The Begining of the End.... (3dfx Voodoo3 2000)

Member Name: Galloway

Product:	3dfx Voodoo3 2000
Date:	14/08/01 (1010 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: API Compatability, Fantastic Graphics

Disadvantages: Driver Availiability, 16bit Colour 3D Rendering, 16Mb Video Ram

I have always been partial to 3dxf video cards, right from the beginning when they first emerged with the original 4MB Voodoo video board. State of the art it was, leaving most other 3D accelerator cards tailing behind. 3dfx’s lead was kept up with the Voodoo 2, but things where not quite so rosy when the Voodoo 3 appeared.

Running mainly against Nvidia’s TNT2 chipset the Voodoo 3 received fair criticism for only having 16MB of ram and being restricted to 16bit colour rendering for 3D.
The 16MB of ram was adequate at the time and few computers had cpu’s capable of adequately running games in 32bit colour, but what was once a pioneering company pushing the cutting edge of technology was now falling very much on the conservative side, leaving the cutting edge to its main rival Nvidia

The Voodoo 3 came in the usual oversized box with instruction manual and drivers on CD. Installing the card was expectedly simple, but the drivers were another matter. Installation of the drivers required the CD to be placed in the drive and run, before removing the old video card, telling you when to shut your computer down, replace your old video card with the Voodoo 3 and then restart your machine, after which the drivers should complete the installation. Well that was the theory according to the manual. On restarting the drivers partially installed but then gave an ‘unexpected error, files missing’ warning. The actual card drivers and tools, or control panel for the card install as separate programs.
After several attempts and failed installations, my old card was temporarily re-installed while I downloaded new drivers from the 3dfx web site. These drivers were one complete program and installed reliably and operated without fault.

Although hardware DVD assist is part of the specification, a software DVD player was not included. If you want to play DVD's, you will have to purchase your own software.

The Voo
doo3 can shift around 6 million triangles per second and 286 Mega/Texels per second and the core clock speed is 143Mhz.
Desktop resolutions go up to 2048x1936 pixels in 32bit colour, but as mentioned earlier, 3D rendering is limited to 16bit only. Only one memory option was available throughout the Voodoo 3 range, 16Mb. Despite some restrictions, this card proved a worthy competitor to the TNT2.

Older games using 3dfx’s own API ‘glide’ show definite graphics superiority over the same games running Direct 3D, but this advantage has disappeared in newer games.

This card, if still available makes an excellent budget buy, especially if you have a good collection of older games using glide. It’s not cutting edge and never was, but it does exactly what it says on the box, unlike some.

The driver problems have gone completely in later versions, but as 3dfx has now sadly, ‘gone to the wall’ the question of how long driver support will continue for surely arises.

3dfx’s contribution to the PC graphics card industry has been huge, and without it we might not enjoy the graphical quality in games we have today. There contribution to this technology will be sadly missed.

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