X-bit labs

3dfx Voodoo3 3500TV Review

Category: Video

by FastSite

[ 09/05/1999 | 12:00 AM ]

This is the eldest card in Voodoo3 family. It can boast high working frequencies and very useful TV features.

Table of contents:

• Conclusions
  

The mass launching of the graphics cards usually takes place within certain time periods. And now we are witnessing asort of calm after the spring attack of the new 3D graphics accelerators in the market. This time seems to be very attractivefor some companies, which choose it to prepare their customers a few presents: the coolest graphics cards from the newestfamilies. For example, in spring 3dfx Interactive officially announced 3dfx Voodoo3 3500 - the top model of the family,which works at 183/183MHz, however, the whole thing stopped at the manufacturing of the test samples.

At that time most of you probably thought that the delay of 3dfx Voodoo3 3500 mass manufacturing was connected with thedesire of 3dfx not to disturb the sales of the previous models. Nevertheless, 3dfx has finally announced the beginning ofsales for this model as well having impressed everybody with the card's features set.

In fact, it turned out a combo very similar to ATI All-In-Wonder 128 (or Pro). In other words, the card is equipped withTV-in, TV-out and TV-tuner. Together with a powerful 3D accelerator this complex is based on, the card appeared veryattractive. However, there is one not very attractive thing - the price. We are likely to suffer the recommended 250bucks in our pocket because we are no longer used to prices like that.

Of course, 3dfx Voodoo3 3500 graphics cards were first of all intended for the USA market that is why at first PALand SECAM support was not included into the features list. But very soon after this card had appeared on the shelves ofthe American stores they also launched a European version, which supported PAL (unfortunately, SECAM is not supported yet)though had no FM-tuner.

For our benchmarks we got a sample of this graphics card, which also has a break-out box for TV-signals:

This is the graphics card. It is made on AGP-card and can boast 16MB 5.5ns SDRAM placed on both sides of the card,but the memory chips are located in a not very standard way: 6 microchips are on the front side of the card and 2 onthe reversed. The card is also provided with the chips responsible for TV-in/out (on the reversed side of the card)and with a tuner, which consists of the receiver with the aerial connector (metal box) and control microchip.

The card chip marking differs from that of the previous models: there is no "Voodoo" on it but just "3dfx 355".This chip has a heat sink, which is of the same size as that of 3dfx Voodoo3 3000. It is fastened to the chip withthe pins and is covered with some special sticky stuff, so that to provide better surface contact. However, we foundit very strange that there was no active cooler on it, because the card got really warm even working at the nominalfrequency.

And this is the break-out box. There is a special connector on the card for one of the cable plugs going fromthis break-out box. The second end is connected to the monitor. The device represents half of a sphere and can beplaced on a flat surface. It has two connector sets (three connectors in each) on both sides: for TV-in and TV-out.Among those three connectors one is for video signal and other two - for stereo audio signal.

The graphics card is supplied together with a CD disk with the required software (drivers, Visual Reality, etc.).

And now let's take a look at the installation procedure. The drivers provided with the card do not differ from thepublic version 1.02.11 with the only exception: there are special files controlling the TV functions. That's why thereference drivers version 1.02.11 suit for work of the graphics card only. Now we are going to make a short tour aroundthe drivers settings.

This is a solely informative page, which tells us about the card and the software version.

This page deals with 3D functions control. What can be of real interest to the user it's the Image Quality Settings, whichallow setting the alpha-blending modes, as well as enabling post-filtering, which significantly improves the 3D picturequality (set High in Video Display). We are going to speak a bit more about it when we pass over to image quality.

This is an utility, which is very popular among 3dfx Voodoo3 graphics cards owners, - Voodoo3 Overclocker v. 3.1 (byGary Peterson). It allows regulating Vsync (monitor refresh rate synchronization with RAMDAC) as well as graphics cardworking frequencies (the chipset and memory working frequency is the same).

Besides, there is an additional page devoted to the setting of the refresh rates at various resolutions simultaneously,which seems to be very convenient.

And now it's high time we started speaking about the tests. We carried out all the testing at two PCs:

The first one:

• Intel Pentium III 500 CPU;
• ASUS P3B-F (i440BX) mainboard;
• 128MB PC-100 system memory;
• Quantum Fireball CR 6.4GB HDD;
• Viewsonic P810 monitor (21");
• Windows 98.

And the second one:

• AMD K6-2 450 CPU;
• Chaintech 5AGM2 (VIA MVP3) mainboard;
• 128MB PC-100 system memory;
• Quantum Fireball CR 6.4GB HDD;
• Viewsonic P810 monitor (21");
• Windows 98.

Well, we decided to stick to our tradition and hence we are starting our investigation with 2D graphics.

The benchmark we used here is the famous Winbench99 (Business Graphics Tests and High-End Graphics Tests). The datawas taken at the resolution set to 1600x1200 in 32-bit color.

The results are just impressive! 3dfx Voodoo3 3500TV proved an indisputable leader among all 3dfx Voodoo3 cards, andnot only! And the 2D image quality is another proof of it. Only at 1600x1200 the image gets slightly worse, but you willnotice it only if this regime is the maximum for your monitor or undocumented at all.

And now let's pass to the performance in 3D graphics, which is a hot point for most of you, we believe. Taking intoaccount that 3dfx Voodoo3 3500TV is the last model in Voodoo3 family and the fastest graphics card by 3dfx, we made upour mind to compare it with both: 3dfx Voodoo3 3000 (166/166MHz) and nVidia Riva TNT2 Ultra based graphics cards (becausethey are the fastest among all nVidia Riva TNT2 based cards). Among those we chose Creative 3D Blaster Riva TNT2 Ultra(150/183MHz) and Hercules Dynamite TNT2 Ultra (175/200MHz) with 32MB graphics memory. The testing results were obtainedwith the following drivers:

• 3dfx Voodoo3 3000 and 3dfx Voodoo3 3500TV - 3dfx Reference v.1.02.11
• nVidia Riva TNT2 Ultra based cards - nVidia Reference v.2.08

In order to provide a more or less objective and versatile picture we resorted to a couple of 3D graphics testingtools:

• 3D Mark99 MAX from Futuremark- synthetic test Direct3D (DirectX 6.1);
• Quake2 from iD Software with massive1.dm2 demo - gaming OpenGL test (we used 3dfx OpenGL mini-driver v.1.48);
• Quake3 Test v.1.08 from iD Software with q3demo1.dm3 demo - gaming OpenGL test (for 3dfx Voodoo3 we used two driversversions: 3dfx ICD OpenGL 1.02.11 and Metabyte Wicked3D GL v.1.10 High Resolution);
• Expendable from Rage Software - gaming Direct3D test;
• Shogo from Monolith with revshogo demo - gaming Direct3D test.

The testing was made in two different regimes: at nominal working frequencies and at overclocked frequencies. Vsyncparameter was disabled, and 3D settings looked as follows:

Alpha Blending - Sharper;Video Display - High.

The results are given below.

First comes the system based on Intel Pentium III 500MHz.

And now we would like to show the dependence of the 3dfx Voodoo3 3500TV performance on the CPU working frequencybasing on the Expendable game:

Well, what can we say here? 3dfx Voodoo3 3500TV appears falling behind nVidia Riva TNT2 Ultra almost everywhere exceptQuake2 and Shogo in multitexturing mode. 3dfx mini-driver allows 3dfx Voodoo3 3500TV graphics card to show all its powerand coolness in multitexturing in Quake2. The same situation takes place in Shogo. Here we would like to remind you thatonly 3dfx chipsets can boast "free" multitexturing, which actually means that if enabled it greatly increases theperformance. Just compare it to the chipsets with double pipeline rendering, when the enabling of multitexturingallows processing only one pixel per time step instead of two though the textures are superposed somewhat faster.

Unfortunately, although ICD OpenGL driver written especially for Quake3 became a bit faster with a new version,it is still not optimized enough to make 3dfx Voodoo3 3500TV card show all its hidden power in Quake3 as well.

When we use Wicked3D GL from Metabyte, the performance of Voodoo3 3500 gets even higher though it can't catch upwith nVidia Riva TNT2 Ultra:

However, despite this lag behind nVidia Riva TNT2 Ultra our hero shows very nice results. The gaming performanceis up to the mark in most cases.

As for the performance of 3dfx Voodoo3 3500TV in the systems based on slower processors, the performance differencedepends on resolutions only for a very powerful CPU (450-500MHz), while at lower frequencies the results appearpractically the same at all resolutions. But even if the CPU frequency falls down to 233MHz the gaming performancewill still remain on quite an acceptable level.

Now here is the system based on AMD K6-2 450:

As we can see the situation in this system has hardly changed as well. However, the performance drop, which followsthe CPU frequency reduction, is not so huge as we saw in Pentium III based system that's why we can get acceptable gamingperformance almost at all resolutions on K6-2 266MHz.

Well, enough for that. Now a few words about 3D image quality.

As we have already mentioned above, the 3D drivers settings include such items as Alpha Blending and Video Display.

Let's start with the first one. This option allows choosing the way you want the borders between the color fields tobe smoothed (dithering) when transparent and half-transparent objects are created (alpha blending). You may choose betweenSharper and Smoother. The screenshots below show the difference between these two effects:

Sharper

Smoother

The difference is quite evident as you can see. But we can't say once and for all what is better: the grids in the first caseor the stains between the colors in the second case. Here you are free to make your own choice.

Now let's consider the mysterious item - Video Display. In fact, if you set this option to High it will mean enabling the postfiltering, which operates the graphics at 22-bit color depth before transferring the image to the monitor in 16-bit color. So, theimage quality we get appears much higher. To illustrate our explanation we would like to offer you an example. We will consider16-bit images obtained on nVidia Riva TNT2 Ultra and 3dfx Voodoo3 in Quake3 where the different color depth can be easily noticed.And just for a better comparison we would like to post the same picture fragment in 32-bit color:

3dfx Voodoo3 16bpp

nVidia Riva TNT2 16bpp

nVidia Riva TNT2 32bpp

Of course the reference is 32-bit color picture, however, the 16-bit image made by 3dfx Voodoo3 with the post filteringlooks very nice and is much better than the similar picture made by nVidia Riva TNT2 Ultra.

And in conclusion we would like to note that 16-bit color in 3D can be noticed only in few games, in particular in Quake3,and in all other cases the quality hardly deserves any reproach. Of course, there is a certain washed effect so typical of all3dfx chipsets but the enormously high speed of 3dfx Voodoo3 3500TV easily makes up for this drawback.

And now we suggest devoting a bit of time to additional features of our graphics card, which provided 3dfx Voodoo3 3500TV withthis "TV" suffix at the end. Having installed Visual Reality software we get the following settings options:

Contrast, brightness, etc. setting.

MPEG2 capture stream setting, time record, etc.

Video standard (unfortunately this model supports only PAL-B) and the country (Russia isn't included in the list :-( setting.

TV-tuner channels autosetting.

TV-tuner channels finer setting.

Audio signal settings.

Video capture setting for separate frames as well as for video stream and MPEG2-file recording.

In fact, TV tuner doesn't differ much from the well-known tuners. It can autoscan all channels and a group of channelschosen. To out disappointment the graphics card sample we had could support only PAL signal that's why we could watch allour SECAM programs only in black-and-white mode. The image quality was quite good, however, it greatly depended on theaerial used.

We can state that the graphics card heats too much without additional cooling, the tuner gets overheated and in 1.5-2hours of constant work you may notice some interference.

Besides, you may record the video stream into a file using the tuner as well as the video recorder or camera signal(via external break-out box). As we have already said above, the accepted signal is PAL only. In order to encode thestream into MPEG2 format the system uses Ligos MPEG2 Software codec. In other words, the MPEG2 encoding is carried outin real time with the CPU means that's why the central processor is fully utilized taking into account that the info isat the same time saved to the HDD. We would like to warn you right away that you should better get a SCSI drive, whichdoesn't overload the CPU when the disk operations are carried out. For example, when writing an MPEG2 video file toQuantum Fireball CR HDD the frames were sometimes simply left out and as a result the further playback went on jerkily.

Besides, we would also like to point out that you need a very high quality original to encode, otherwise, the qualityworsening will get too noticeable.

The screenshot below was taken from the video recorder stream:

The original size of this frame is 320x288, and when we tried to save it at 768x576 a lot of defects appeared:

There is one more advantage that is worth mentioning here: the possibility to store the captured frames in a buffer andto choose any separate frame out of the whole bunch saved:

Here you may delete the frames you don't need or save them as a BMP-file.

You can playback the created MPEG2 file either on the same PC where you have 3dfx Voodoo3 3500TV or you will have toinstall Ligos MPEG2 Software codec (http://www.ligos.com).

The TV properties setting is a very simple operation. You should enable output to TV and set the signal type. Then,the resolution at 60Hz is 800x600 and that's it. The same properties page allows you to regulate the height and widthof the picture on the TV screen. And here we have to admit that the quality is pretty good even for gaming applications.However, it is rather hard to work with this image because the text gets too vague and washed out.

While working with DVD we would recommend using soft players such as Cinemaster DVD or WinDVD, where 3dfx Voodoo3 3500TVshows really good results utilizing the CPU only for 40-55% (depending on the movie). However, if we play DVD-video throughVisual Reality, which goes together with the graphics card, the CPU is almost 100% utilized. We hope it has to do with thefirst version of this software, and besides, the drivers are still available just in a beta-version. Therefore it is quitepossible that in the near future we will be able to squeeze really high image quality with low CPU utilization out of thisgraphics card even with its own software when playing DVD disks.

Conclusions

Highs

• High performance in 2D as well as in 3D graphics, which will be quite sufficient for all the applications. Thisseems to be the most significant advantage. Besides, we would also like to mention 3dfx's accuracy in the developmentof new optimized drivers and the participation of Metabyte company, which is very enthusiastic about all 3dfx chipsetsand provides perfectly optimized software for graphics cards like that.
• The set of popular TV signal capturing tools and TV-output plus TV-tuner (if they introduce SECAM support). The wholeset can be placed on one single card and you don't need to involve any additional expansion slots.

Lows

• High price. Taking into account a relatively insignificant performance gain compared to the previous model (3dfxVoodoo3 3000) we still see a very significant price difference ($250). However, if the price for 3dfx Voodoo3 3500TV getslower, the product will undoubtedly win broad popularity and acknowledgement.
• Certain inconveniences connected with the break-out box: no way to connect the monitor to the graphics card avoiding it.
• Not the best capturing quality for separate video frames (take for instance Matrox Rainbow Runner Studio, which succeedsmuch better here). The dependence on one of the software MPEG2-codecs doesn't allow making use of the created files on othercomputers, however, if you download Ligos codec from the Internet you will get rid of this problem.
• Extreme overheating of the graphics card, which makes us advise you to arrange some additional cooling. After one hour ofuninterrupted work with Quake3 we couldn't touch the chipset as well as the graphics card!
• No 32-bit color support in 3D. Well, you can argue here, actually. There are so many 3dfx lovers, who believe that thiscolor depth is not needed today at all. However, the first sign that they are wrong has already appeared: Quake3 proved thatthis color depth contributes to the beauty of the picture and perception comfort.
• 3dfx Voodoo3 3500TV is slightly falling behind the today's leader in 3D graphics - nVidia Riva TNT2 Ultra. But we don'tfeel like referring this to 3dfx Voodoo3 3500TV great drawbacks, because the performance of the card is more than enough forall purposes.

So, we have every right to say that if there is SECAM support and if the price gets a bit lower, 3dfx Voodoo3 3500TV willbe able to win the hearts of thousands of users. This unbelievably powerful card will provide the user with the whole set ofvery popular features. Of course, 3dfx Voodoo3 3500TV is worth your attention.