Voodoo 5 |
Features | Benefits |
32/64/128 MB of Graphics Memory | Enough memory to handle high-resolution gaming with large 32-bit textures and T-Buffer effects enabled. |
667-733/1334-1466 Megapixels Per Second Fill Rate | Fill rate delivers frame rate. Virtually all games are limited by fill rate at resolutions of 1024x768 and above so the higher your fill rate the faster your game will perform. The Voodoo5 5500 delivers the industry's highest fill rate, outside of the Voodoo5 6000, of course. |
Real-time Full-Scene HW Anti-Aliasing | Removes annoying jaggies and flashing objects from the image to dramatically improve the visual quality of any title, new or old. |
T-Buffer Digital Cinematic Effect: Motion blur | Can be used to smooth motion to improve image quality or to exaggerate motion for special effects. |
T-Buffer Digital Cinematic Effect: Depth of Field Blur | Enhances reality by rendering a scene as if viewed through a real lens. Enables artistic depth of field effects often used in cinema, such as blurring all but the most important objects in a scene. |
T-Buffer Digital Cinematic Effect: Soft Shadows | Adds soft edges to shadows to give them a much more realistic appearance. |
T-Buffer Digital Cinematic Effect: Soft Reflections | Enables realistic reflections from semi-gloss surfaces like polished wood or stone and stainless steel. |
FXT1 and DirectX® Texture Compression | Dramatically reduces the size of texture images with no loss in visual quality; higher frame rates and better image quality. VSA-100 supports all five DXTC compression modes. Texture compression is critical for use of 2048x2048, 32-bit textures. |
8-bit Palletized Textures | The most widely used form of texture compression; as with FXT1, palletized textures enable higher frame rates and enhanced image quality. Graphics cards that do not support palletized textures often experience severe game compatibility problems. |
32-bit Rendering | Supports the highest possible image quality for the latest titles. |
32-bit Textures | Allows use of the highest quality artwork seen in today's titles. |
2k x 2k Textures | Allows you to enjoy the full impact of the most detailed artwork used by game developers; larger textures enable more complex, more stunning images. |
24-bit Floating Point Depth Buffer (Z or W) | Virtually eliminates "Z aliasing," or having surfaces that should be visible being occluded and surfaces that should be occluded being visible. |
8-bit Stencil Buffer | Improves image quality and realism by supporting a technique widely used by 3D content developers to create complex shapes such as shadows. |
Fully integrated 128-bit 2D/3D/Video Accelerator | It's not just for gaming! Voodoo 5 enables outstanding 2D and video applications, too. |
350MHz RAMDAC | Allows users to run at insane resolutions and incredible refresh rate --2048x1536 at 85Hz for example. |
The industry's most complete API support: DirectX, OpenGL, and Glide | Assures the industry's highest title compatibility. |
DVD hardware assist: planar to packed-pixel conversion | Assists DVD titles in running at 30fps without dropped frames. |
Macintosh, Linux, Windows 95, 98, ME, NT4.0, Windows 2000 and Windows XP drivers | Allows you to run the Voodoo 5 with standard operating systems. |
Other Information |
The Voodoo 5 was the most powerful card 3dfx ended up releasing. 3dfx initially speced VSA-100 out at 166-200mhz. It probobly could have hit 200 with some refinment, but 3dfx was late and shipped at A2. There was still some significant problems in the actual silicon that was highly visable to the software people, SLI was kinda FUBAR (remember when nvidia took shots at the A0 revision VSA-100 - called it 'Very Slow Architecture - 100mhz'. It was run so low for SLI compatability. The SDR-RAM price was the most significant factor in the 166mhz spec though, and this was the main thing that made 3dfx claim bankruptcy, they owed money for the RAM. |
Scalability |
These are the famous Voodoo 5 scalability benchmarks by no other than SolidState from the x3dfx forums. Computer Specs AMD Thunderbird AYHJA Y Abit KG7 Raid 256mb Crucial pc2100 DDR Voodoo 5 5500 AGP (1.18bios) SolidState Win2k driver 1.01.00beta Windows 2000 SP2 IE6 Settings - Tools AGP Command Fifo - Auto Detect Refresh Optimization - Enable VIA Chipset - Performance 3D Filter Quality - High Alpha Blending - Sharper Depth Precision (16/32) - Faster/Faster Anti-Aliasing - Varies Guardband Clipping - Enabled Hidden Surface Removal - Disabled Legacy Texture Compression - Enabled Level of Detail Bias - -0.50 Maximum Buffered Frames - 1 MIP Map Dithering - Disabled Rendering Color Depth - Software Controlled Triple Buffer - Disabled Vertical Sync - Disabled Settings - Quake 3 s_initsound 0 com_maxfps 300 GL Extensions - On Video Mode - Varies Color Depth - Varies Fullscreen - On Lighting - Lightmap Geometric Detail - Medium Texture Detail - 66% Texture Quality - 16bit Texture Filter - Trilinear |
Conclusions: The V5 becomes fill-rate limited: 1) 1024x768x32bit NO FSAA 2) 1024x768x16bit 2X FSAA (probably at 800x600 as well) 3) Any Resolution 4X FSAA |
More Pictures |
Voodoo 5 5000 (32 Megs) (above). |
Voodoo 5 5500 Front and Back (above). | Voodoo 5 6000 (above). |
Misc Voodoo 5 Stuff |
Voodoo 5 Overclocking Program |
3dfx FSAA Flash Animation |
Voodoo 5 6000 Resource Guide |