Right about now, we're pretty sure you think you want a 3dfx Voodoo3 on your Mac. You're probably wondering why 3dfx isn't releasing the drivers publicly for consumers. Well, there are a few really good reasons for 3dfx not to distribute Mac consumer reference drivers for the Voodoo3 at this time.

First, the drivers are not complete. Releasing them now would mean a whole lot of people buying cards that don't work perfectly. This could mean a whole lot of unhappy people returning cards to stores that now won't work on PCs anymore because they have been flashed with the Macintosh ROM as there is currently no way to flash the ROM back to PC compatibility. I'm sure that 3dfx could do without that public relations and financial nightmare.

At this stage, 3dfx is not ready to get into the Macintosh support business. Building a Mac tech support department from scratch that could provide the support necessary for thousands of Mac users is difficult, expensive, and time consuming. By having other vendors sell and support 3dfx products for the Mac, they are assured that the end user gets a high level of Mac support which is the first step in building an install base of happy customers.

Also, 3dfx has prior commitments to vendors like IXMICRO and Mactell. In addition to contractual obligations, 3dfx has ethical obligations to these companies. These vendors are currently producing 3dfx Banshee based cards that they have spent time and money developing, producing, and marketing. They will most likely be producing Voodoo 3 cards in the not too distant future. If 3dfx were to release consumer oriented drivers that utilize the PC versions of the Voodoo3, these companies could be badly hurt.

(Remember what happened when pirate Mac drivers got out for the Voodoo II: MicroConversions, who had ported the Voodoo II to the Mac, watched their sales crumble as gamers used the pirated drivers on much cheaper PC Voodoo II cards.)

As you have seen from the benchmarks, the Voodoo3 2000 PCI performs extremely well. In both 2D and 3D, it is significantly faster than the ATI Rage 128. Having the Voodoo3 on the Macintosh would be a great thing for Mac gaming. We do not know if 3dfx will eventually release the drivers. For now, we have the ATI RAGE 128 and Voodoo Banshee to play with on the Mac. They're not bad, but they're no Voodoo3. Mac World New York is right around the corner, and rumors are that there will be some major 3dfx announcements. Any way things go, you can bet that we at Sharky Extreme will be on the story.

If you are a 3dfx developer and want to start working with the reference drivers, look here.