Ton of Voodoo 5 5500 AGP Previews up!

[Maniac]

Well this card sure has elicited alot of mixed opinions. Some say it is too little too late, and some hail it as the next big thing. Only time will tell as the boards reviewed were alpha, and the drivers were in a very premature state. I personally don't care if a card can push 120+ FPS at a certain resolution, as long as it gives me a fluid 60 at the settings I use. Hardware FSAA also looks to be a surefire winner, Matrox has to debut a MONSTER of a video card soon if they want to keep up...

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Celeron 366@567 2.2V, 128meg generic PC-100 RAM (running at CAS2) Abit BH6, G400 16meg DH@150/200, Western Digital Expert 18gig, Ricoh mp7040A(morphed to mp7060A) Pioneer 6X DVD slot load, Motorola Cable Modem w/DEC ethernet card, Soundblaster Live Value Ver. 2, Viewsonic GT 775

[Gurm]

Oh I see, so you aren't concerned about the fact that the V5500's "32-bit color" looks worse than Matrox's 16-bit? Or that it consumes more power than the greater New York metropolitan area? The card is just poorly engineered. I don't care about raw speed if everything else about the card SUCKS.

The V6000 is even more of a joke. External power supply? Can you say "we couldn't afford to hire REAL engineers, so we contracted Bonzo the Chimp, and he came up with this chip design"? I mean, really. Come on people - SGI manages to push gajillions of computations out of a standard 300W power supply, you'd think 3dfx could as well.

Neither nVidia nor Matrox nor ATI are requiring an external PS, or melting cases with their current offerings.

3dfx needs to get a clue.

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Maniac]

You think in this day and age of all the FPS freaks and power hungry fraggers out there, that anybody give a rats ass if the the Voodoo 5 has a external power supply or connector? I think they can actually use that as a bragging right. As for the 32-bit image quality, I didn't know the Voodoo 5 is out yet, because for you to make a comment like that, you certainly must own one.

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Celeron 366@567 2.2V, 128meg generic PC-100 RAM (running at CAS2) Abit BH6, G400 16meg DH@150/200, Western Digital Expert 18gig, Ricoh mp7040A(morphed to mp7060A) Pioneer 6X DVD slot load, Motorola Cable Modem w/DEC ethernet card, Soundblaster Live Value Ver. 2, Viewsonic GT 775

[ObiBen]

I agree with Maniac, only time will tell. The test boards reviewed by Anandtech were decent, something to be expected with prelease hardware and drivers. We'll just have to wait until the new Voodoo cards start selling at retail outlets, then we can throw all the benchmarks we want at them. Visual quality, good or bad, I'll reserve my judgement until the card is on sale.

Like most other chip makers, 3DFX is still playing catch up to nVidia. Matrox doesn't need to play catch up - they're in a whole different playing field with their AWESOME features that no other cards currently have.

Regards, Ben

[Gurm]

Only the FPS Kiddiez care about the high FPS values. As for the 32-bit color, ALL preliminary reports say it sucks, just like their "22-bit" color sucked, just like their "16-bit" color sucked. Let's face it, 3dfx hasn't innovated since the Voodoo1, and they still haven't. The T-buffer has been proven to be useless, and they take as big a FSAA hit as everyone else.

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Maniac]

Gurm, you're speaking out of your ass, and I think you know it...

[Gurm]

Maniac:

BLOW ME. I know exactly what I'm talking about. I've seen the screenshots, and you can too. Their color is always lousy. Washed-out. Icky. Maybe I'm spoiled, but even nVidia is better, ok?

If you are looking for raw FPS, then yes - by all means go with a Voodoo card. I've always said that if you just want to play games and have them look reasonable and play fast then get a Voodoo.

As for my comment about innovating, I'm right. I'm not talking out my ass. There is ALMOST NOTHING different about a Voodoo3 when you compare it to a Voodoo2 in SLI. And there is ALMOST NOTHING different about a Voodoo2 than a Voodoo1. I'm not talking about speed, I'm talking about the chip design and feature set.

Yes, there are VERY MINOR improvements. But my Voodoo1 made me go WOW. Every Voodoo since then has been like "oh, it's faster than the Voodoo1 but it looks the same". Honestly. I've owned them all. My wife's machine is running a V3-3000 AGP. And my comments still stand.

Voodoo should be showing us something INCREDIBLE. Instead, they're showing us slightly higher numbers than a GeForce, lousier picture quality than a G400 or a Rage Fury, sub-par DVD performance/quality, and power requirements and heat generation statistics that are totally unreasonable.

Nobody will buy the V5 at the price point it's at, anyway. Except the FPS kiddiez, who will buy ANY new card if they can get another 5 or 10 fps in Quake3. Big whoop-di-doodah.

So go talk out YOUR ass some more.

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Maniac]

*sigh*

Spare us the history lesson would you Anand?
We're all well aware of the V1/2/3 However this new Voodoo 5 IS a major breakthrough and offers features that Nvidia, Matrox and everyone else WISH they had. So once again Gurm please stop speaking out of your cake hole it is getting quite repetitive for everyone.

[Gurm]

Show me a new feature.

Just one.

T-Bugger? Doesn't do squat. Just makes the image all blurry and nasty.

FSAA? The G400 has it. The TNT/TNT2/GeFarce have it.

I'm running out of supposed new features. Come on, help me out here.



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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Maniac]

I hope you're kidding with that nonsense...

[The Rock]

Maniac:

What new features does the Voodoo 5 have? I'm curious myself; I've read every preview that exists on the Voodoo 5 and I've seen NO new innovative features at all. Just raw speed and FSAA, which as Gurm said, are already in other cards. Well?

The Rock
www.3dforce.com

[jackzod]

I don,t think you can compare the HARDWARE FSAA on the V5 with the SOFTWARE imitation that Nvidia has put up , come on...If we follow your logic the T&L is nothing since other can do it in software...

[The Rock]

Jackzod:

The GeForce 2 has FSAA in hardware if I'm not mistaken.

The Rock
www.3dforce.com

[dZeus]

GeFarce2 still does FSAA in software (downsampling). That takes a much bigger performance hit then the 3Dfx hardware implementation (which already takes a big performance hit). So figure out how much of the tremendous fillrate of the Gefarce2 you are wasting by enabling FSAA..... it makes that option almost useless for the Gefarce2. With the GeFarce2 you better run at 1600x1200 without FSAA in stead of running full eye-candy + FSAA at 800x600.

22-bit colour on the 3Dfx cards did NOT suck, comparing it to 16-bit of competitors. The 'washed out effect' does not even exist on 3Dfx cards.. it's pmly a myth. The problem is people believe in it, because 3Dfx set the gamma in the drivers to 1.3 standard, because lot's of people were complaining the Voodoo was too dark when set to 1.0; However, if you set it back to the normal 1.0 setting, then it looks just as good (or better at 22-bit) than other cards at 16 bit.

And the Voodoo-5 indeed is a bit late... I fear they will not sell that many boards, looking at competitors offerings like those from ATI and nVidia (and Matrox when they launch the G-800).

But one advantage 3Dfx has over nVidia is the 2D image quality. I've once connected a friend's ASUS Gefarce to my Sony 19" Monitor, and it was completely unworkable at 1600x1200. I was deeply shocked by the bad 2D image wuality of the Gefarce. My G400 looked 1000 times better than that piece of shit. And I've also seen a Voodoo Banshee connected to a Iiyama Vision Master Pro 450 at 1600x1200, and it looked not as sharp as the G400, but 100 times sharper that the GeFarce...

[dZeus]

I said that the 3Dfx 2D (windows desktop) image quality was tons better than nVidia's, which really sucks (on every chip they designed, except for Canopus boards). I never said that 3Dfx 2D image quiality was as good as the G400's. The G400 still is way ahead of any 3Dfx card in 2D (and 3D) image quality.

For proper screen-shots of 3Dfx cards: look at the DNF shots.. they were taken on a Voodoo-3. Don't see any washed out colours on that one. You do have to set the gamma right on 3Dfx cards, otherwise you will see things that you would see on other cards too if you set the gamma too high.