Specifications
Full specifications for the V5 5500 are available on 3dfx's website here. The following are the "highlights":
128-bit 2D/3D Video Acceleration
64MB of Graphics Memory
32-bit color rendering
Real-time Full Scene HW Anti-Aliasing (FSAA)
T-Buffer Digital Cinematic Effects
3dfx FXT1 and DirectX Texture Compression
350MHz RAMDAC for resolutions up to 2048 x 1536
Win 95, 98, NT4.0, 2000 drivers
MSRP $299
The V5 5500 has 2 VSA-100 graphics chips running in SLI (scan-line interleaving) mode. SLI enables one graphics chip to render the even
lines on your screen while the other chip chugs away with the odd lines. The V5 5500 uses SLI to get the performance boost of two chips.
The V5 6000 will have four VSA-100 chips on it.
Since everything in this review but the benchmarks is based on my system, here are my system specs:
Installation
Installation was simple, and 3dfx's instructions were easy to follow. Even if you have never opened your case before you should be able
to install the V5 with no problems. The manual walks you through step by step, from identifying your AGP slot to connecting the V5 5500
to your power supply. I had my old card out and the Voodoo up and running in less than 10 minutes. Drivers and 3dfx tools were all
easy to install, and I ran into zero configuration problems with other components on my system.
As you have probably heard, the V5 cards are large. So large in fact that the power supply connector rubs against a support beam in my
computer's case, granted the support beam isn't an entirely necessary part, but something tells me more than a few parents are not going
to be happy when Junior starts taking pieces out of their computer, and leaves them out. Let me stress that the V5 is built to AGP specs,
so the majority of users shouldn't have any size or space issues. This was only a minor inconvenience to me, and it may or may not even
be a consideration for you.
Initial Thoughts
After installing the card, I quickly fired up my favorite game, Rogue Spear: Urban Operations to see what this puppy can do. At first
glance I was a little disappointed in how the card was performing. Initially I really couldn't see much of an improvement from my TNT 2
Ultra. However, after enabling FSAA and dropping the resolution a bit so my system could keep up with the card, the Voodoo started to
win me over. Though I never noticed a dramatic speed increase in Rogue Spear: Urban Operations, I did notice image quality improvement,
especially along the edges of the character models, and along horizontal and vertical lines such as railings.
