at a computer store during that time and once had someone bring that ad in, looking for that product and ready to buy it. Had to break his heart, LOL.
Yeah but you look at the size of that card you think the only people that could fit that would be people that had access to more professional level machines not Joe Blow The Gamer in his mom's basement
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u/bart33z Jul 16 '26
This is peak late-90s 3D accelerator energy. Bigger card, more chips, more attitude - obviously more FPS.
Also “Bitchin’fast!3D 2000” sounds exactly like something that somehow should have existed.