VSA-100 series how it could of been

Well I have been wondering last night til now and I think the pattern of there entire VSA-100 series would of been like the following:

3dfx Voodoo4 4000 AGP/PCI 16MB SDRAM 1x 16MB
3dfx Voodoo4 4500 AGP/PCI/PCI Mac 32MB SDRAM 1x 32MB
3dfx Voodoo4 4800 AGP/PCI 64MB SDRAM 1x 64MB

3dfx Voodoo5 5000 AGP/PCI 32MB SGRAM 2x 16MB
3dfx Voodoo5 5500 AGP/PCI/PCI Mac 64MB SDRAM 2x 32MB
3dfx Voodoo5 5800 AGP 128MB SDRAM 4x 32MB

It would of seemed a logical naming per class and since a Voodoo5 6000 is called a 6000 and not a 5800 seems more a mystery to me, since the high end Voodoo4 is the main number 4 with an 800 behind it.

Kinda obvious to some certain degree a Voodoo4 5000 would not been possible otherwise you would had an odd number for that card something like Voodoo5 5200 AGP/PCI maybe and the Voodoo4 4000 could of been a Voodoo4 4200 AGP/PCI instead by which you could of gotten this pattern, where by the best Voodoo5 could of kept it's current name.

3dfx Voodoo4 4200 AGP/PCI 16MB SDRAM 1x 16MB
3dfx Voodoo4 4500 AGP/PCI/PCI Mac 32MB SDRAM 1x 32MB
3dfx Voodoo4 5000 AGP/PCI 64MB SDRAM 1x 64MB

3dfx Voodoo5 5200 AGP/PCI 32MB SGRAM 2x 16MB
3dfx Voodoo5 5500 AGP/PCI/PCI Mac 64MB SDRAM 2x 32MB
3dfx Voodoo5 6000 AGP 128MB SDRAM 4x 32MB

Might of been possible, but still odd in a way hehe.

aha oke yeah I always thought the naming of the VSA-100 series was odd in some ways, that a Voodoo5 is actually a Multi chip solution of the Voodoo4 by still using the exact same technology as where API support goes.

I even read that 3dfx disabled the T-Buffer within the Voodoo4 line since they wouldn't be powerful enough to make T-Buffer work as on FSAA x2 is something they left enabled.

ah oke I remember now that's true CryptonNite as you showed me a few days ago via ICQ hihi

btw this is gonna interest a few for me it's some memory that ended into a hoax for some.
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/v34000/default.asp

3dfx Voodoo3 4000 AGP x4 hehe yeah I suppose a few of you can remember that one, spoke with GAT via ICQ and he did tell me that it reminds him of an early VSA_100 design , could of been that they called it Voodoo3 4000 AGP x4 back then.

The thing is, Voodoo3 4000 AGP x4 never saw day light not even prototype fase tests as far as I can tell.

"This brings us to the enigmatic Voodoo3 4000, which 3dfx described as "Voodoo3 with AGP 4x Support." Not much more is known about the V3-4000 except for the conjecture that it's still based on Voodoo DME architecture, and thus will not support AGP texturing (at 4x or any speed). Considering that the release of the 133Mhz Camino is currently set to early Fall of 1999, it's not a far stretch to assume that the V3-4000 may actually be a new part."

Avenger with AGP x4 support what an idea...

"Speaking to sources close to 3DFX, we've been able to uncover certain facts. The "Voodoo 3 4000" may not the actual name of the product, when released. The official name has not-yet been determined, and we feel it may indeed be changed in order to reflect any new capabilities."

Well this is some kind of clue that GAT is right about the vSA_100 conspiracy hmm that's is like some sort of lead right?

"That leaves us with 2 logical possibilities. The first is that the Voodoo3 4000 will be a V3 with crippled AGP 4x, with no support for AGP texturing. It's doubtful that 3dfx would attempt to increase the clock speed past 183Mhz, unless expected yield rates suddenly shoot through the roof. If 3dfx were to take this route, it would be more of a marketing/shelf-space move (Voodoo3 AGP 4X!!) than taking advantage of a performance gain.

The second possibility, specifically mentioned by our sources, indicates that the late-Summer slated Voodoo3 4000 will have some degree of architectural changes, at the very least incorporating such new features as final 32-bit rendering, massively multiple multitexturing, singlepass blending, bump mapping, trilinear and anisotropic and more. "

Voodoo3 and 32Bit Rendering heh that's a good one though as well all know 32Bit was not possible in 3D on the Avenger only in 2D so even for that part there was some idea that this was the early name for the Voodoo4 4000 maybe.

Anyways back to the namings if there was a Voodoo3 4000 , this may explain how the Voodoo4 4000 AGP got it's place within the Voodoo4 name listings

@ SK1

Sorry even if a Q3d 8132/64 uses VSA-100's I shall never see that as a Voodoo card because it just isn't, it's a CAD card in which it is not meant for games , okay it can run a few but it's purpose was not meant for it to be like a Voodoo5 6000 for example and imho a Voodoo impresses me more than a AALchemy card it's the Voodooism that amazes me most the name Voodoo is what made 3dfx famous and not AALchemy from Quantum3D most seem to forget this.

Zitat

Original von GrandAdmiralThrawn
They sure got their nomenclature a bit mixed up. I suspect, that at that time it was unclear to 3dfx, when their new technology would really be coupled out into an intermediate product. This is also, why the description of "Voodoo3 4000"'s chip sounds much like an early description of VSA-100. They may even have considered to launch the VSA chip as a part of the Voodoo3 line.

It is hard to say, where that all came from and how it was planned, but maybe - as I suspect - this wasn't even clear at 3dfx HQ. v3 4000 never came to exist, and the v4/5 naming system is skewed.. An indicator for not exactly everything going as planned..

hmm well we could see the VSA-100 as a 3dfx 355 aka Avenger in some ways, that it's an Avenger with 32Bit color support, it has FSAA support, it can do onboard SLI like Avenger proved with AALchemy 4116 the only true special Q3D card imho. VSA-100 could do FSAA as it could address up to 64MB of ram per chip instead of a max of 16MB the T-Buffer effects of the Rampage 2000 were added into it just to fill in the gap until Rampage would be prepared.

so a VSA-100 can be seen as a modified or patched 3dfx 355 chip, you got a good point there GrandAdmiralThrawn