On Monday, 3Dfx issued a release touting its new beta drivers with full support for DirectX 6.0. 3Dfx claimed the drivers delivered a 40 percent boost in performance. The release included a high GameGauge score of 665. We found this a bit curious so we decided to do a little GameGauge testing of our own.

　　DirectX 6 offers some interesting new features, including a much more efficient geometry pipeline, support for multitexturing and bump mapping. But none of the Direct3D titles in 3D GameGauge support any of the new DirectX 6 features. Quake II supports multitexturing, but Voodoo2 has supported this feature in Quake II through the mini-GL driver from day one.

　　So I tested the new beta drivers and the old ones on Computer Gaming World's 400MHz Pentium II reference system. As I surmised, there was no difference in performance. Here are the numbers:

　　3D GameGauge, Voodoo2 DirectX 5 drivers:3D GameGauge score: 592.49

　　Forsaken: 171.36Incoming: 74.86Turok: 85.94Quake II: 87.9Quake I: 125.7F22 ADF: 46.73

　　3D GameGauge, Voodoo2 DirectX 6 drivers, RC1:3D GameGauge score: 590.29

　　Forsaken: 171.76Incoming: 74.24Turok: 84.32Quake II: 86.8Quake I: 125.7F22 ADF: 47.47

　　The 3D GameGauge scores are essentially identical.

　　The release created additional buzz by announcing a significant price reduction among their OEMs for Voodoo2 SLI. In case you didn't know, you can pair up two identical Voodoo2 cards in a system to get essentially double the performance in certain games. Until now, SLI has really been reserved for the hard core 3D action gamer who wanted the highest possible headroom in 3D performance. Leading the low-price charge is Guillemot, who is offering an SLI configuration for US$229. And to think that the first single Voodoo2 cards cost $300 when they first shipped a scant 8 months ago.

　　It seems that the big press release is really a way for 3Dfx to push one of their remaining competitive advantages, SLI. I don't want to belittle this, because it's a unique capability. However, the big driver announcement and quoting of GameGauge scores amounts to something of a nonevent. In fact, SLI owners have seen this level of performance all along. I can only guess that 3Dfx is worried about competition from Nvidia and a number of other graphics accelerators set to ship soon with multiple rendering engines.

　　And, with the Christmas holidays coming up, touting SLI is a way to sell a few more cards to those people who already own one. That's a bit worrisome if you stop and think about it, because that might mean that the market for single Voodoo2 is starting to taper off. But that's only speculation on my part.