It looks like all the developer feedback on VoodooExtreme has gotten 3DFX's attention. Steve Schick from 3DFX has posted the following response.
"I think some of the comments you gathered were fairly expected. No one can argue the benefits of 32-bit rendering. We think 32-bit rendering will be important in the future, and it will help advance the state of gaming. At the same time, we firmly believe that features such as 32-bit rendering should not be able to come at a sacrifice in performance. Right now a Quake II player, for example, can play in 32-bit mode in at least one chip currently on the market. Of course their frame rate will fall by about 50 percent, to a level that is simply not playable. In the best case, they will have game performance that royally sucks in the worst way.
3Dfx will provide advances in rendering technology, color depth, etc. in future products, but it will never come as a sacrifice to overall game performance. This week at Comdex, we've given developers some sneak peaks of Voodoo3 running with un-optimized drivers and at a clock rate below the final production version. The reaction is sheer astonishment. Some developers have popped their own games on a Voodoo3 demo system and have been knocked over by the break-neck fill rate at high resolution running at 60fps or higher. It's something that has to been seen in person.
We are extremly proud of Voodoo3, and we think that hardcore gamers and developers will be duely impressed. Stay tuned...." |
