Voodoo1 vs Voodoo2
Mikael Borg
Is the only difference between V1 and V2 the speed ?
No new functions ?
MB
DISCLAIMER: The statements expressed here are strictly my own
and NOT my employers.
Eugene Abel
I've read that the Voodoo 2 has an onboard triangle setup engine which
Voodoo1 did not.
This is supposed to take some of the load off the CPU. (and I think it
works.)
Mikael Borg wrote in message ...
Carl Mueller
ato...@ato.abb.se (Mikael Borg) wrote:
>Is the only difference between V1 and V2 the speed ?
>No new functions ?
The main difference is that features that were optional for V1
will be mandatory for V2. So all consumer V2 cards will feature
dual texture units and an SLI connector.
Of course, the only major benefits of all these things is greater
rendering speed.
Jon
"Eugene Abel" <EugeneA1@world(nospam)net.att.net> wrote:
>I've read that the Voodoo 2 has an onboard triangle setup engine which
>Voodoo1 did not.
>This is supposed to take some of the load off the CPU. (and I think it
>works.)
It has an onboard geometry setup engine. Note: Not geometry
engine..Just setup. It does more than just triangles.
Jeff Atwood
After the Voodoo RUSH debacle, I damn well hope they do it right this time!
Jeff
Zenomorph wrote in message <348e9a28...@news.mindspring.com>...
>Scott Sellers @3Dfx hinted in one of the previous Boot interviews that
>there were some new features, but didn't say what they were. V2
>sounds like much more than just an overclocked V1. My impression was
>that V2 was the 3D component of Banshee, and surely they haven't spent
>2 years of development with the end result of re-releasing the same
>chip design.
>
>Banshee is being released slightly later because either they haven't
>finished tweaking the 2D component OR they don't WANT to release it at
>the same time, therefore increasing demand for the separate V2 part.
Zenomorph
Salim Qadri
insertHa...@mindspring.com (Zenomorph) writes:
> Carl Mueller <mue...@eat.spam> wrote:
>
> >ato...@ato.abb.se (Mikael Borg) wrote:
> >>Is the only difference between V1 and V2 the speed ?
> >>No new functions ?
> >
> >The main difference is that features that were optional for V1
> >will be mandatory for V2. So all consumer V2 cards will feature
> >dual texture units and an SLI connector.
> >
> >Of course, the only major benefits of all these things is greater
> >rendering speed.
>
> Scott Sellers @3Dfx hinted in one of the previous Boot interviews that
> there were some new features, but didn't say what they were. V2
New features are triple buffering and multitexture support. This is
allowed by having two voodoo1 texelfx units on one board. Another new
feature is support for full triangle support now (v1 had partial
support for this). Also all V2 boards are SLI compatible.
V2 is exactly what Carl says it is. There are a few tweaks wrt speed
and minor features, but the core supported features are the same.
IE. no _free_ AntiAliasing, phong shading (maybe), environment or bump
mapping.
> sounds like much more than just an overclocked V1. My impression was
> that V2 was the 3D component of Banshee, and surely they haven't spent
> 2 years of development with the end result of re-releasing the same
> chip design.
My guess is most of the time (1.5 yr since V1 was fab'ed) has been
spent on Banshee, and its 3d and 2d components. Look for Banshee to
support features unsupported by D3D. This should give developers a
reason for using Glide native ports as well as D3D ports.
V2 should'nt take more than 6 months of development time from v1 using
a team of 20 people.
> Banshee is being released slightly later because either they haven't
> finished tweaking the 2D component OR they don't WANT to release it at
> the same time, therefore increasing demand for the separate V2 part.
Nope. Banshee _must_ support new features. If they don't, there is
little reason for developers to use Glide.
Any comments are welcome,
Salim
Zenomorph
Salim Qadri <sqa...@nortel.xx> wrote:
>New features are triple buffering and multitexture support. This is
>allowed by having two voodoo1 texelfx units on one board. Another new
>feature is support for full triangle support now (v1 had partial
>support for this). Also all V2 boards are SLI compatible.
Those aren't features. Not in a graphic card sense. They may be
new techniques for getting faster end results, but that's not the
same. The suggestion that was made was about graphical features.
>My guess is most of the time (1.5 yr since V1 was fab'ed) has been
>spent on Banshee, and its 3d and 2d components. Look for Banshee to
>support features unsupported by D3D. This should give developers a
>reason for using Glide native ports as well as D3D ports.
>
>V2 should'nt take more than 6 months of development time from v1 using
>a team of 20 people.
That last point is exactly why the 'pumped up V1' argument doesn't
make sense. Banshee and V2 are sooo close to each other in release
dates yet Banshee is supposed to be the real improvement? If Banshee
wasn't due until a year or so after V2, then I'd agree... but it
doesn't make sense to re-release your first generation product just
months before you release your second one.
(side note: I have no intention of buying a V2 and am waiting for
Banshee anyway, so I don't know why I'm even bothering with this
argument... <g>)
>> Banshee is being released slightly later because either they haven't
>> finished tweaking the 2D component OR they don't WANT to release it at
>> the same time, therefore increasing demand for the separate V2 part.
>
>Nope. Banshee _must_ support new features. If they don't, there is
>little reason for developers to use Glide.
Wha...? a. Developers use glide because it is easier to use than D3D
and because 3Dfx helps them port it over for free--not because they
think there might be some future feature that they could take
advantage of. b. Banshee probably does have new features, but I'm
saying that it would make sense that it's the same feature set as in
V2. If the V2 3D feature set is not as rich as Banshee's 3D feature
set then Banshee will immediately make V2 obsolete because game
vendors will want to support the Banshee set instead of the older
Voodoo set. This will just incite all the V2 owners to get upset at
3Dfx again (reminiscent of the Rush fiasco) because they bought what
they thought was a next-generation product, and it wasn't. Surely,
3Dfx has learned their lesson....
I think they have, and that is why I think that there are new, but
undisclosed, graphical features on V2.
Carl Mueller
Salim Qadri <sqa...@nortel.xx> wrote:
>[...]
>My guess is most of the time (1.5 yr since V1 was fab'ed) has been
>spent on Banshee, and its 3d and 2d components. Look for Banshee to
>support features unsupported by D3D. This should give developers a
>reason for using Glide native ports as well as D3D ports.
Voodoo already supports features which are unsupported by D3D.
That's one of the big reasons for using Glide.
Salim Qadri
insertHa...@mindspring.com (Zenomorph) writes:
>
> Salim Qadri <sqa...@nortel.xx> wrote:
>
> >New features are triple buffering and multitexture support. This is
> >allowed by having two voodoo1 texelfx units on one board. Another new
> >feature is support for full triangle support now (v1 had partial
> >support for this). Also all V2 boards are SLI compatible.
>
> Those aren't features. Not in a graphic card sense. They may be
> new techniques for getting faster end results, but that's not the
> same. The suggestion that was made was about graphical features.
Well, I guess they are mostly speedup features that were'nt available
with V1. I consider trilinear filtering to be a new feature. One
which I forgot to mention.
> >My guess is most of the time (1.5 yr since V1 was fab'ed) has been
> >spent on Banshee, and its 3d and 2d components. Look for Banshee to
> >support features unsupported by D3D. This should give developers a
> >reason for using Glide native ports as well as D3D ports.
> >
> >V2 should'nt take more than 6 months of development time from v1 using
> >a team of 20 people.
>
> That last point is exactly why the 'pumped up V1' argument doesn't
> make sense. Banshee and V2 are sooo close to each other in release
> dates yet Banshee is supposed to be the real improvement? If Banshee
> wasn't due until a year or so after V2, then I'd agree... but it
> doesn't make sense to re-release your first generation product just
> months before you release your second one.
I am guessing that V2 will provide performance that is similar to
Banshee, but will have drawbacks. The biggest one I see is poor
texture caching (hopefully Banshee will use DMA on AGP and
PCI). Another is no 2D. I would also expect to see new features such
as phong shading, bump mapping, etc. Maybe faster polygon rate (but
this is still restricted by the CPU speed). So I don't think its a
rehashed V2 board. Anything but. I venture to guess that it will be
a more integrated design with a different memory architecture (maybe
SGRAM and EDO or WRAM and EDO). I still stress the point that a V2
board is not what 3dfx have been spending all their time on :-)
> >Nope. Banshee _must_ support new features. If they don't, there is
> >little reason for developers to use Glide.
>
> Wha...? a. Developers use glide because it is easier to use than D3D
> and because 3Dfx helps them port it over for free--not because they
> think there might be some future feature that they could take
> advantage of.
Well, glide already has features unsopported by D3D that run on V1. I
expect this to improve. Developers would love to show off awesome
looking glide versions which have better effects, and are easy to
program for.
> Banshee probably does have new features, but I'm saying that it
> would make sense that it's the same feature set as in V2.
Well then why are you waiting for Banshee then. Might as well buy the
V2.
> If the V2 3D feature set is not as rich as Banshee's 3D feature set
> then Banshee will immediately make V2 obsolete because game vendors
> will want to support the Banshee set instead of the older Voodoo
> set.
Banshee can be backward compatible you know with the games it runs.
The special Banshee features could easily be turned on and off
depending on the board by the game. Quake does this for multitexture
support I believe. Game vendors just need to develop for glide. This
is the great thing about API's.
> This will just incite all the V2 owners to get upset at 3Dfx again
> (reminiscent of the Rush fiasco) because they bought what they
> thought was a next-generation product, and it wasn't. Surely, 3Dfx
> has learned their lesson.... I think they have, and that is why I
> think that there are new, but undisclosed, graphical features on V2.
Well, gamers know exactly what they are getting. People like you like
to fantasize about new undisclosed feature sets, and then get
disspointed. Most people are aware that V2 is a rehashed V1. And the
Rush fiasco was blown out of proportion. oooh... it was 20% slower.
big deal. V1 is 30% slower than Riva. I am not ditching my V1 yet.
Later.
Bill
In article <uh2wwhb...@nortel.xx>, Salim Qadri <sqa...@nortel.xx> wrote:
> Well, I guess they are mostly speedup features that were'nt
> available with V1. I consider trilinear filtering to be a new
> feature. One which I forgot to mention.
Didn't the Voodoo1 also offer trilinear filtering, but required
two-pass rendering to do it?
> I still stress the point that a V2 board is not what 3dfx have
> been spending all their time on :-)
Good observation. The V2 does seem like a marginal improvement
over a V1 dual texel Obsidian board (architecturally speaking).
It's got a much higher clock, full triangle setup, but that's about
it. Doesn't seem like something that would fully occupy 3Dfx's
design/engineering team for a couple of years.
Remy Saville
Bill wrote:
> Good observation. The V2 does seem like a marginal improvement
> over a V1 dual texel Obsidian board (architecturally speaking).
> It's got a much higher clock, full triangle setup, but that's about
> it. Doesn't seem like something that would fully occupy 3Dfx's
> design/engineering team for a couple of years.
Of course we could be in for a big surprise and find out they've been
spending their time making it cheap. Who knows, maybe 1 year after its
been out they'll be selling them for $99!