3Dfx Driver Tips: Several tips on the recent beta drivers straight from 3Dfx's Programmer Ken Dyke:

" I just wanted to follow up on a few things, and give people somewhat of a status update in general.

1) We found the performance issue with q3dm17/q3test2 in Quake3 (Stephen Luce and I spent about four hours on this one, it was *really* obscure). The problem will be fixed in the next driver release. In the meantime, you can either use vertex lighting or you can disable multitexturing. Disabling lightmaps can be done from the Graphics menu. You can disable multitexturing by entering r_ext_multitexture 0 in the Quake3 console. You may have to restart the game (or do a vid_restart) for it to take effect.

2) Multi-mon support. If you are using a Voodoo3 in a multi-mon config, you should not remove any of the ATI drivers. You should leave both them and the 3dfx drivers installed. By default, Quake3 will choose device 0 to run the game on, which is generally whatever your main device is. If you are running with the Voodoo3 as a secondary monitor (i.e., not with the menu bar), then you can make Quake3 choose to use other devices with the r_device command from the console. This command takes a single parameter, which is the number of the device to use, starting with 0. r_device 1 would choose the 2nd monitor, etc.

3) Darkness with Voodoo2. The way in which Quake3 adjusts gamma is not compatible with non-integrated 2D/3D boards such as the Voodoo2. In order to adjust the gamma setting, you will have to create a voodoo2.var file in your Quake3 folder. You should be able to do this with SimpleText or any simple ASCII text editor. The contents of the file should look something like this:

[VOODOO2]
SSTV2_GAMMA=1.3

(The default for Quake3 should actually be 2.0, but some folks do not like the overbright lighting.

3) Rainbow Six on Voodoo2. Rainbow Six currently assumes that double-buffering is done via back buffer to front buffer blits, rather than page flipping. This causes cursor trails if the hardware does real page flipping. On Voodoo3 we can support blit-style double-buffering, which is why it works on those boards and not on Voodoo2.

4) Quake2 multitexturing. I am stumped on this one. I just downloaded the latest multitexturing ref_gl.lib for Quake2 and it appears to work fine for me here both on Voodoo2 and Voodoo3.

That is all I can think of right this second. I know that there are other issues that have been reported, but these were some of major ones that we could address quickly or at least provide some help on.
-Ken "

The Game News page has a report on a dual monitor setup (beige g3) with Voodoo3 card that's working fine with the new drivers and an update with my FPS tests in games with the new Voodoo2 and Voodoo3 drivers.

Voodoo2 Beta3 Driver Compatibility: Has anyone tested these in dual monitor mode? There are some comments on problems in that configuration (Voodoo3) but not sure how common it is. Here is a list of games that have reported problems with the new Beta/OpenGL drivers:

• RainBow Six (not compatible with Voodoo2/works with Voodoo3)
• X-Plane has problems
• Multiple Monitor setups have problems w/new Voodoo3 drivers

I don't own X-plane but saw no problems with the Voodoo3 drivers in Rainbow Six/Q3 Demo/Quake2 etc. last night. If anyone has a fix/tip or other comment on the new Beta3 Voodoo2 drivers or Beta9 Voodoo3 drivers please contact me.

3Dfx Updated Drivers w/OpenGL: Just posted - they work great to my eyes in Quake3 demo and Quake2. Get the Voodoo3 Beta 9 and Voodoo2 beta 3 drivers.

The Voodoo2 beta3 drivers add full-screen OpenGL support (native driver).

Note: Make sure you disabled the Mesa3dfxengine extensions and remove the mesa libs and settings file.

Rainbow6 3Dfx Cards Tip: For those that are having trouble or poor performance with 3Dfx cards in the new demo - Josh Cater sent a note he read in the 3dfxgamer's mac forum that many folks are forgetting to copy over the Mesasettings file to the Rainbow Six folder. He also noted that one post indicated enabling the Voodoo2 RAVE extension helped (?) but based on reports it's still far from optimized for 3dfx cards. Since the game runs OpenGL mode not sure why the RAVE extension would be needed and posts in my 3dfx forum didn't indicate this was required by a Voodoo3 owner. I'll try to make time to test this tonight.

Quake3 Performance Tweaking: The Game News page 2PM update includes a link to a great page showing the FPS Benefit of many console settings as well as sources for more info on console commands and settings.2:00PM Update

The Game News page also has a Field of View tip for Quake3 and some comments on the new Rainbow Six demo (no native glide support - OpenGL required). I'm looking for someone to run a Rainbow Six column - interested? Contact me.

Don just wrote that there is a demo of RainBow Six at IMG. [5:45PM update]

Early this morning I added over 50 new entries to the Mac Game/Video Card Performance searchable database. Many entries were related to the performance of the new Quake3 demo.

The xlr8yourmac.com game news page has a note on a FutureCop 1.02 patch that improves support for Voodoo3 and retail ATI cards and possible updates to Mesa GL for 3dfx cards.

The www.xlr8yourmac.com news also has links to my latest CPU upgrade review - the 400MHz G4 ZIF from XLR8. The 7 page review includes comparisons to the stock B&W G3/400 and an Apple G4/450 AGP system in games, applications and benchmarks.

The xlr8yourmac.com news also has a note on Quake3 Arena going Gold and that 3Dfx has hired ex-ATI video card programmer Ray Swartz. Also there is an interesting Quake3 texture loading tip from a reader (I've not had time to try it yet).

Unreal Tournament Mutators Reviewed: Mark sent in a follow-up to his previous how-to article with a review of some of his favorite UT Mutators

I finally solved my Mac Quake3 Demo and X24 (dual Voodoo2) card problem (although some textures have problems - like the round medallion images, but at least it works now). Unlike every other game I've tried (even Q3test 1.08) - I never had to disable the OpenGL ATI renderer extension before (as shown on my Mac 3D Card Roundup which ran Voodoo3, Voodoo2/SLI in Q3test 1.08 and Quake2 with the extension enabled even in OpenGL 1.1.2). With the new Demo however, if the ATI extension was active it would use only the Rage128 card despite Mesasettings file in the folder and Mesa3DfxEngine extension enabled. Although it has always been suggested to disable the ATI renderer - I've never seen it as a requirement before to run any 3Dfx Voodoo2 or Voodoo3 card. [Note: Voodoo3 cards don't seem to need the extension disabled - perhaps only a Voodoo2 issue in this config.] [8:45PM update]

Mac Quake3 Demo Available! (From the game news page). A reader sent a note that you can get the demo at demo.quake3arena.com/QUAKE/mac/q3DemoTEST.bin. Note that OpenGL 1.1.2 (link below) is required according to the readme.

OpenGL 1.1.2 Released: For those that didn't want to download the almost 50MB Descent 3 demo to get it, Apple has now made it available for D/L at: http://asu.info.apple.com/swupdates.nsf/artnum/n11545. Apple was kind enough to supply a release version last week for updating my Mac 3D Card Roundup (includes Voodoo3 and Voodoo2 SLI tests) and iMac DV SE review.

New Quake III Area Demo Screenshots/Comments: [Link fixed 11/17/99] I've posted a First Look: Quake III Arena Demo page with screenshots and comments on the new features in the demo. It's PC only for now, but a Mac version should be available soon.

L2 Cache Slot G3 Upgrades & Voodoo3 Compatibility: Although many Sonnet L2 cache slot G3 card owners reported problems, recently a Newer Tech G3 Cache Slot upgraded Starmax owner said he was running Beta5 drivers and a Voodoo3 card fine. I've added this info to the Voodoo3 compatibility page. I welcome other L2 cache slot G3 upgrade owner reports.

3dfx Voodoo 4 and Voodoo5 Cards: 3Dfx should be previewing their new line of graphics cards at Comdex today. See their New Voodoo page which notes there will be Voodoo 4 and Voodoo5 model PCI Cards (good news for Mac owners without AGP slots). Check out the top of the line Voodoo 5 6000 AGP- it has 128MB of video ram and 4 processors! Prices range from $179 (Voodoo4) to a $599 (Voodoo 5 6000). The Voodoo 5 6000 reportedly uses an external power supply (?!). These products are expected to be available in March of 2000.

"The Voodoo5 6000 AGP from 3dfx represents the pinnacle of Voodoo5 technology. Taking advantage of the revolutionary scalable architecture of the 3dfx VSA-100™ chip, the Voodoo 5 6000 AGP features four processors working together to be the world's first 3D accelerator to break the Gigapixel barrier. Clocking in at over 1.33 Gigapixels a second, the Voodoo5 6000 AGP can create breathtaking 3D worlds in vivid 32-bit color. Boasting state-of-the-art Real-Time Full-Scene HW Anti-Aliasing, the exclusive T-Buffer Digital Cinematic Effects engine, 2D resolutions as high as 2048x1536 and a whopping 128MB of graphics memory, the Voodoo5 6000 is the ultimate 2D/3D accelerator for the hard-core PC enthusiast."

I'm praying for Mac drivers for use with the Sawtooth AGP systems.

William Perez noted that 3Dfx's FAQ on the new cards has some info on Mac support:

"Macintosh (Mac PCs)

36. Will the VSA-100 have Mac support?
With the VSA-100, we took into account many of the features for the Macintosh market. To date we have not announced a Mac-based product, however we have announced a PCI version of Voodoo4 and Voodoo5, which will work with 3dfx's Mac drivers.

37. Will 3dfx ever sell and support a Mac product?
The company has Mac drivers and PCI Voodoo products. We have not disclosed our Mac strategy. "

3Dfx also has a page with Q3 Arena screenshots with full screen anti-aliasing.

Descent3 Demo v3 has the OpenGL 1.1.2 final version installer I'm told. Grab the appx 50MB download at IMG. Apple should be posting just the installer soon at www.apple.com/opengl or their software updates page.

OpenGL 1.1.2 Final Version Tests: My Mac 3D Card Roundup and iMac DV SE game performance page have also been updated to reflect the test results. Apple should be releasing OpenGL 1.1.2 soon at their software updates page. G4/450 tests included the Rage128 AGP, Voodoo3 3000 PCI and AGP and Obsidian X24 (dual Voodoo2 on one PCI card).

I corrected the link posted earlier to my XLR8 G4 CPU B&W G3 Upgrade article.

There's an update to Bugdom to v1.03.

If you missed last night's updates to the xlr8yourmac.com news, I posted a XLR8 G4 CPU B&W G3 Upgrade and Peek at the Sawtooth CPU Module articles.

OpenGL 1.1.2 (Beta) Performance Tests in G4/450 Sawtooth: I've updated my Mac 3D Card Roundup to include Beta OpenGL 1.1.2f2 test results from my G4/450 AGP system (OS 9) with the Rage128 AGP, Voodoo3 3000 AGP, Voodoo3 3000 PCI and Obsidian X24 (dual Voodoo2/SLI card). Also included are results with a Rage128 Orion PCI card in the 66MHz slot of a B&W G3/400 running OS 8.6. The image quality section has been updated with notes on a pixel noise (almost like buzzing bees) issue I saw with the new ATI drivers included with the Beta OpenGL 1.1.2f2 installer. As noted yesterday on the game news page, OpenGL 1.1.2f6 includes performance improvements as well as Altivec support for G4s.

Q3Test Performance Tips: The front page news today has a few tips for Q3test performance improvements with minimum image quality reduction. It boosted iMac DV SE 32Bit/640x480 framerates by about 20%.

I fixed the link to the Unreal Tournament Mutator Mods article.

Just a note that the Quantum3D Fan/bracket for the Obsidian X24 (dual voodoo2s on one PCI card) is too long to fit in a B&W G3 or G4 case. I'm ordering a fan from 3Dfxcool for the X24. If you missed it, I posted scores with the X24 in my G4/450 earlier this week. Several readers also seemed to have missed my Mac 3D Video Card Roundup summary posted earlier this week. The article compares peformance of the VT MP960, Voodoo3 2000/3000, Rage128 and Proformance 3 in games, macbench and movies.

Speaking of coolers, Tennmax also sent one of their excellent fan/heatsinks for the Voodoo3 3000 series cards that I will be installing soon. Still trying to catch up on about a thousand mails in the last week and the neverending review backlog for the www.xlr8yourmac.com site (G4/350 and G4/400 upgrades, Rage128 VR card). [4:10 AM Update]

Unreal Tournament Mutator Mods: Check out Mark Dobossy's article on adding Mutator mods to Unreal Tournament! (I've updated the article to explain what a mutator is and provided a direct link to a large list of them.)

Mac 3D Game Card Roundup: I've posted an article comparing the performance of the VillageTronic MP960, Voodoo3 3000/2000 PCI, ATI's Rage128 Orion and Formac's Proformance 3 in 3D games, Macbench and movie playback at: http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/Graphics/MP960/. Also included are important driver installation notes on the MP960 as well as comparisons of AGP cards in the new Apple G4 AGP system. Included is a 'bang for the buck' (or $$ per FPS) value rating.

Dual Voodoo2s on One Card - First Obsidian X24 Mac Tests: I've tested Quantum's dual Voodoo2 SLI card (two Voodoo2s on one PCI Card) in my G4/450 AGP system. As noted in my review of the X24 last year in a PC (no generic mac Voodoo2 drivers were available then) - these cards run hot and may not be a good choice for many macs without added cooling. This card was from a bargain bin at a reader's local CompUSA (under $100 he said - a rare find).

The G4 case, like the B&W G3s, has a large fan blowing on the PCI slots which seems to help. In limited tests so far at 100MHz (using a voodoo2.var) file I've seen no problems. As noted in my Voodoo2/SLI article, Quake1 doesn't run but Unreal, Quake2 and Q3test ran fine with excellent performance. Scores from the stock Rage128 AGP and a 166MHz Voodoo3 AGP card tested in the same G4/450 AGP system are included for comparison:

For Mac owners with a single monitor who don't want to lose DVD player functionality but still want better game performance than the Rage128, a Voodoo2 is still an attractive option. As noted in my original Obisidan X24 review, the 'medusa' passthru cable had poor monitor image quality at higher resolutions, but looked OK here on an IBM LCD at 1024x768 (running it on a non-LCD would be a better test of sharpness however). For more on Voodoo2 and SLI mode, see my Voodoo2 review posted several months back.

UT DEMO PATCH: Westlake Interactive has appx. 1MB Unreal Tournament Demo patch that according to reports in my 3Dfx forum, fixes problems some people had with the game crashing. Note the 50MB demo first release has only Glide (3dfx) and software mode support. Here's a direct download link to the patch.

Mac Unreal Tournament Demo: Mac Unreal Tournament demo (50MB) is available now - very heavy server load there all day today. Minimum System Requirement is a 200 MHz 604 w/64MB or RAM and OS 8; Recommended system is a 3dfx Voodoo3 2000 PCI (or faster) and G3/400MHz w/128MB of RAM. Also there are interviews Bryan Speece (their Mac products director) and Kathy Tafel (Apple Computer's partnership manager for worldwide developer relations) and developer Mark Adams as well as an article on improved state of Mac Gaming.

Voodoo cards/TRIII Demo Exit Tip: The main site game news page on Thursday had reader tip that hitting return (vs mouse) allowed exiting the demo normally with a Voodoo3 card.

3Dfx Comments on MacTell Closing:

"We are sad to hear that Mactell has closed its doors and will no longer be supplying products to the Mac market. It is unfortunate that business conditions did not allow them to continue operating, as we know many Mac users were waiting for the EvilEye Voodoo3 product that was scheduled to be released in the near future. We believe this product would have had a very positive impact on the Mac market, raising the standard for 3D graphics on the platform.

Now, more than ever, 3dfx is showing its support for the Mac platform. We are committed to delivering the fastest, highest performance graphics controllers that Mac users have ever seen, the same way as we've always done on the Mac and other CPU's. The Mac is growing as a game platform and anywhere there's gaming going on, there's a market for 3dfx's superior performance. That's not to say that other Macintosh segments won't also be the beneficiary. Design, Publishing and Authoring professionals won't mind having blazing 2D performance available to them in their work along with the ability to blast away at their favorite game when they finish.

We're going to make sure that our technology is available to Mac users in reasonable timeframes and at fair market prices. We don't see Mac users as second class citizens - we think they want and deserve the same levels of performance available to users of other platforms, and that's really what we're dedicated to.

Whether we do that by going directly to the end-user with our own retail product or by selling our components to Mac specialists is something we continually reassess. In the end 3dfx is going to assure users that they will benefit from high performance graphics on their Macs - and that's what really matters. "

I know I and many thousands of Mac owners are thankful 3dfx released their drivers for Voodoo2 and Voodoo3 cards. This signalled the end of our platform behing held hostage literally by pricing and supply issues we've suffered in the past. Although I'm sad to see Mactell go, I'm still excited and very positive about the future of Mac 3dfx graphics cards.

I want to personally thank 3Dfx for supporting the Mac with Voodoo3 and Voodoo2 drivers. I hope they do the same with their next generation products as well.

In my opinion, having 3Dfx provide Mac drivers is the best thing for the Mac market and 3Dfx. For too long the Mac consumer and marketplace has been strangled by companies offering 3Dfx cards at prices as much as 3 times higher than the PC version. Adding insult to injury, there were often extended periods of time where the cards were not available even to those willing to pay the price.

In my opinion some companies didn't seem to have the resources to properly develop, market or support the product. Thankfully that era looks to be coming to an end and the future of Mac gaming looks brighter than ever.

Feedback: I welcome comments, reader tips and articles regarding 3dfx on the Mac.

Mac 3D Card Shootout!

UT Mutators

Mac Game Performance
(By CPU/Video Card)

Voodoo3 Cooler

Head to Head:
-V3 2000/3000 vs R128/Prof.3/MP960
-Voodoo3 QT Perf.
-V2 Drvs Compared
-Rage128 vs Game Rocket
-Quake2 Performance
-Mac Q3Test
  (Screens/Perf)
-Falcon4: 3dfx/Rage128
  (Image Quality)
-Rage128 Revs
  (new faster card)

Tips/Guides:
-Rainbow 6
-3DFX Card FAQ
-Mac Action Quake!
-Voodoo2 Tweaks!
-Shade Tree Gamer 1
-Shade Tree Gamer 2
-Quake Lan Tutorial
-Quakeworld How-To
-Quake Skins How-To
-Voodoo1 Tweaker
-How To Test FPS

Game Reviews:
-QuakeIII Demo
-Skydive!
-Quake 2
  (by Randall)
-Quake 2
  (by Ruffin)
-Quake 2
  (by Mike)
-Kingpin Screens
-SF 2000
-RR Myth II
-Virt. GameStation
-The Untouchables
-EV: Overide

Video Card Reviews:
-Voodoo3 2000
-Rage128 vs Game Rocket
-Game Wizard Review
-MacMagic Review
-ATI RagePro 3D & VR
-Power3D Review
-MP540/3DO Review
-Obsidian X24
- More Reviews...

Controllers/Misc.:
-Cyborg 3D USB
-ORB Controller
-Voodoo2 Cooler

Software Updates:
Mirrored Here:
-Quake2 GL lib
-MesaQuake3.1b8
  (For Quake2)
-Mesa3DfxEngine3.1b6
  (For Q3test)