"Game Over, Man!"
Bare Feats tests the iMac Game Wizard Voodoo2 "Mezzanine" board
© 1999 Rob Art Morgan, editor of BARE FEATS
barefoot@hawaii.rr.com

So, you have an iMac "A" or "B" and wondering what to do with that mysterious Mezzanine port? Wonder no more. You can use it for a Voodoo2 "Game Wizard" board from MicroConversions ! Check out the difference it makes:

Conclusion: If you got a Mezzanine ported iMac, flaunt it!
If you are a gamer, you NEEEEEED this board!

Not only is game speed "supercharged" by the 3Dfx chip set, but the quality of visual effects is much nicer than the RAVE versions of Quake and Unreal.

The installation can be intimidating to non-techies. I've cracked open an iMac on several occasions. The trick is to go slowly and carefully since there are many thin, exposed wires and delicate parts. The installation manual provided by MicroConversions is very well written and each step is illustrated with color photos. Take your time... like you are disarming a bomb. (While you got it open, it's a good time to max out your memory!!!!)

As with other PCI based Voodoo boards, there is a pass-through video connector so you can use both RAVE and 3Dfx aware apps. In other words, you can have your cake and eat it, too.

The only downside I see is if you need the Mez port for another device like the iMaccessories PowerDRIVE iMac Internal SCSI Card from BottomLine.

Test Configurations

MACHINE

RAM
Video (VRAM)
Game Render
Virtual Memory?

iMac revision B + Game Wizard

96M
Voodoo2 (8M)
3Dfx
128M

iMac revision B

96M
RAGE Pro (6M)
Rave
128M

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© 1999 Rob Art Morgan, editor of BARE FEATS
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Email Rob Art at
barefoot@hawaii.rr.com