--- title: "Building an FPGA 3dfx Voodoo with Modern RTL Tools" url: https://daily.dev/posts/building-an-fpga-3dfx-voodoo-with-modern-rtl-tools-mzkupvd7r source_url: https://noquiche.fyi/voodoo type: article source: "Hacker News" published: 2026-03-22T17:24:10.988Z updated: 2026-03-22T17:24:48.266Z tags: ["fpga"] reading_time: 10 upvotes: 0 comments: 0 language: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Building an FPGA 3dfx Voodoo with Modern RTL Tools **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 10 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A developer built an FPGA reimplementation of the 3dfx Voodoo 1 GPU using SpinalHDL, a modern hardware description language. The post covers two key abstractions that made the project tractable: encoding the Voodoo's four register behavior categories (FIFO, FIFO+Stall, Direct, Float) directly in SpinalHDL's RegIf abstraction, and using a netlist-aware waveform query tool called conetrace to debug a subtle multi-stage rendering bug. The bug appeared to be a framebuffer memory-ordering hazard but turned out to be three stacked precision mismatches in W quantization, perspective texcoord rounding, and blend-factor destination color handling. The post argues that modern RTL tools reduce the cognitive load of hardware design by making architectural intent explicit and execution queryable. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [The 3DFX Voodoo Lives Again In An FPGA](https://daily.dev/posts/the-3dfx-voodoo-lives-again-in-an-fpga-kmuh9wp9h) · Hackaday · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [My DIY FPGA board can run Quake II \(part 4\)](https://daily.dev/posts/my-diy-fpga-board-can-run-quake-ii-part-4--5v06ytzpr) · Hacker News · 2 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#fpga](https://daily.dev/tags/fpga) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/building-an-fpga-3dfx-voodoo-with-modern-rtl-tools-mzkupvd7r)