I got my first 3dfx card the summer of '96 in the form of a Diamond Monster 3D.   From the first time I lay eyes on glQuake I was hooked on the 3dfx revolution and its not over yet.  The real trick to the Voodoo graphics chipsets was keeping track of the many game patches to add 3d/3dfx support to our games.  Due to a lack of good resources for gamers to get help and info I started 3dfx World.

The following year we saw a flood of Voodoo2 boards.  Every video card manufacturer that was anyone jumped on the bandwagon and gamers had so many choices that the only real determination of what video card to buy was what games came bundled with the card and the price.  Performance had very little to do with the selection as you knew if it had the voodoo2 chipset it was going to perform.

Then last year 3dfx took what was looked at by a lot of games as a step in the wrong direction by introducing their Voodoo Banshee chipset which was an all-in-one stripped down entry level card for the masses.  Although the plan did get the 3dfx name into a lot of households and a ton of OEM entry level PC's it may have not generated the reputation that they wanted to portray.  Voodoo Banshee tipped the scales of game incompatibilities most of which had patches or workaround but certainly far more maintenance than both Voodoo Graphics and Voodoo2 saw.

 This year 3dfx merged with STB which gives them the facilities to manufacture their own cards.  Add to the addition of STB's Technical support and engineers and you have one powerful company. If that weren't ambitious enough 3dfx has released the Voodoo2  1000, Voodoo3 2000, Voodoo3 3000 and plan to release the Voodoo3 3500 with TV in/out capabilities in the next few months.

The Voodoo3 3000 I received is an all-in-one combo AGP card with 16mb SDRAM, 166mhz clock speed, and with TV out.  It has the capability of resolutions up to 2048x1536 provided you can afford a monitor that supports that high.  The 3000 also sports one of the best game bundles that I have ever seen on any card with a very nice suggested retail price of $179 US.  Here is a summary of the features:

• 16MB SDRAM
• 166MHz Core Clock Speed
• 7 Million Triangles/sec
• 333 Megatexels/sec.
• Supports resolutions up to 2048x1536
• Full 128-Bit 2D accelerator
• 350 MHz RAMDAC
• TV/S-Video out
• DVD Hardware Assist
• Supports DirectX, Glide and OpenGL
• Alpha-Blending
• Single Pass, Single Cycle Bump Mapping
• Single Pass, Single Cycle Trilinear MIP-Mapping
• Patented Multi-Texturing
• Programable Fog Tables
• Sub-Pixel and Sub-Texel Correction
• Gouraud Shading

Installation
The Voodoo3 install was just as you would expect from a plug and play card.  Simply change the display driver to standard VGA, shut down and replace the old card with the Voodoo3, restart and allow windows to detect the card and set it up for you.  It really doesn't get much simpler than this.

Testing

Maximum Compatibility
To me one of the most important aspects of buying a new video card is how compatible the card will be with my existing software.  When the TNT chipset first came out I thought that the fact that it didn't have glide support was a mute point.   After all how many games can there be that only support glide.  When the Banshee cards started flooding the market I started making a list of glide only games to see exactly what TNT owners would be missing out on.  Please keep in mind that I do not believe this list to be 100% accurate as several of the games system requirements were hard to find or skimpy.

Another argument I quite often hear is that the majority of the new games coming out have Direct3D support so the glide issue is mute.  While it may be true that a good majority of new games coming our way support Direct3D, I have found that most games that have stability problems are the most stable when using glide.  Now I loved my TNT and used it for a lot of my OpenGL/D3D games, however, I still played a lot of games using glide which meant that going with only the TNT or TNT2 was out of the question.

Graphic Quality
One issue for the Voodoo3 to face that we really didn't have to account for prior to the release of the RivaTNT chipset is Visual Quality.  Prior to TNT it just wasn't an argument.  The RivaTNT2 promises to provide us with 32 bit color with very little performance cost whereas 3dfx has chosen to remain at 16 bit with the Voodoo3.  At the time of this writing however there  aren't any games that support 32 bit color worth mentioning and I predict by the end of the year there will be a handful at most.  If you are still not convinced take a look at the screenshots below and see for yourself how good 16 bit color can look.

Here is a very good article on Voodoo3 Image Quality.

Performance Testing

Direct3D
For Direct3D testing I chose to use both the Forsaken Nuke demo and 3D Mark '99.  I chose not to use 3D Mark Max as I have a larger database of results using the original 3D Mark '99.  I did however test with Max and have include the results at the bottom.

As you can see here from the Forsaken Nuke Demo results the 3000 takes a close second at 640x480 and clearly pulls out front at all higher resolutions.  Forsaken is very playable on both the TNT and Voodoo3 at 1024x768.

Here I compared the Voodoo2, RivaTNT and Voodoo3 with 3D Mark 99:

OpenGL
Using the Minigl driver that shipped with the Voodoo3 resulted in outstanding performance for Quake II.  As the scores show Quake II is very playable at 1024x768 and beyond. When I did my Voodoo2 reviews just a year ago I swore by the 50-60fps Quake 2 score as a must for multiplayer games.  The Voodoo3's 81.3 frames/sec at 1024x768 will deliver more than enough power for those long night Rocket Arena sessions.

The Voodoo3 should also be the first 3dfx card to have a non-beta full Opengl ICD which should be available within the next month or so.  Though 3dfx hasn't come through in the past I believe with the upcoming Quake 3 Arena only supporting a real Opengl ICD and the merger with STB will make a big difference here.

Heat
One problem you are sure to face with the Voodoo3 is heat.  Why 3dfx didn't provide an on chip cooling fan is beyond me.  I added a Tennmax mini Lasagna cooler to my rig which just attaches to the processor on your Voodoo3 which made a world of difference.  Now mind you my PC is over clocked and on a PC that isn't over clocked the fan probably wouldn't be necessary but it is still a nice touch.  I never personally experienced any problems due to heat but I wanted the fan to feel safer.

Bundle
The Voodoo3 3000 comes with one of the best software bundles I have ever seen packaged with a video card.  The bundle includes  Need for Speed 3, Descent 3 Sol Ascent, and Unreal with a coupon for Unreal Tournament for FREE when the game is released.  Although most people may already have NFS3 and Unreal the inclusion of the 5 level special edition Descent III, which hasn't been released yet, means you will get a chance to play D3 before anyone else.  Add to the unreleased Unreal Tournament and you have one tough game package to beat.

Conclusion
This card is the fastest card I have seen to date and since it's arrival I haven't run a game at less than 1024x768.  With a street price of $159 just about everywhere on the planet certainly has the $200+ price of an nVidia TNT2 card which will give you little more than 32 bit color that is not supported by any games yet.  With it's high performance and maximum compatibility its the perfect card for gamers of all types.

Reviewed by: William Gall
Date: June 13, 1999