Voodoo3's Magic Numbers

I've been pondering Voodoo3 for some time now. In many ways, I'm disappointed with the lack of features, but I'm impressed with the performance. In addition, getting to such high clock rates for the chip is a testament to the layout skills of the engineering team at 3Dfx.

Finally, it hit me: Voodoo3 is like a six-cylinder, carburetor engine capable of running at 10,000rpm. It doesn't have all the slick features of a fuel-injected V8 - but it can run faster, particularly with the current crop of games. That V8 may have fuel injection and dual overhead cams, but it also might redline at 6,500rpm - and sometimes you just want that raw speed instead.

The fact that Voodoo3 is a 2D/3D combo chip will make the choice of graphics cards much harder. Do I want Glide and raw throughput? Or do I want 32MB and 32-bit color? If I can get 40fps out of another chip, is 60fps worth it? These are questions that gamers will be faced with when choosing between Voodoo3, TNT2, Rage 128, Permedia 3, Savage 4, and others.

I recently had the opportunity to pop in a Voodoo3 model 3000 (166MHz chip) into the 400MHz Pentium II reference system. We tested with 3D Winbench 99 (revision 1.1) and 3D GameGauge. The results were quite telling.

The Voodoo3 posted a 726 on 3D Winbench 99. The TNT-equipped Velocity 4400 managed a 667 using Nvidia's new Detonator reference drivers. Using 3D GameGauge – which are all 16-bit games - Voodoo3 pumped out a 578. That's a full 100 points better than the TNT board. The scores were higher across the board with the individual games - the sole exception being F-22 Air Dominance Fighter.

Unfortunately, we couldn't compare 32-bit results since, of course, Voodoo3 doesn't do 32-bit color for 3D output. Even so, the majority of games shipping today only output 16-bit color. We haven't really had a chance to check the image quality thoroughly, but it should certainly be at least as good as Voodoo2. It's also certainly true that GameGauge is starting to get a little long in the tooth. Nonetheless, it remains true that the performance we've seen so far with Voodoo3 is outstanding – and that's not even the 183MHz 3500 model.

Note that these numbers are all with beta drivers on beta silicon. When Voodoo3 ships, we'll do a full review. Meanwhile, a host of new cards and chips are about to ship. Things have been a little calm for a little too long. As these new engines are dropped into gamers' systems, all I can sayIs, "Let the games begin."

3D Winbench 99 3D GameGauge Forsaken Incoming Turok Quake II Quake I F-22 ADFATI Rage 128 559 408.6 114.7 67.1 75.3 44.2 62.2 45.1STB Velocity 4400 (v1.52 drivers) 473 449.49 128.6 72.33 72.76 57.7 74.5 43.6STB Velocity 4400 (Nvidia Detonator) 667 462.82 127.3 74.64 73.88 59 82 46Voodoo3 (166MHz) 726 578.3 173.9 86.7 79.3 87.1 111.2 40.1