3Dfx Voodoo Rush (SST-96)
(This posting is still in beta-stage, information herein not confirmed and exhaustive!)
The Voodoo Rush was introduced in late summer 1997 and did incorporate both a Voodoo Graphics chip set and a third-party chip for displaying 2D images such as the Alliance ProMotion AT25 or Macronix' MX86251FC. It can be seen as an attempt to enter the OEM space which were reluctant to build systems with Voodoo Graphics and a separate 2D accelerator because of both the external cabling and the validation required. The Voodoo Rush may also have been put into place in order to both fix one of the shortcomings of the original Voodoo Graphics and to capitalize on the need for a modern 2D accelerator.
The result however was disappointing. In general, the both publicly available combinations of the Voodoo Graphics chip set with 2D accelerators failed to achieve both the performance and the level of compatibility that the 3D part alone could boast with.
The cards varied wildly in appearance, some even incorporating a dual-PCB design, where the 2D and 3D parts were stacked on top of each other.
3Dfx Voodoo Rush Codename no internal name given Type 2D/3D card with Voodoo Graphics plus third-party chip for 2D functionality (Alliance ProMotion AT25; AT3D or Macronix MX86251FC) Year 1996 Manufacturing Technology 500 nm No. of transistors 1 Million for the Voodoo chipset plus the respective 2D chip Pixel throughput 1 Pixel per clock Texel throughput 1 Texel per clock Z/Depth throughput 1 Zixel per clock Core Clock rate 50 MHz Memory Clock rate 50 MHz Memory Data rate 50 MT/sec. Memory 2 MiByte Framebuffer + 2-4 MiByte Texture Memory Memory Interface 2x 64 Bit (one for Framebuffer, one for Texture Memory) Supported 3D-Features Perspective Correction, Bilinear Filtering, Alpha Blending, Z-Buffer, Gouraud Shading, Multi-Texturing Supported Resolutions 320x240, 512x384, 640x400, 640x480, 800x600 (without Z-Buffer)
Currently, I own two of these boards. The first one being a Hercules Stingray 128/3D (internal model no. S3318 TV) where the more common Alliance ProMotion AT25 lends its 2D capabilities to the Vooodoo Graphics chipset. It comes with 2 MiByte for the 2D chip and 2+2 MiByte for the Voodoo Graphics part of the card.
The other card is a 2theMax/Gainward (then also known as Cardexpert) Fantasy FX Dragon 2000. It uses the Macronix MX86251 chip (which require special drivers). It also comes with up to 8 MiByte, where 2 of them are reserved for the 2D chip and 2 are for Voodoo Graphics' framebuffer. 2 MiByte are presoldered to the card and another two can be added via drop-in sockets. I received mine with only two of the sockets populated, but the additional memory is not working.
