The Voodoo2 3D Chip from 3Dfx

Introduction

Finally the waiting seems to be over, after Creative Labs did the first shipment of their 3D Blaster Voodoo2 with the 3Dfx Voodoo2 Chip, more and more companies will start launching their Voodoo2 products as well now. The Voodoo2 seems to be one of the most anticipated computer hardware products of all time, there was certainly never anything like this in the graphics sector before.

You have certainly followed all the announcements, statements and comments about Voodoo2 products in the press, particularly the race between Creative Labs and Diamond getting to market first. Creative Labs won that race by quite a distance, but still it's almost impossible getting the hands on a 3D Blaster Voodoo2 unless you are very lucky. Many rumors came up explaining the shortage of this product, the one that said Creative would have technical problems with the boards is only one of these rumors that lack any kind of truth behind them. The reason why you can still not really get these boards is simply because 3Dfx is only now starting to ramp up the production of the Voodoo2 chip and Creative can only produce boards after they got a 'drop' of chips delivered from 3Dfx. Diamond is about to launch their Monster 3D II board now and it could be that there will be more of these boards available now, simply because Diamond was waiting to get a large stock of boards before they planned shipping for the first time. The situation will be reaching normal state within the next 4 to 6 weeks, so that you don't have to back order and pre-pay Voodoo2 boards anymore pretty soon.

Now since people are starting to have these boards in their systems and others are contemplating buying one, there's quite a demand for information about this product. Which board is best? What performance can I expect? How compatible will Voodoo2 be? Does overclocking make sense? .... All these questions want to be answered and this article is supposed to help you understand a bit more about the Voodoo2 and the first boards equipped with it.