32-bit Color Rendering
The picture is changing when running the D3D games in 32-bit color mode. TNT is experiencing a 40% performance hit and Rage 128 gets a penalty of less than 10%!
This means two things. Rage 128 will indeed let you play most games in 32-bit mode, but die-hard gamers will still not use it because there is some performance hit.
The most important thing about Rage 128's 3D performance under 32-bit color is that is proves Scott Sellers and whole 3Dfx wrong. When Voodoo3 was presented 3 weeks ago, 3Dfx apologized for the missing 32-bit color rendering ability of Voodoo3 by claiming that 32-bit color rendering was 'anyway a frame rate killer' and thus pointless.
I guess Scott and his colleagues have to learn a lesson from ATI, 32-bit color rendering is NOT a frame rate killer. ATI's engineers are up to it and seemingly the technicians from 3Dfx are not. Anyway, in 32-bit rendering Rage 128 is currently as good and as fast as it gets.
