Conclusion: The Orion was 31% faster on 2D operations. The Voodoo3 was 81% faster on 3D operations. Best overall? The Orion has the edge since it's compatible with the most applications and has non-beta drivers.

 

"I just wondered about the validity of your 3D tests. You note 800X600X32 for Unreal. However, the Voodoo 3000 doesn't support 32 bits. Does this mean the Rage was running at 32 bits and the Voodoo in 16? Don't you think this is a disadvantage to compare cards this way?" -- P.E.
The chart title was misleading and I fixed that. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Although the RAGE 128 was run in 32 bit mode, it doesn't go any faster in 16 bit mode. In other words, it would seem more fair to test both in 16 bit but the Voodoo3 would still stomp all over the Orion board. And to add insult to injury, the Voodoo3 makes the game look better in 16 bit mode than the RAGE 128 does in 32 bit mode. -- editor

• Bare Feats also tested these two accelerators on a Power Mac 7500 with a G3/400 upgrade. Note that 7500 could NOT match the graphics speed of the Yosemite.
• Accelerate Your Mac has an excellent Voodoo3 review, comparing it to other 3D accelerators.
• Sharkey Extreme tests it on at B&W 350.
• From Inside Mac Games' Frank Bernier comes a Quake 2 shootout between various graphics boards and various G3's.
• Inside Mac Games also has a Voodoo3 shootout.

• The test computer was a Yosemite G3/450 with 256MB of PC-100 memory.
• MacBench 5.0 is one of the few benchmark applications that closely simulates "real world" usage. You need the CD-ROM to run the Graphics tests. It only costs $5 to order.
• Unreal 3D tests were run with the viewport set to 800 x 600. (Edit the unreal.ini document). I particularly enjoy using this application to test since it exercises all subsystems of the Macintosh. The test used was the Castle Flyby that comes up at startup. To get the average and minimum frames per second with version 2.x.x of Unreal, you press "~" and enter "TIMEDEMO 1." Then press "~" to open up the full screen again. It begins the fly sequence at the castle entrance. (Get the latest latest UNREAL Beta from Westlake's Site.)
• Quake 2 was run in 800 x 600 mode. For Voodoo3 to work in OpenGL mode, it requires a special version of the "ref_gl.lib" from Mesa3DGraphics in the Quake 2 folder. It also requires a document called "Mesa3DGraphicsLibQuake2" (version 3.1b8 or later) to be placed in the Quake 2 folder.

A big THANK YOU to...

...ATI Technology for the use of the Orion RAGE 128.

...3Dfx for offering a $30 rebate on the 3Dfx Voodoo3 cards until September 18th. Net cost to average user: $85.

...Nicad for the use of his Yosemite 450.