I only had software rendering until after Half-Life came out and it required a dedicated graphics card. I completely missed the 3DFX era but always wished I had one.
HL supported software mode, it used the same render from quake for it. It was however very slow. For more modern CPUs it would be fine but for common CPUs at the time 15fps would be a good experience.
3dfx was good but the cards started to struggle with the likes of HL and UT. Both were playable, but not super smooth.
I only had software rendering until after Half-Life came out and it required a dedicated graphics card. I completely missed the 3DFX era but always wished I had one.
HL supported software mode, it used the same render from quake for it. It was however very slow. For more modern CPUs it would be fine but for common CPUs at the time 15fps would be a good experience.
3dfx was good but the cards started to struggle with the likes of HL and UT. Both were playable, but not super smooth.