Updated information on the chipset that everyone is talking about was finally released by Diamond Multimedia Friday. Gamers now have an idea when to expect the card at retailers - and what to expect when they buy one.

　　Diamond Multimedia informed us that its next-generation Monster 3D board will be shipping in early March. Diamond's new board will be running the new 3Dfx Voodoo 2 graphics-accelerator chip.

　　The Voodoo 2 will change the battleground for gaming. Information about the board and chipset indicates that it will be less processor-dependant than the first Monster 3D cards - so you'll be able to reach close to peak performance without having to break the bank by accessorizing the card with a new Pentium II system. (When GameSpot gets one of these cards to test, we'll run it on some of the older systems and see if this proves to be true for all the sub-Pentium 200MHz systems.)

　　Much like the first card, it will only be able to support full-screen games and not anything in a Windows 95 window. The card will work with a cable that runs from your existing 2D card and when a game specially coded for the 3Dfx card is executed, the Monster 3D will take over the processing and make your title look amazing. All titles that currently support the Monster 3D will work on the new Monster 3D II boards.

　　The hard-core gamer will drool over the new MEGAMonster feature that will allow you to use two of the new Monster cards to double your game speed. Imagine playing Quake at over 100fps. The double-card ubersystem will be able to output at resolutions like 800x600 and 1024x768 as well.

　　New features in the chipset include: multiple textures in a single pass and support for lighting maps, detailed textures, shadow maps, simulated bump mapping, reflection maps, and environment maps.

　　As we find out more information, we'll pass it along.