 Voodoo
Love
Monday, July 10, 2000 -
Ben Stein
Four score and seven (well, a little over two) years ago I took a trip to the local CompUSA. I was there looking for some hot new game I had just read about, and had just raided my savings account in preparation. While wandering around the store as I always tend to do, something caught my eye: a brand spanking new Diamond Monster 3d II. I had read about this animal before, but never beheld it in all its glory. CompUSA was nice enough to have two demo computers set up, to give you a before or after style view. I was awe-struck. I could have all that 3d goodness at that speed! I had to have it… then I spotted the price tag. In an instant my dreams were shattered, or at least damaged significantly. Where was a 15-year old high school sophomore going to get $300 dollars? Many ideas raced through my head, maybe I could have an advance on birthday gifts (for the next 2 years), or perhaps I could sell all my personal possessions. Needless to say, I didn't come up with anything even remotely feasible. My weekend job certainly didn't provide me with enough money to save up the $200 dollars I needed to get that delicious Voodoo2 (I had $100 dollars to my name). Then an idea: maybe they had original Voodoo's in stock! I scanned the isle and sure enough, there was a Diamond Monster 3d sitting a few feet away from my dream card. And it was affordable, being only $140 dollars! Within a few weeks I had the extra money I needed, and off to CompUSA I went.
Let's skip ahead a bit, past me being awe-struck by the filtered texture goodness of GLQuake and the "horribly over-abused but damn cool" colored lighting in Quake II, and to the time I abandoned my precious 3dfx for a relative newcomer in the 3d market, nVidia. I was in the market for a new graphics card to replace my horribly old and crusty ATI Mach 64. I was perusing the Internet, and I stumbled onto a good deal on the Graphics Blaster Riva TNT. Again, I had read about this beforehand, and I liked what I read. While I was only shopping for a 2d card, voodoo2 level 3d couldn't hurt. Well, needless to say, I was quite impressed by it. While not faster than a V2, the image quality blew me away completely. I never touched a Voodoo again. My current card is the world-famous GeForce 256 DDR, and having missed out on the TNT2, I was humbled when I took out my TNT and stuck in the GeForce. One thing I was upset about was 3dfx not releasing a product to compete with the GeForce 256, I would have liked to have seen what they would of brought to the table. I had read some rumors about the rampage or whatever it was called at the time and was very impressed, and had it been available at the time, I might of very well become a 3dfx owner yet again.
But we stand here at the beginning on yet another product cycle and on the nVidia side we have the awesome GeForce2 GTS, and on the 3dfx side we have the Voodoo4/5 series. However, I happen to be a little skeptical about a card that has two fans (See: ATI Rage Fury MAXX) and it's own power connector yet still manages to be slower than a first generation GeForce in several benchmarks. Now, I've heard things like "Well, it has better FSAA than the GeForce2!" and various things about the T-Buffer. But I've seen benchmarks about FSAA, I don't know about you, but I'd rather have 1280x1024 and 75 fps on the GF2 than 800x600 at 50 fps with the 2x FSAA on the Voodoo5. Now, taking FSAA out of the equation, the V5 puts up a valiant fight, but is still bested by a goodly margin. Now for a touch of honesty: I've never seen a V5 in action, and the only FSAA I've seen is the Direct3d FSAA the GF2 offers. It's nice, but I refuse to deal with the speed hit. Besides, Q3 at 1280x1024x32 looks VERY nice to my eyes, even without FSAA. But I'm not getting either the GF2 or the V5. When I got my TNT, I decided that I would by a new graphics card every other generation. In my eyes the GF2 isn't a big enough of an improvement over the GF DDR to warrant a $280 dollar purchase. We'll see what happens with the V4/5 line when it's finally introduced and has a few driver revisions under its belt. Who knows, when its drivers have had as much time to mature as the Detonator drivers, it very well may beat out the GF2. If it is improved on enough, I'd be more than willing to overlook its shortcomings and snag myself a V5 or its successor. 3dfx has some excellent engineers, and I am a firm believer that they can make a quality product; certainly as good as anything nVidia can make, and get it out on time. I truly hope so, for their sake, as I believe that the 3d market is rapidly becoming more than just the 3dfx and nVidia show, and they might quickly find themselves on the bottom of everybody's list of favorite 3d cards. I guess time will tell.
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