aC-
Story on Banshee from Next-Generation-
3Dfx Voodoo Banshee: The Complete Story
While Next Generation Online has been reporting about the
Banshee since last April, today 3Dfx released all information
regarding its new hardware publicly for the first time.
June 22, 1998
When 3Dfx Voodoo was about to come to
market, analysts never expected an
expensive, 3D-only part to make any sort of
sizable dent in the semi-conductor market.
What the analysts didn't count on was the
massive support from developers (who had
for years been screaming for exactly the
hardware they were provided with) and the
deluge of eager hardcore consumers who
sought out the titles created by said
support. As a result, here's 3Dfx, nearly two
years later, with an installed base of over
four million cards; clearly establishing it as a
platform unto itself. Banshee is the next
extension of the 3Dfx platform, though it is
branching in slightly different direction than
its forebears.
For those who are unaware, the Voodoo Banshee is the first 2D/3D integrated
solution completely from 3Dfx. In the past, the debacle that was 3Dfx's
Voodoo Rush was the first step in this direction, though 3Dfx only had
control of the 3D segment of the project. As a result, mediocre performance,
incompatibilities and limited support of the Rush chipset resulted in a
product that 3Dfx would almost certainly rather forget. In addition to the
Banshee's integrated 2D/3D nature, 3Dfx is also trying to push the
price/performance issue to the forefront of the chipset's features. Analysts
are expecting boards using the technology to cost between $150 - $200
depending upon configuration and given the card's performance and
features, it should prove attractive to OEMs.
Since this is the first 2D hardware that 3Dfx has ever created, the company
has been keen to point out the areas where it is strong. 3Dfx is already
boasting that it will have the fastest 2D on the market. Benchmarks claimed
by 3Dfx in a 2D Winbench performance test (on a PII 400 running Windows
NT 4.0) put its score at 260, as compared to the numbers claimed by Matrox
for its G200 (which it is also claiming to have the fastest 2D performance) at
240.
The chipset has a dedicated 128-bit interface to external memory with an
internal 256-bit datapath for optimized memory utilization. To compliment this,
3Dfx has taken nearly every function in the Windows Graphics Driver
Interface and implemented them in hardware. One of these key features is
hardware polygon support where polygons are drawn directly from their
vertices rather than requiring software translation and rasterization of each
polygon. The result is that the card should approach near Null Driver
performance (the absolute fastest that could theoretically be achieved).
DVD assist can be provided via direct hardware (on Pentium II 350 and up) or
through an optional DVD hardware decoder daughter card. 3Dfx claims that
playback can be handled at resolutions as high as 1920x1440 with the card's
230/250MHz RAMDAC.
While 2D performance is obviously excellent, the question to be asked by
gamers is how does the Banshee's 3D compare to other technologies on the
market? To answer this, let's look at the selling points of Banshee:
Voodoo Compatibility - Full Glide support, unlike Voodoo Rush
Solid 3D Performance - in certain circumstances, performance can exceed
that of a single Voodoo 2 (games that are fill-rate constrained and most
benchmarks).
Good Rendering Quality - 3Dfx's typically well saturated and bright
RAMDAC carries on its tradition of good (but not excellent) rendering
quality.
The 3D features supported by Banshee are all the same as those in Voodoo 2
because the architectures are nearly identical. Per-pixel mipmapping, alpha
blending, LOD calculations, programmable and exponential fog tables and
floating point Z buffers are all available. The clock speed of the Banshee chip
is considerably faster than that of Voodoo 2 though it has only a single
texture unit compared to Voodoo 2's dual TMU setup.
In addition, Banshee is optimized for Pentium 2 processors and can handle
out of order commands. Instead of spending time reordering commands, the
hardware can execute them as they arrive with no CPU stall. 3Dfx expects that
this feature will result in a 20%-25% performance increase.
In 3Dfx's own internal 3D benchmarks, it is claiming that the Banshee is
nearly twice as fast as the Riva 128ZX and more than twice as fast as the
Intel740. On the flip side, a Voodoo 2 SLI setup is supposedly only 40
percent faster than the Banshee.
Next Generation Online has not yet been able to test a Banshee board itself,
but expects in the coming weeks to receive an evaluation unit. At that time,
tests and benchmarks will of course be run on both the 2D and 3D
capabilities of the card providing you with an even more complete picture
Andrew
Todd- Thanks for the info on TLC AND BROD's future plans. |
