3Dfx Voodoo Rush         07 Jul 1998

Introduction:

All cards based on the 3Dfx Voodoo Rush chipset are 2D/3D cards which will replace your current video card. The cards contain 3 graphics processors: the Alliance AT3D (handling the 2D drawing, the PCI-bus communication and the frame buffer rendering), and two 3D processors (together called the Rush chipset).

Rush cards tend to have average 2D performance, but 3D performance is very good, being about 10% slower than the standard-setting Voodoo cards. They render 3D full-screen or in a resizable window.

The Stingray S3316 uses a daughtercard, and clocks slightly slower than the other single-plane designs. The Intergraph card has a slightly faster RAMDAC clock (200 MHz vs. 175 MHz). Some cards also support TV (NTSC and PAL out) and have a connector for 3D shutter glasses.

All Stingray cards have 2 MB texture memory and 4 MB frame buffer, giving them a max. of 1152x768 resolution in 3D mode. The Stingray model S3318 is the only 8 MB Rush card (4 texture, 4 frame buffer).

Cards:

Hercules Stingray 128/3D S3316
Hercules Stingray 128/3D S3316TV
Hercules Stingray 128/3D S3318
Hercules Stingray 128/3D S3316?
Jazz Multimedia Adrenline Rush 3D
Intergraph Intense 3D Voodoo New BIOS available! (30Oct97)
Skywell Magic Rush
Skywell Magic Rush Lite
Skywell Magic Rush LiteTV
Realvision Flash AT3D Rush
DFI WG-8200/3DX
I-OMagic MagicRush 3D
3D Emotion
Biostar Voodoo Rush
Cardex Dragon 1000
Viewtop Rush 3D (Viewtop 3D Voodoo-I B3D-FX1, 4MB total: avoid)

Fan Pages:

VoodooExtreme
The Rush
Operation 3Dfx
Shoey's Stingray 128-3D Page
Hercules Stingray FAQ

Reviews:

War Council review of the Intense 3D
Hercules Stingray 128/3D S3318TV (8MB) at The Rush.
PC World
Windows Sources
GAMECENTER.COM - Game News - 3Dfx Defends Rush
This Stingray Smokes 3D
Avault's Stingray 128-3D model S3318TV review.
Deltron Flash AT3D Review at Operation 3Dfx.
Intergraph Intense 3D
Hercules 8Mb/TV Stingray 128

Drivers:

The new 1.19 drivers are out. There is also an older release of the BIOS TSR. Use the BIOS TSR is you have a dual-plane card, or a single-plane card that does not have VESA 2.0 built in. The TSR adds 2.0 compliance and fixes some small bugs, including mode-switching system hangs. Not for FS98, but Glide Runtime 2.43 drivers are out.
Jazz Adrenline BIOS update, here. (12Nov97)
New (11Nov97) drivers for Flash3D: http://www.flash3d.com/support/
There are some new reference drivers for both single- and dual-plane Rush cards at 3Dfx.  These are build 2063, same as the latest Hercules drivers.

Setup:

How to tweek the clock speeds of the dual planar Rush:

1. Go into your registry and get to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Alliance Semiconductor\Driver\HW Acceleration Settings where the settings are.

2. Get all three of them selected, go up to "Registry" in the menu bar and select "Export Registry File..."

3. You'll then be prompted to save it somewhere on your PC, and since you want it in your StartUp folder, give this new file any name you want & then save it to Windows/Start Menu/Programs/StartUp (or wherever you've got your startup folder, that's the default location).

or you can get a program to help you, TweekRush.

Sound Garbling:

The only way I've found to eliminate sound garbling is to add the following lines to your fltsim98.cfg file in your FS98 directory. The addition of each line below halves the load on the sound card. On my P166/Stingray all three lines are needed to get pure audio at 1152x864, as judged by listening to the engine, flaps and 3 navaid ID's at the same time. The defaults are 22050, 2, 16.

[sound]
SamplesPerSec=11025 
Channels=1
BitsPerSample=8

Also, try turning off non-rectangular panels.   Looks worse, but sounds better.

Notes:

The dual-plane card, the original Stingray 128/3D S3316, is not loved by Quake players. Evidently it's slower than the Voodoo card when doing alpha-blending and z-buffering simultaneously. As a result of the disatisfaction, 3Dfx has offered to exchange the 3Dfx Rush daughtercard for a Monster 3D, free of charge. Hercules is so confident that they'll get the drivers fixed that they've offered to swap the daughtercards back for those who did the Monster swap. Some Quake'rs are just looking to sell their cards, and there may be some good bargains if you go to the Stingray newsgroup on the news.3dfx.com server. Side note: if you want to enable triple-buffering in Glide games, put the line SET SST96_FORCE_TRIPLE=1 in your autoexec.bat file, and make sure you have glide 2.42 or later.

Data: