3dfx's Visit to AnandTech - Voodoo4/5 in Action

3dfx also showed off their modified version of Quake III Arena with motion blur support.  While no Quake III player on Earth would want to enable motion blur during gameplay, the feature could definitely come in handy in situations that don’t depend on fast moving action or precise aiming such as most first person shooters like Quake III.

Click Here for more information on Motion Blur

3dfx had no game implementations of Depth of Field & Soft Shadows to demonstrate for us, which can be expected since the developers have to actually take those features into account when developing a game in order for them to be used. 

FSAA is the only feature that can be enabled in all games without a developer specifically writing code for it.

Click Here for more information on Depth of Field & Soft Shadows effects

3dfx told us that the shipping card would not feature Windows 2000 drivers out of the box, but Win2K drivers will follow shortly after the release of the card (most likely 4 – 6 weeks). 

With the recent announcement that NVIDIA would be unveiling the NV15 on April 25th, this month is definitely going to see some heated competition between 3dfx and NVIDIA. 

We still think 3dfx will be the first out the door, and according to them, boards will be available shortly after the launch, but unlike the Voodoo3 vs. TNT2 release, both 3dfx’s and NVIDIA’s products should be out within a couple of weeks of each other, making it much easier to compare and decide which one you’re going to go with rather than taking a risk on the first product out and regretting the decision just 1 – 2 months down the line.

The graphics industry has been pretty quiet in terms of competition, with most of the past few months being dominated by the GeForce.  It will definitely be interesting to see who comes out on top this time around, and remember, just 6 months from now, we’ll get to start this cycle all over again.