Bringing the power of the arcade to your Mac will cost you over 1,000 quarters
As far as video cards go, Mac users never had to worry since everything was built right into their motherboard. This simplistic way was and is the way that it should be for all machines, but with the recent release of several 3D games, it appears that "Apple's High-Resolution Video Card" (as it's called) is clearly showing it's age. Up until now, there had been just one true 3D accelerator for games, the ATI Xclaim VR. But the VR carried an enormously high price tag for the first few months after it's release, somewhere around $300. Techwork's, already a reputed CPU and memory maker, saw an opportunity to create a more scaled down video card, but one that contained the awesomely power Voodoo graphics 3Dfx chipset, that used the Macs built-in video for 2D. The result is the Power3D, a piece of hardware that's made big news around ever since MacWorld Boston. But is the Power3D really worth it, or should the Mac user rough it out for a few more months on their standard video?
The Power3D card is no doubt an impressive piece of hardware. It's 3D performance is far superior to that of ATI's RAGE chip (also the one used on some macs that come "built-in with 3D acceleration"), thanks to using the advanced VooDoo 3Dfx chipset. 
Installation was the same as for all PCI cards; that is too say very simple. The minor problem that I ran into was that the card is designed for a Mac with PCI slots on the right, and my PowerCenter has them on the left. Flipping the card over solved this problem, but when I open up my Mac I can't see any of the cool 3Dfx logos :( on the card. Once installed into your machine, I connected the monitor to the video card (which uses the PC-standard DB-15 narrow connection; an adapter is supplied for those monitors that use Apple's DB-15 wide cables) and then connected the included pass through cable from the video card to the Mac's built in video port (remember, unlike the Xclaim VR the Power3D still uses your current 2D built-in video). A simple installation of a few 3Dfx files and I had finished installing "the power of the arcade in [my] PowerMac."
The Power3D comes with a bundle of software which, on the outside, looks like pretty nice stuff: MechWarrior 2 3Dfx version, VR Soccer (the public release was recently cancled by MacPlay), the first episode of Quake and, of course, Bungie's Weekend Warrior.
Below is a short rundown of each game and what the 3Dfx did for it.
Quake
I fired up my copy of Quake 3Dfx and after a bit of waiting (it has to load several 3Dfx files) I noticed something unusual: the lettering was jumbo on the screen as in the 320x240 PC version. I started a new game and was literally blown away by what I saw. Everything was incredibly smooth, the textures were amazing, the clarity superb, and the performance phenomenal.
The 3Dfx version of Quake allows the user to customize what enhancement options they want. For example, while in the console you can set the game to display a yellow glow around rockets, explosions, and when a person has Quad Damage or the Pentagon of Protection. Other options include making the water translucent and adding lighting effects. All of these features will eventually slow down your game but 20 fps was common for a full screen (the game oddly enough does not seem to speed up when you play in a smaller window) game with a handful of graphics-enhancing options. While the game appears to be running at a 320x240, those type of jumbo pixels are restricted only to the console and menu; the rest of the game uses a 640x480 resolution that's extrememly clearer than any other program I've ever seen running at that resolution.
The one downfall that I experienced was that the game dropped frames whenever there was a lot of movement on the screen. Although this only happened in a few cases, it is extremely annoying and throws your calculations off. An interesting thing to note is that the Quake 3Dfx version is still more or less a beta and does not feature a handful of options found in the regular version (including resolution switching). One can only expect to see a better optimized and easier to use version in the near future.
VR Soccer
Since I travel a fair bit to Europe, I had a read a lot of about ActuaSoccer in British Mac magazines such as MacFormat. ActuaSoccer was supposedly the most advanced soccer game to date, featuring textured polygons and excellent physics. I went out and bought ActuaSoccer and was extremely disappointed with it. Perhaps it the UK game didn't like my US system, but the game was jerky on my 604/150 (before the 3Dfx was installed) and the game play felt sluggish.
VR Soccer is the US version of ActuaSoccer that MacPlay was planning on porting to the Mac but canceled after the game reported poor PC sales. Whenever a title is canceled after the port is ready to be released, as was the case with VRSoccer, you can rest assure that there were good reasons behind it, and there are: simply put, VR Soccer is a huge disappointment. Even with the 3Dfx the game was still jerky and performance suffered throughout the game as it dropped frames... not a good sign when it was a title that was bundled with the 3Dfx to supposedly show off its capabilities.
VR Soccer is a disappointment in every way, and for those sports fans out there who were angry when MacPlay canceled the port for the Macintosh don't worry... you didn't miss much.
MechWarrior 3Dfx
MechWarrior came out for the Mac a little over a year ago and after growing jealous of my friend having the game on his PC I went out an purchased it myself. The Mac version was nice and ran smoothly on my 604/150; not surprising since the game contained minimal textures and 95% of the polygons were a single color. Even so, MechWarrior gave me hours of enjoyment.
The 3Dfx version of this game truly brings out the power of the 3Dfx chipset. Although the only change is that the game now features texture mapped polygons, it is nonetheless impressive. The game looks much better and runs smoothly without dropping any frames. What particularly struck me was the quality of the sky. The animated textures were the sharpest and smoothest that I had ever seen.
Unfortunately, MechWarrior 3Dfx has an enormous flaw: you can't overheat. One of the strategies with MechWarrior was that you couldn't just fire your weapons non stop, you had to stop and aim for a good shot otherwise you'd overheat in no time. Because the 3Dfx version prevents you from overheating, the game becomes considerably easier and a lot less fun.
WeekendWarrior
Bungie's WeekendWarrior has become the standard application for measuring 3D performance. Originally shipped only with ATI's XclaimVR, Bungie eventually released a public demo but never ended up offering the full version. I ran the demo on my non-accelerated Mac and was surprisingly impressed by how well it ran. While it was a bit jerky at times and the screen was smaller, WeekendWarrior was certainly playable on a non-accelerated 604/150. The full, accelerated version brings with it extremely fluid movement (along with a high frame rate) and no-sweat full screen action.
But better graphics aren't what makes a game good and the single-player version of WeekendWarrior is more like an uneventful stroll through the park. The networked version is more enjoyable, but nothing compared to superior multi player games such as WarCraft II or Quake.
After looking at the above games and their reviews it is clear that while the software bundle may appear impressive, it is far from that. There is not a single game that offers a high replay value (Quake would but since it only contains the first of four episodes it loses it's entertaining quality quickly) although all will blow you away at first with their jaw-dropping graphics.
At $250, the 3Dfx card really isn't worth it; at least not right now. Although Bungie's upcoming Myth will offer a huge list of benefits for 3Dfx users my best advice to you right now is to save your money and wait to see how many other products will actually support 3Dfx and what their benefits are. The die-hard gamer will like the much improved performance and graphics, but most will probably prefer to spend the cash on a faster modem, a joystick, or adding more RAM.
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 SRP: $249.99 |