When the Voodoo3 was first announced, there were to be three flavours, starting with the budget Voodoo3 2000, running at a 143MHz clock speed, followed by the Voodoo3 3000, running at a 166MHz core and with added TV-output. The final iteration of the Voodoo3 comes in the form of the 3500, featuring a 183MHz core and a plethora of multimedia features, making it far more than just a fast 3D graphics card, and placing it in competition with the likes of the Matrox Marvel G400 and the ATI All-in-Wonder Pro. In addition to 16Mb of SDRAM and the powerful Voodoo3 core, the 3500 sports composite, S-video and stereo audio inputs and outputs, and has an on-board TV-tuner, making it one of the most feature rich multimedia graphics cards available. In order to make these eight connectors easily accessible, 3dfx has opted for a large blue funky-looking splitter cable with the multimedia connectors at the end of a nearly 2m long cable, which is a far better option than having all the connectors at the back of the card. The 'External A/V Control Pod' can be easily placed in a location near your video gear, although the cable is so thick, and the pod so light, that it is difficult to keep the pod in place on the table.

The video capture software provided is STB's VisualReality, which provides basic video capture and TV tuning functions through a fairly intuitive 'remote control' interface. Video format can be set to either uncompressed AVI at 160 x 120 or 320 x 240 resolution, or MPEG-2 at 320 x 240 at 25 frames per second, and there is even a timer record function, just like a VCR, enabling you to pre-set your PC to record programs at a future time. The software will also auto scan to find valid channels for the TV tuner, which you can then rename, or apply a parental lock to. Unfortunately, despite the impressive features of this little software package, I had tremendous trouble trying to get it to work on a couple of different systems. Unfortunately the documentation is minimal, and the error messages are fairly cryptic and uninforming. Even after several complete reinstalls with the latest drivers and software patches from the 3dfx Web page I still had problems ranging from not being able to properly tune in channels, even though I could see the channel flick up clearly on the auto scan, to not being able to record in MPEG-2 mode at all. When the software does run smoothly, it is pleasantly easy to use, but it probably needs a bit of patching to get it up to scratch on all systems. Other included software is the full version of Unreal, along with Ulead's VideoStudio for editing your videos, and a basic DVD player.

Performance in 3D is strong, especially in Quake III Arena where, at Normal graphics settings of 640 x 480, the 3500 outperformed the Riva TNT2
Ultra-based Diamond Viper V770 Ultra, although the GeForce256-based cards still managed to get an edge over the Voodoo3. In the new DirectX 7 3DMark2000 Pro (www.madonion.com) the 3500 came in close behind the Viper V770 Ultra, although the hardware transform and lighting engine in the GeForce256 chips gives these cards a significant advantage in properly optimised DirectX 7 applications. The Voodoo3 is still hampered by a lack of several key 3D features like 32-bit colour rendering, AGP texturing and by a maximum texture size of only 256x256 pixels, and, as such, cannot compete in image quality terms with the likes of the TNT2, GeForce or Matrox G400. The 16Mb of SDRAM coupled with the amazing 350MHz RAMDAC delivers incredible resolutions, as high as 2,046 x 1,536 at 16.7M colours at 75Hz, which makes the card viable for use even on the largest monitors at stable refresh rates.

Ultimately the Voodoo3 is not only a feature rich multimedia video capture card, but is also one of the fastest 3D cards on the block, and would make it an excellent choice for anyone looking for the multimedia features of cards like the Matrox Marvel G400 and ATI All-in-Wonder Pro, but with cutting edge speed. While it does sport a fairly high price, you get a lot of features for your money, although these days it is becoming more and more viable to purchase a standard 2D/3D card and a rudimentary dedicated video capture card like the Pinnacle Studio PCTV (reviewed issue 24, p93). If you are looking for a card that can deliver a healthy dose of 3D gaming goodness, as well as super-high resolutions and refresh rates along with some impressive multimedia features, then the Voodoo3 3500 is well worth a look.