[Virgilio]

I own a G3 PC with ATI 128, I am a graphic designer... I was trying to buy the new ATI Radeon PCI, but no news from ATI about the release date... then I decided to buy a Voodoo 4 PCI... I will have it in my hands in 3 days... but sometime I think if i have done well buying this card, and not waiting for the Radeon... I work with my mac, but I also like to play with it a lot.
I hope there will be a difference between the ATI 128 and the Voodoo 4, in working and games...
Did I do rght buying it? Not sure...

[TimmyDee51]

I'd have to say that's a tough call. It really depends on what you need the card for. The Radeon excels at 32-bit high res (in games at least) while the Voodoo is better at 16-bit high res. The comparisons I have read have been for the Radeon vs. Voodoo 5. Your card has half the memory, but I think you have to really push it to notice it (maybe I'm wrong). Also, the Voodoos (I think the 4 does, too) have FSAA (full-screen anti-aliasing) which is nice, too. I guess what I am trying to say is that the choice is really your preference. Each card has their strong points, it just depends if those match your wants.

[mac freak]

I would have waited for a Radeon...

But the Voodoo 4 will be noticeably better than the (8 MB?) Rage 128 that was in your machine.

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Be Happy.

[ginoledesma]

3Dfx has abandoned its direct selling of Voodoo cards. Tsk. Tsk.

How I wish nVidia would move into the Mac market. ATi has focused only so much effort on the Mac side, while it has tried to gain market share again in the PC side.

I really think that ATi will double its efforts if nVidia moves in, since their shares over-all will then be challenged.

[Leonard]

Mac freak the ATI 128 has 16 MB of memory, fyi.

I would take the Radeon over the Voodoo 4 or 5 anyday. The Voodoo's lack DVD support and are rather out-dated. 2 VSA-100 chips to do what 1 Radeon chip does, get real. The Radeon drivers do lack support for FSAA, but the card does support it. The drivers already have hardware T&L implemented, something the Voodoo card doesn't have. The Radeon supports 3 texture units compared to the 1 (or is it 2?) texture unit in the Voodoos which means the Voodoos have to do more passes than the Radeon when more than one texture is used. Basically, the Radeon is the card of the future and the Voodoo is the card for existing games. Nvidia may give ATI some competition if anyone ever creates a Mac compatible card using the Nvidia chips.

[mac freak]

Leonard --

The new Rage 128 Pros in the new machines are 16 MB. Virigilio says he has a "G3 PC," which I assume is a Blue & White G3. They did not come with the 16 MB Pro cards, but the 8MB VR cards (could someone check the specs? I think it was the 128 VR, but I'm not sure). Anyway, the point is that he doesn't have a 16 MB card unless he's on a July 2000 iMac, July 2000 G4, or a Cube. And we can rule out the G4 and Cube (since they're G4's), which only leaves the iMac... and if he had an iMac, I think he would have said so.

And if what he meant was a beige machine, he has a simple 2MB Rage Pro (at least that's what my old beige desktop G3/300 has).

So, uh, it's not 16 MB...

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Be Happy.

I choose a Radeon over a voodoo 5 because of this article:
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/Graphics/...il/index4.html

Check it out: the Radeon owns the Voodoo in everything except Glide driven games. Even in that case, the Voodoo is only slightly faster than the Radeon. In UT at 1024x768 (wicked demo), the Voodoo is only 0.9 fps faster than the Radeon.

Now, consider that this is with the first version of Radeon drivers. The card supports FSAA, so when the drivers eventually are optimized for Radeon, we can expect it to utilize FSAA. Also, we can reasonably expect that since ATI is an OEM suppier for Apple, Apple will work more closely with ATI in driver development. I suspect that a year from now Radeon will be outperforming Voodoo 5 in every test.

Either way, I wouldn't have too many doubts if I were you, both cards are about as good as it gets for macs.

[TimmyDee51]

Point of information: The Summer 2000 iMacs still have 8 MB VRAM but the faster 128 Pro chipset.

[mac freak]

Oh.

Well, in that case, there's NO POSSIBLE WAY it could be 16 MB!

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Be Happy.

[Leonard]

Hi Mac freak, it's me again... not too be too naggy, but a G3 B&W has a 16MB ATI 128 card. I should know, I own a G3 400 B&W.

[mac freak]

If the B&W's have 16MB cards...

then why did Apple make such a fuss about them at the last MWNY?

I'm just trying to win

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Be Happy.

[blizzard]

Blue and Whites have 16 megs cards. And the only reason the Voodoo cards beat the Radeon at Glide is because the Radeon can't do Glide - only 3dfx can, and even they are moving away from it pretty quickly. So I don't know where you got your info from, but unfortunately it was incorrect. Perhaps you meant OpenGL? But then, the Radeon would cream the Voodoo at OpenGL...

Oh, and another thing to keep in mind - 3dfx didn't simply make one crappy chipset and decide to slap a whole bunch of them together to make it somewhat less crappy - the Voodoo5 was designed from the get-go to be a multi-chip solution. It has more bandwidth than the other cards, which means that it can beat them where it was designed to be strong - at FSAA. Its lack of Hardware T&L is unfortunate, as is the fact that it is slightly slower at regular rendering than other nVidia and ATi cards, but it is still a contender. We Mac users find ourselves in a position where it doesn't really matter which card is slightly faster than another though, as our computers can't come close to driving any of them at max speed. You should select based on support, features, and stability. At this point, I don't think you can go wrong either way.

Blizzard.

[mac freak]

Ugh...

Ok, I'm wrong, I'm an ignorant fool

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Be Happy.

[ginoledesma]

Graphics cards aside, I wish OpenGL would be a more formidable competitor to MS's Direct3D. I forgot where I read from a game company preferring Direct3D over OpenGL as it can push the hardware to its limits. Then again, who knows what other reasons it chose Direct3D for.

Its nice to know that Blizzard has plans to use both Direct3D and OpenGL in its upcoming Warcraft III game. It will not support Glide, however.

RAVE will simply no longer do. Who's behind OpenGL nowadays? I know its an industry (open source?) standard, but where's the improvements?

[Virgilio]

It is me again, the one who posted the question. Finally I have the Voodoo4PCI in my G3, and really I am unhappy. I dont like the Voodoo. It is for 16 bits games. I played Unreal Tournament, Deus EX, Diablo II and others, and I didnt notice such a speed difference with my ATI 16MB. Even those games have a yellow-brown color when playing it. And even my Apple 17" Studio, with the new Voodoo 4PCI, has like a vibration. I have it in 1152x870 75hz.
So I think I get wrong buying the Voodoo4. What a big mistake. Then what I must to do is to buy the new Radeon PCI, and I herad it is going to release the 15 of december.
Let Voodoo go with the Wintel machines

"And the only reason the Voodoo cards beat the Radeon at Glide is because the Radeon can't do Glide - only 3dfx can, and even they are moving away from it pretty quickly. So I don't know where you got your info from, but unfortunately it was incorrect."

Nothing was incorrect at all--I said the Voodoo beat Radeon at "Glide driven games", not at using Glide. For Glide driven games, Voodoo can utilize the API the game was optimized for (like in UT). Radeon has to use a different API, like Rave, and since the game isn't optimized for Rave, the Radeon is slower. Its not as simple as "whats the best API?", you need to consider what API the game uses best, and how well the video card supports that given API.

If you had read the link I posted, you would have seen that xlr8yourmac compared a Voodoo running Glide to a Radeon running Rave...and predictably, the Voodoo was faster, but only by 0.9 fps. So, a Voodoo only barely edged out a Radeon, when the voodoo was running an API its optimized for, and the Radeon was running an API for which is wasn't optimized. This suggests that the Radeon is a far superior card, and that with further driver development it will positively shine.

[Leonard]

Virgilio, just a couple quick questions. What type of G3 do you have? Beige or B&W? is a 266, 333, 300, or 400 mhz? Just to give us some idea of what type of system you have.

[Virgilio]

Hi again. Listening all of you, I am getting depressed. Right now I know I rather choose Radeon... I prefer Radeon, because I can use my DVD software.

This is the Mac I have:
G3 B&W, 320MB, DVD, 6HD, (the ATI 128=16MB)... ¿what else?

So the best thing to do is to resell my voodoo and buy a new ATI Radeon. I like to play games with 32bits, and with te Voodoo not always u can do it.

[Virgilio]

Oooops, forgot it. It is an G3 B&W 350 mhz

What about the fact that ATI drivers have a history of being so-so in terms of stability/compatibility? Are the Voodooo drivers any better? That would influence *my* decision...

Are the current AGP Radeon drivers adequate? What about the upcoming PCI version? Will it need completely different drivers?

What? 3dfx has NOT abandoned selling of graphic cards.. they were on macnn recently stating such.
I've got Voodoo 4 PCI cards in my beige Macs right now. I love those cards..
Probably going to get a Voodoo 5 once I get a blue & white or PCI g4..

FYI, i have a b/w g3 and suprisingly enough it did come wioth the 16 mb of ram, im asking for the radeon pci for christmas but will it even be out in time????

Unfair comparison!!

The Radeon VS Voodoo 5 comparisons all compare a PCI VooDoo to the AGP radeon

The Voodoo cards (4&5) easily and continually saturate the pci bus. SO the Voodoo has more data than the PCI bus can move. The Radeon sits in the faster AGP slot.....hmmm and still the V5 and Radeon are almost equal

What this means is that a PCI radeon (when available) and a V4/5 will have almost identical performance!! Because both cards are so fast that the limiting factor is the PCI bus.

One Review I read **speculated** that an AGP VooDoo5 card (if available) would easily whip a Radeon.


I recommend that if you have only PCI slots then decide between these 2 cards based on features and how they suit your needs

If you have an AGP slot USE IT! Use a V5 agp (when available) A radeon of wait and hope nVidia gets into the Mac world


BTW 3DFX IS still selling their complete line of cards but they have stopped building the cards and have outsourced the actual card production 3DFX designs the cards, pays someone else to build them then 3DFX sells the cards

You're right on the money... Voodoo PCI vs. Radeon AGP is unfair!

I'm running a Voodoo 5 on my B&W G3. and despite claims to the contrary, Unreal, Deus Ex, Diablo 2, etc. do see a significant speed gain and quality with the V5 - including such intangables as games saving and loading.

I'd patiently waited for a Radeon PCI, but as usual, ATI was vague when it would release and I grew frustrated that the AGP was out months before the PCI version. The Radeon AGP version has the slight advantage over the V5 PCI, but the Radeon PCI will really only have the advantage of DVD and color accuracy over the V5 - and a little gamma correction and me not having a DVD and I've had the enjoyment of the V5 for months now. The Voodoo has anti-aliasing and glide & 3dfx rendering support - both dominant in games.

Radeon or Voodoo? Close call... none it better all around... so just buy Voodoo if you do tons-o-gaming, and the Radeon if you focus on MacOS gui and some gaming. We all win by having the choices... hopefully nVidia jumps on-board. ;-)

[ginoledesma]

I stand corrected. I misinterpreted the article I read. You're right in that they have stopped building new cards, and this was what I should have said. My mistake. Thanks for correcting me.

Alas, 3Dfx has moved for closure, though.