upgrade or not?

[samson]

has anyone previously owned a voodoo3 and replaced it with a g400?i have been considering this due to lack of features on the voodoo3 such as dualhead,32bit,embm.in terms of gaming(i have a p2 450 o/cd to 504)there is nothing i cant play smooth on the voodoo-will it be close with the g400?the voodoo has sucky tv out-i cant read anything on the tv-is the g400 better at this?i also do not have a bazillion $$ to spend on next gen video cards. your input would be appreciated ---thanx.

[WarFlail]

Although I only have a G400 SH (upgraded from a Millennium II + Voodoo2 combo over a year ago), a friend of mine has two computers, one with a G400 DH and the other with a Voodoo3 PCI.

I can definitely see a big difference between his two cards - the graphics quality of the G400 doo-doos over the Voodoo. 32-bit colour is ONLY way to game. Everything seems sharper and the colours crisper on the G400 when compared with the Voodoo3.

As for TV-out, I haven't seen both with that feature being used, only the G400, and I have to say that the quality is excellent. Text is legible, for sure.

The only area where the Voodoo3 beats the G400 is on speed. The framerate seems higher on the V3, but I personally don't see any benefit, since if you can get over 25fps as your minimum framerate, then who cares if your top rate is 40fps vs 90fps?

I think you will find the G400 to be a worthwhile upgrade without having to spend too much. I have had this card in my machine for 14 months, which might well be the longest that I have ever had a graphics card residing in my PC.

-=W=-

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My system specs:
Intel Pentium III 650MHz
Asus P2B motherboard
128MB PC-100 SDRAM
Matrox G400 32MB SH @ 141/188/141MHz (no additional cooling), ParaKnowYa's driver pack v1.5 installed
Creative Sound Blaster Live! Value with latest drivers
Quantum Fireball ST 6.4GB & 4.3GB
I/O Magic 8X DVD-ROM (region-free)
Kenwood 42X TrueX CD-ROM
CTX PR711 17" Monitor, currently running 1152x864 32-bit at 85Hz
Microsoft Intellimouse with IntelliEye
Logitech SoundMan X1 speakers and subwoofer
Windows 98 (not SE), DirectX 7.0a
3DMark2000 v1.1 default benchmark score: 3009

[Werdna]

Don't forget that TVs olny have a 'resolution' of 625 lines(I think that's for NTSC), which means if you try and send 800x600 information or higher the text will become difficult to read, you should only try and read text if you are outputting 640x480.