3Dfx Voodoo3 3500 TV
The 3Dfx Voodoo3 3500 TV was released just three months after the first Voodoo3 (the Voodoo3 1000), in June 1999. Unlike the Voodoo3 2000 and 3000 variants that came in April this year, the Voodoo3 3500 TV came only in AGP 2x bus form.
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Released | April 1999 |
| Bus | AGP 2x | |
| Chipset | 3Dfx Avenger | |
| Core Clock | 183 MHz | |
| Memory | 16 MB SDRAM (128-bit bus width, 2.6 Gb/sec bandwidth) | |
| Ports | 15-pin DSUB (RGB analogue out) | |
| Part # | 11-110-794-08 | |
| FCC ID | - | |
| Price | Dec 1999: $180 | |
| See Also | Voodoo3 1000, Voodoo3 2000, Voodoo3 3000 |
The Voodoo3 3500 TV is the same as the 3000, but includes a TV tuner module and runs at a slightly faster 183 MHz (core and memory) compared to the 3000's 166 MHz. This came with a blue breakout cable for connecting the card to either a TV or monitor.
A Voodoo3 3500 TV SE variant was released at the same time with a core and memory clock of 200 MHz.
Board Revisions
I have no information on various board revisions for the Voodoo3 3500 TV.
Competition
The Voodoo3 3500 TV competed head-to-head with nVidia's RIVA TNT2 and ATI's Rage 128. To a lesser extent, it also competed with the Matrox Millennium G400 and S3 Savage4.
Sadly, the V3 3500 TV was unable to keep up with the competition, partly due to its limiting 16 MB RAM compared to competing cards that came with 32 MB such as ATI's Rage Fury and nVidia's TNT2 Ultra. Having said that, if you wanted to get into 3D gaming in late 1999, it was a decent cost-effective entry point.
In the Media
The Voodoo3's dual-TMU architecture ladles out all the hot visual gravy you've come to expect from 3dfx, with features such as per-pixel, perspective-correct texture-mapping, a 16-bit z-buffer, and single-cycle trilinear mip-mapping. Notably absent from the Voodoo3 port, however, are next-gen features such as single-pass bump-mapping and anisotropic filtering. But these no-shows will be the least of Voodoo3's worries in the long run.
In a gaming world that's increasing populated with large textures, the Voodoo3 is an AGP 2x part without AGP texturing support. On the Voodoo3, large textures (such as Quake III's 512 x 512 textures) are automatically down-sampled to 256 x 256. Since the Voodoo3 can slam textures in and out of local memory at much higher speeds than AGP texturing allows, 3dfx figures the chipset's 256 x 256 limitation is a small price to pay for faster framerates.
Also cutting into the life span of the Voodoo3 is its lack of a full 32-bit rendering pipeline. The Voodoo3 follows in the steps of its ancestors by rendering internally at a 32-bit color depth and dithering down the output to a tame 16-bits. Even though the Voodoo3 makes great strides in image quality by banishing banding artifacts with a post-processing filter, true 32-bit rendering backed by a 32-bit z-buffer would do a lot to remove a big question mark in front of Voodoo3's future.
The Voodoo3 is currently shipping in two flavors, the 143 MHz Voodoo3 2000 and the 166 MHz Voodoo3 3000. Defining the high end of the Voodoo3 line in the multimedia-rich Voodoo3 3500 TV. This 183 MHz AGP/PCI part adds video capture (including MPEG-2 encoding on the fly), a TV tuner, high-quality video-out, an FM stereo tuner, and DVD playback support. You can expect to see the Voodoo3 3500 TV in the July timeframe."
Maximum PC, July 1999
Setting it Up
Before removing your existing 2D card switch the video driver to Standard VGA. Click Start, Control Panel. Double-click on Display.Select 640X480 and 16 colors. Accept the changes.Power off the system and remove your existing 2D card.
Install the Voodoo3 Card in a free AGP or PCI Slot. Power on the system and verify that video appears during post. Start Windows in Normal mode.
The last set of official drivers released for the Voodoo3 on Windows 9x was v1.07.00. For Windows 2000 the latest version is 1.03.00. Later drivers exist that were written by unofficial third-parties.
Downloads
Drivers for the Voodoo3 3500/TV are specific to that card - using other Voodoo3 drivers will not work on these cards. Also be sure to use the correct driver for your region (non-US/Europe or US).
Operation Manual Get in touch if you can provide this missing item! |
Voodoo3 3500/TV Win Drivers For 3500/TV cards. Supports Windows 95/98. Requires DirectX 6 or higher. The first file are the drivers, the second is the VisualReality TV software. |
Voodoo3 3500/TV Win Drivers For 3500/TV cards. Supports Windows 95/98.
Requires DirectX 6 or higher. |
Voodoo3 3500/TV Win Drivers For 3500/TV cards. Supports Windows 95/98.
Requires DirectX 6 or higher. |
Voodoo3 3500/TV Windows Drivers For 3500/TV cards. Supports Windows 95/98/ME.
Requires DirectX 7.0 or higher. |
Voodoo3 3500/TV Windows Drivers For 3500/TV cards. Supports Windows 95/98/ME.
Requires DirectX 7.0 or higher. |
V.Control 3dfx Hardware Tweaker
A Win32 (Windows 95,98,Me,NT4,2000,XP) utility for controling 3dfx graphics adapters. Currently supports 3dfx Voodoo Banshee, Velocity, Voodoo3, Voodoo4, Voodoo5. |
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