3dfx Voodoo3

If anything, 3dfx had a tremendous influence on the motherboard industry with the release of the Voodoo2 last year. Never before have so many motherboards been removed from the view of potential buyers in order to support a single peripheral. The Voodoo2's ability to run in Scan Line Interleave (SLI) mode, where two cards can be connected together in order to make use of both of them for a large improvement in processing power, brought to attention the need for more PCI slots on motherboards. Furthermore, the fact that both the original Voodoo and the Voodoo2 (including the Voodoo2 SLI) were 3D-only add-on cards (an additional video card had to be purchased for 2D support) meant that a total of 3 expansion slots needed to be occupied by graphics cards in order for you to receive the best 3D performance possible. To most users, this was absurd, however there was still a percentage of the gaming population out there that would settle for no less than the best and quickly sacrificed 3 expansion slots for the fastest desktop gaming performance at the time. Unfortunately, with most motherboards having no more than 5 PCI slots, dual Voodoo2's in combination with an Ethernet card for network support, a SCSI card, and a PCI sound card hurriedly put to use all of the available expansion slots.

The 3dfx Banshee was supposed to fix this problem by integrating a high-speed 128-bit 2D core into the Banshee processor. The problem with the Banshee remained that it only carried over one texture processor from the Voodoo2, therefore not allowing for a performance improving technology known as single-pass multi-texturing to be taken advantage of. As taken from the AnandTech 3dfx Banshee Review, here's a quick explanation of the benefits of single-pass multi-texturing:

Presented in a single chip package, the Banshee contains essentially the same 3D texture processing capabilities as the Voodoo2 with one major disadvantage in order to decrease cost.  The Banshee only has a single texture processor (known in the Voodoo2 community as a Texelfx processor) meaning it requires two passes to render multi-textured environments. 

If you look at 3D rendering as painting a wall, a single coat of paint can easily be accomplished by virtually any brush, while that same brush will require two strokes to place two separate coats of paint on the wall (1 texture processor).  Now imagine a brush capable of placing two coats of paint on a wall in a single pass (2 texture processors).  By using the latter type of brush you are essentially doubling your productivity.  In 3D gaming and rendering situations the application of such a technique is a bit more complex, yet it follows the same basic principle.  If a wall in a game, such as Unreal, happens to have a texture placed on it, such as a brick texture, followed by another layer, say a reflection from a nearby fire, you basically have two textures on that one surface. 

A Voodoo2, or any other chipset which has two separate texture processors can render that surface in a single pass (as in a single pass of a brush from the example above) while a Banshee, or any other chipset which only has a single texture processor, must make two passes (as in two strokes of a brush) to render the entire surface.

The Banshee boasts the same pixel processing unit which is found on all Voodoo2 boards, and therefore does retain some of the power of its bigger brother.  In spite of its semi-crippled nature, the Banshee can surpass even the Voodoo2 in terms of performance when placed in the proper situation; at the same time, it can also be put to shame in a slightly different one.  How can this be?

Well, in order to compensate for the lack of a second texture unit, 3Dfx clocked the Banshee at a full 100MHz clock, producing a fill rate of 100 million pixels per second compared to the Voodoo2's default fill rate of 90MP/s.  In situations where only a single layered texture is used, the Banshee will outperform a Voodoo2, however in multi-textured situations, the Banshee will be shadowed by the raw power of the Voodoo2's second texture processor. 

Where the Banshee was merely an overclocked Voodoo2 with one less texture processor and an integrated 128-bit 2D core, the Voodoo3 essentially is an overclocked Banshee with single-pass multi-texturing tossed back into the equation, making the Voodoo3 a Banshee/Voodoo2 hybrid that once again raises the bar of performance. There is no question to the argument that the Voodoo3 is faster than any previous 3dfx product to hit the market, including the Voodoo2 SLI. How much faster? That's another question…