Update: I just wanted to provide an update on the Mac Voodoo3 drivers issue. Let's not give up hope and I encourage everyone to hang on for another week or so to hopefully hear something final. Whatever you do I don't recommend buying another card until the we hear something official. As noted in my Voodoo3 Performance page I don't think there is anything out there now or in the forseeable future that offers the kind of game performance and image quality that I've seen with the Voodoo3 on the Mac.

I also urge Mactell to reconsider their pricing on the Voodoo 3 2000 card. Since they promise driver updates and support (along with developing Rave drivers and native OpenGL), their card will cost more than a PC version but I think they'd sell a lot more cards if the price were closer to $150 than $179. Or possibly offer a Glide only driver version at or near the PC card price since MesaGL libs support the card in OpenGL games. That raises the issue of how to prevent use of their Rave drivers with the glide only card but considering the long view and customer relations it would be in everyone's best interesting I think. The driver protection issue and short-sightedness is what has strangled the Mac 3Dfx market in the past and I urge them to not make the same mistakes.

Speaking of 3Dfx, Ruffin sent a note on a news post at CBS MarketWatch (scroll down to the 3dfx post) that says 3Dfx will release a new version of its Voodoo3 graphics card on Friday (perhaps a 3500 or more advanced version) and notes that the next-generation 'Voodoo 4' is 'on schedule' for an October release. 3Dfx revenues are this year are expected to be double that of last year the article says. I strongly encourage Apple to take a real look at the Voodoo4 for their G4 machine (code named 'Sawtooth') and I've said for over a year that a 3dfx chip in an iMac would be a perfect match. Are you listening Apple?

Voodoo3 News/Commentary: Jeremy Hansen wrote to say that despite the comments from some dealers and others on mid-to-late August shipments of the MacTell Voodoo3 cards, their product web page notes September availability. The images are of AGP cards btw, and the Voodoo3 2000 does not look anything like the card they show (see my Voodoo3 2000 PCI performance page for a picture of a real card).

I hope Mactell can really deliver these on time but I am disappointed that the promise of a 3Dfx 'unsupported' Voodoo3 driver release hasn't happened. It's been very quiet on that front since the Mactell announcement. I just hope this isn't another case where we're at the mercy of a company that does little more than repackage cards from another vendor at a premium. Many readers are as sick as I am of this scenario on the Mac and it might just backfire. I'm not certain there are any Mac 3dfx programmers at any graphics card company other than perhaps VillageTronics (I welcome real proof of this btw to any company claiming to be doing 3Dfx Mac drivers).

After all the broken promises and hype from graphics cards companies this year I'm very skeptical. I've seen too many white boxes with somebody else's card inside being sold under another label to get a warm fuzzy about most mac vendors. I pray the Voodoo3 is not a repeat of this. The last thing we need is a go through another round of what we saw with the Voodoo2 cards. I'll pitch in the towel on 3dfx cards if they allow that to happen again.

The Game News page has a large update from Ruffin with a note on Rage128 Orion Starmax (motorola clone)/4400 incompatibility as well as lots of game/industry news including an update to Mac Quake 2 Eraserbot. I've updated my Rage128 Orion vs Game Rocket review to note the compatibility issue. I assume that the Starmax/4400 owners were running OS 8 or later, Quickdraw 3D 1.5.4/QT 3.0 or later and tried tricks like enabling Virtual Memory for Macs with less than 128MB of RAM (many games need as much as 70 to 90MB of RAM). Make sure you have Apple's OpenGL 1.0 installed as well (see sidebar for link). Note: For any macs with the '7200 Graphics Accelerator' extension enabled - disable it. That helped a C500 Umax owner at least get some use from the card. I'm working the issue further with him now.

Note that if the Starmax is not compatible then other Motorola motherboard based clones may also be affected (Some Powertools and Umax models used some Motorola motherboards I think.)

More Formac QT 4 Perf. Feedback: A reader comments on the earlier post (below) on ProFormance Quicktime playback performance:

"Hi Mike,
just read the bit about slow QT4 performace with the new Formac ProFormaceIII card... well, I think this is definitely a problem of Formac's driver, because the same is true with my olde ProFormanceII.

The 24MB Phantom Menace QT plays extremely well in QT3 (fill screen mode was perfect!), but has been very disappointing in QT4. However, the problem AFAIK presents itself only with non-100% playback, and also only with QT4's new interface. The movie plays back perfectly well with QT3's MoviePlayer, even if QT4 is installed & active in the System. Maybe this could help Wayne's problem?
Cheers,
Philippe Braun"

Formac is working on a driver update I hear that will address QT 4 issues as well I'm told. One day I might get a loaner card to review, but Formac said they had only one to go around. Maybe by then there will be OpenGL drivers for it (September).

Apple's latest press release talks about their deal with AOL on instant messaging.

I've gotten about a dozen mails from people very close to the mothership saying that the 450-550MHz speedbump rumor mentioned in yesterday's news is not true, at least not anytime soon. I'm not sure there are any mass supplies of 500-550MHz CPUs available at this time from either IBM or Motorola.

ZIF Upgrade/Audio Problems: This reader had noted audio noise in his beige G3 after upgrading to a Mercury ZIF from OWC:

"Hey Mike, I sent you a rather long winded message, thanking you for your efforts and describing my problems with the OWC 366. I am still unable to get it to work with Digital Performer and the MOTU 2408 in sample accurate sync mode. It does not work at 400 or 366Mhz. The crackling sounds are loud. Why doesn't the 2408 PCI card work with this board? Is there something about changing the jumper block that interferes with the 2408 clock? I know that digital audio is very sensitive to correct clock speeds. Is there any way to fool the 2408 into working the way it did with my stock 233Mhz CPU?
Thanks again for your incredible web site.
John Hoy"

I suggested he try an IBM CPU chip model rather than the XPC Motorola chip Mercury ZIF upgrade. If anyone else is running the same audio setup with a fast G3 system please contact me with system/cpu specifics.

More SCSI ORB Drive Feedback: I received another long owner mail on the Mac SCSI ORB drive so I've added it and the past reader comments on the drive on a separate SCSI ORB Feedback page.

More on Formac Proformance III: [Update - see Friday's (7/30/99) news for a note that Formac updated drivers are reported to address this issue.] Several readers have noted poor quicktime 4 playback (4 fps drop even when doubling a small movie for instance) and other issues that Formac is said to be working on driver updates to address. Here's the latest comments from an owner of the card:

"Hi there...an update on Formac ProFormance3 for you;
The formac folks have been working hard on new software for the cards and the problems are getting nailed. With luck all of the issues will be nailed by next week.

It also turns out (so I hear) that the Apple monitor problems with the Formac exist with the ATI 128 cards as well... watch out for things like position and size controls going away when the ATI 128 RAGE boards go in your box. [I've not seen this in the Rage128 Orion tested in 3 different Macs with 4 different monitors (Sony, Apple, IBM and Hitachi). -Mike ;-]

that may not be true in all macs but was true in my 8500.
[I suspect you may just need to adjust refresh rate or your monitor controls. I didn't see it on my 9600, PowerCenter Pro or B&W G3 with any of the monitors noted above.-Mike] Formac may nail this one as well...stay tuned!
Cheers...Kurt Wiley"

Here's a quote from a Formac Proformance III owner on video playback, which seems poorer than I'd expect but should be addressed hopefully in a driver update:

"Mike,
Well, I don't have a huge selection of non-Media100 QT movies. When I playback the 320x144 Phantom Menace at double size, I get about 20 fps instead of 24 fps. (The file itself if on an array optimized for my video editing software.) At normal size, I get 24 fps playback.
Wayne Folta"

IDE SuperDisk Drive Reminder: Although it was mentioned here earlier in the year (and in the FAQ), a reader sent a reminder that IDE SuperDisk drives (120MB/Floppy) do not work in the B&W G3. Several readers had tried them in the ZIP bay of the new Blue G3s earlier in the year without success. Unless a driver is produced a USB Superdisk is the only model that works.

Mismatched Voodoo2 SLI (PC) Hack: Tyler Doud send a link to a PC page that describles hacking the Glidelib under Windows to allow mismatched Voodoo2 cards to work in SLI mode. I'm posting this info in case some Mac hacker would like to try something similar on the mac glidelib. Previously reported INI/VAR file tricks did not work and I have no idea if this page is accurate but check out http://members.tripod.com/~devnull_/patch.html

"This will work with Win9x Drivers and *should* work for NT, though I can't test them under it. First thing you will need is a hex editor, you can find one at www.download.com if you don't have one. You will need to edit 3 files glide2x.dll, glide3x.dll and 3dfx32v2.dll.

For glide2x.dll and glide3x.dll: look for these hex bytes together 28 0F 85 12, change the 12 to 00 and thats it

For 3dfx32v2.dll(note for NT users: there is no 3dfx32v2.dll for NT): look for these hex bytes together 28 75 0E, change the 0E to 00 and thats all you need to do.

Make sure that these files are in your windows\system directory and you patched the same version drivers you want to use, I woludn't try to combine different versions

Credit for this goes to Andrei Osnovich, all I did was look at what he did and figured out how to apply it "

If you missed last nights update to the Game News page Randall sent a note that MesaQuake2 has been updated to 3.1b8. MesaQuake2 is for users of 3dfx Voodoo2 cards running Quake2 and added multi-texturing support. As shown in my performance reviews of the Voodoo2 and Voodoo3, this increases framerates in Quake 2. Note - Rage128 owners may want to go back to the original Quake2 refgl.lib based on reports from Randall that the updated version caused performance issues with his Rage128 Orion.

If you don't check every day's daily news (updated several times a day normally) you might miss something valuable. Check the summary list below for highlights of the last two days news and the archives page for older new page links. For a blast from the past, read what was on the news page here exactly a year ago.

Other Net News:

• Bonehead Decisions: Take Three (Arizona Central)
• Staying Abreast of Fashion (MacOpinion)
• iBook Notes, Info, and Mail (MacOpinion)
• Dave and Walt #2 - Tech support from somewhat loony twin brothers. (MacOpinion)
• SoundJam MP Review (iTeen)

Wednesday's News Summary

• Apple invests $100M in Samsung
• XLR8 cache control v1.4 allows disabling mb cache
• XLR8 CarrierZIF wins Best of Show at MW
• 10X G3 CPU in MachCarrier G3/450
• Interview with Descent III programmer
• B&W G3 Audio card/software compat. report
• Mixed stories on Apple's honoring ZIP/Modem offer
• Rumors of 450MHz-550MHz Blue G3 line due soon (some deny)
• What's different in ATI 4.01 installer (vs 4.0)
• More reader comments on SCSI ORB Drive
• Internal SCSI ORB to be Wide SCSI?
• More finger pointing on FLY! delays
• Game News page updated
• Freq Asked Questions updated
• Rate Your G3 Upgrade database updated
• Rate Your Mac Games database updated

Tuesday's News Summary

• Apple refuses to honor ZIP/Modem offer on my Rev 2 G3
• No iMac/PB G3 CPU upgrades planned (confirmed by XLR8)
• Comments on Stuffit 5x compatibility
• ATI Universal 4.01 Drivers Released
• My Voodoo3 Review updated for Quake1 compat. notes
• Another reader comments on SCSI ORB drive
• Quake2 and Bugdom updates released
• Game News page updated
• Formac owner comments on Commotion 2.1 and Lightwave 5.6D performance
• Virtual Gamestation/Intec CDTools 4.0 Feedback (two reports)
• FAQ updated
• Rate Your Mac Games database updated
• Rate Your G3 Upgrade database updated
• Other Net News

For other recent site news/features links, see the Sidebar to the right and the Recent Site Features page.

If you own a G3/300 or faster Mac, you might want to get our PPC Checker utility that will report if your CPU is copper or aluminum based.

Considering a G3 Upgrade? Check the CPU Upgrade Owner's Survey results and search for owner reports by Mac model and/or card brand. The database is being updated daily for new reports. Also make sure you ask your dealer about any issues with your particular mac model as I have gotten several reports of issues with certain G3 upgrades in some Mac models (Mach 5, PowerBase, 7300). I urge any owners that have had problems to report this via the Survey Form. Always give the most weight to recent owner reports (dated in the listing).

-Freq Asked Questions

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