Perfomance
All in all the Voodoo 5 5500 AGP is a very impressive card performance wise. It would make a great upgrade for the gamer who has a slower,
low memory video card such as any card with 16MB or less sitting in a faster computer. For instance, someone who just purchased a P3-700
with an ATI card in it would be wise to upgrade. Also any gamer who is planning on buying a faster gaming system, or maybe getting one for
Christmas may want to pick a new Voodoo up if they plan on upgrading their system also. People like me though, who are plugging away with
a P3-450 and a 32MB TNT2-Ultra would be wise to save your money and upgrade your system first. The benefits of the FSAA at the higher
resolutions just can't truly be experienced on this "slower" system. 3dfx themselves benchmarked the V5 5500 on a P3-866.
Since Rogue Spear has no native frame rate display function, FRAPS had to be used to get an idea of the frames per second in the
game. FRAPS displays no average frame rate, no max, no min, it only displays the current frame rate. Thus I don't and you shouldn't put
much stock in the numbers FRAPS gave me because it was just a guesstimate as to the average frame rate. This would not be fair to you, or
to 3dfx. I will say that while using FRAPS I noticed a significant increase in FPS at 800x600 and a slight increase at 1024x768 and
1600x1200. With 4xFSAA enabled, the Voodoo barely lost a beat at 800x600, however it was dropping a considerable amount of frames at
1024x768, and was nowhere close to being playable at 1600x1200. This is more than likely the result of my system, even though without
FSAA, Rogue Spear in 1600x1200 is very playable with the TNT2-Ultra and the V5 5500. FRAPS used during a RS/UO session gives a general,
and I stress general idea of the performance of the card. True performance within Rogue Spear was only judged on image quality and FPS
appearance to the naked eye (unless of course someone can get the frame rate to display). One other thing to note about using Rogue Spear,
the 3d engine is not nearly as frame rate friendly as the Q3A or UT engines are, thus the perceived increases may be even more noteworthy
in Q3A or UT.
In Unreal Tournament I noticed a drastic increase in performance and image quality. All I can say about the way the V5 performed in UT is
Wow! At 1024x768 with 4x FSAA enabled I was averaging over 40 FPS which was an awesome gaming experience compared to the TNT2-Ultra. One
can only assume that the FPS numbers would only increase on a more powerful gaming rig.
