PCFormat seemed to think there was only me posting about the review.. hmmmmm. Well here's just some of the comments people made at the time in comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video : (use www.dejanews.com to find the original if you want to verify). ============================================================================ From: *jezhall@frimley.demon.co.uk* (Jeremy) To: "Dan Slingsby" Cc: prichards@futurenet.co.uk Subject: PC Format Xmas 96 review of 3d cards Date: Wed, 04 Dec 1996 14:14:37 GMT This is really aimed at Steve Patient who wrote the 3D accelerator card review in the Xmas 96 issue of PC Format, but I only have your's and Paula's e-mail address. Please pass this on. All I can say about the review is - WHAT A LOAD OF TOSH !!!! Unfortunately it confirms my doubts about the believability of magazine reviews in general. Either you are being paid a lot of money by certain vendors or the reviewer really doesn't have a clue. The really sad thing is that your average punter out there will read your review and take it as gospel and so miss out on some of the best 3D hardware available. The whole review is littered with factual inaccuracies, poor understanding of the subject and very subjective comments. For instance the review of the Apocalypse 3D is very positive all the way through (is that because it's essentially a British product?) mentioning the 30 games that are on the way for PowerVR, and yet in the Righteous 3D or Monster 3D reviews (which seem to have a very negative bias) there's no mention at all of the 101 titles in the pipeline - see www.orchid.com or the more than 10 titles available now (and one of them is an absolute corker - Tomb Raider). Right, let's look at your review of the Righteous 3D. 1. Direct 3D Support You say that the Righteous D3D implementation is kludgy. What ? Let me tell you that the Righteous 3D has one of the most solid D3D implementations yet produced. Ask anyone who owns it, or are you too scared to venture out onto the net in case you find out the truth ? I am happily running Monster Truck Madness, Hellbender, Hyperblade, CyberGladiators all of which are D3D. My Stealth 3D 2000 in common with most Virge based cards is unable to run Hellbender or MTM due to the crap D3D support. The Matrox Mystique is missing certain key features such as proper transparency etc. From postings I have read in various newsgroups (from actual owners rather than magazine reviewers who appear to base their decision on 5 minutes use), the only other solid D3D support is for the Rendition based cards. The other point here is that 3dfx Voodoo runs D3D faster than any other current card. As an example have a look at http://sysdoc.pair.com/mtm-survey.html for a survey of which cards run MTM fastest. Notice how all the results at the top of the list are from 3dfx Voodoo based cards? The D3D benchmarks also prove this to be the case (Tunnel etc). 2. Resolution supported You make it sound like no other cards "slap" you into 640x480 when required. I assume you don't use win95 much as you would have noticed that resolution switching on the fly is the norm, and most games that I use switch to whichever resolution they require to run at, and then switch back when they're finished, whether they use 3D acceleration or not. The other inaccuracy is that 3dfx Voodoo only supports 640x480, in fact it supports 800x600 as well. Of course a typical game running on 3dfx Voodoo at 640x480 can look *much* higher resolution due to all the advanced effects that can be used - antialiasing, bilinear filtering and Lod MipMapping. Check out Tomb Raider for proof. 3. The "Loud Clicking" and hardware reboots You made no mention of why there was clicking. If you had researched the subject for more than 5 minutes you would have found that Orchid decided to use high quality coaxial relays to avoid signal loss or degradation, hence the clicking. The Monster 3D on the other hand uses semiconductor devices which are potentially more lossy and so prone to degradation of video quality. I do not find the clicking interferes in any way with my enjoyment of the product and in fact I find it useful as the click let's me know when a title is using D3D or Glide (the 3dfx API). Also, you talk of occasional hard reboots when switching modes. I have owned my Righteous 3D since 15 October (1.5 months) and it's been in daily use but it has never caused a hard reboot. It has been solid and reliable. The only problem I had on installation was caused by my Stealth 3D drivers using a memory region which they had not been reserved and which clashed with the Voodoo - this was solved in 5 seconds by setting the Voodoo to a different address. In many ways the Voodoo based cards are the easiest to install and setup and they use no DMAs or IRQs, but of course you make no mention of this in your review. 4. Performance Your entire coverage of performance was " ... to give the card it's due, it's fast." !!!!! Where are all the detailed benchmarks comparing one card to another, or frame rate figures (which most games provide nowadays). If you want to see how a 3d card review should be done I suggest you check out : http://web1.zdnet.com/gaming/content/961115/3dwave/3dcards.html 5. Console/Gamepad Comment Since when has a video card supported game pads (apart from the ill fated Edge 3D) ? Of course gamepads can be used with the Righteous 3D and any other card for that matter. How do you conclude that the Righteous 3D is a good way of turning your PC into a console ? That comment just doesn't make sense, as it would apply equally well to all the other cards you reviewed. Let's face it, 3d accelerators are mainly aimed at 3d games, and I cant think of a single 3d game that I would want to play at anything other than full screen. 6. Price You list it as £244. I paid £189 from Simply and DABS have them now for £169. Of course I've concentrated on your Orchid Righteous 3D review, but I could just as easily pick holes in your review of the other cards based on the info I have gathered from people who actually own them. I made my decision on which card to go for after following the subject for a number of months on various Usenet groups and by comparing specs and future support. The card I have, the Orchid Righteous 3D, along with the Diamond Monster 3D share the 3dfx Voodoo chipset, which is, by any fair comparison (e.g. D3D Tunnel Test and actual games) the fastest and most feature rich chipset currently available. The general consensus amongst owners is that : 1. If you already have a good 2d, then go for a Voodoo based 3d accelerator as these offer the best perfomance and future support. 2. If you want to upgrade your existing card then the rendition based cards offer the best compromise of 2d/3d combination, albeit with some problems e.g. poor DOS VGA mode X speed (like DOOM). 3. If you want the ultimate performance and cost is not an issue then go for an ET6000 based 2d card cooupled to a 3dfx Voodoo 3d card. Jeremy Hall Gaming Enthusiast ========================================================================== ANOTHER: On 6 Dec 1996 14:29:15 GMT, colas@aye.inria.fr (Colas Nahaboo) blah blahed: > >Well, PC Format has a review of more than ten 3D graphic cards, and scored >the Orchid Righteous 3D nearly at last position (I think in the 60 % >mark), under some Virge cards. The monster was better marked (~70%), top >honors went to the Velocity Virge, matrox mystique and power VR. >Strange part is that the editor said: if you must buy a card now, buy a >3dfx... go figure. >This seems to confirm (I am a subsciber of PC Format), that their game >reviews are quite good, but their hardware reviews are the worst of the >business... ============================================================================= ANOTHER: On Thu, 05 Dec 1996 23:58:40 GMT, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video you wrote: >I ve just finished reading PcFormat (UK) reviews of the Monster 3d and >Righteous 3D. The reviewer rates :66% R3d and 76%M3D. >The creative blaster card is rated 92% and Videologic Apocalypse 3D a >whooping 95% >Ive just ordered a M3d and from what i read in this newsgroup it >should be an excellent choice. Am i wrong or the PcFormat's reviewer >is a total moron? >If somebody is interested in the reviews i can scan them and post them > >or send them by e-mail to whoever is interested. >Please let me know your opinions on this matter >E-mail: dona@risorsei.it ============================================================================= ANOTHER: (REPLY TO ABOVE:) In article <588r8e$bog@lana.zippo.com>, Blob wrote: >In article <587nfs$ck8@server-b.cs.interbusiness.it>, >>>in reply to article from dona@risorsei.it) >>> >>>Ive just ordered a M3d and from what i read in this newsgroup it >>>should be an excellent choice. Am i wrong or the PcFormat's reviewer >>>is a total moron? >IMHO he is a total moron. >He claims that the 3dfx cards work in 'overlay' mode. They dont. >He winges on about the 'clicking' on the Orchid board so scores the >Monster 10% higher! Infact, the Righteous uses hardware relays to >switch signal sources (i.e between itself and the other card)so >greatly improving pass-through quality! He complains about the >reboots when swithcing modes - I have a Righteos card in a 2 year >old P90 with a PCI 2.0 bus and it's not even TRiton I - no probs >at all. I don't think he mentions that the 3dfx card will run upto >800x600 if the software supports it - not that you notice it much >due to the excellent bi-linear filtering which the card suppors. >How can you use words like 'Kludgy' and 'Flakey' for this card! > >He ignores the fact that the 3dfx based cards are nearly TWICE AS FAST >(see PCW January 1997 for some honest numbers) as the other - only >the PowerVr comming close (but not that close). > >Only a brief mention is given to the games available to run on these >cards. Show me TombRaider on a PowerVR card (and I dont mean in 1997). > >PC Format has, in the past, show that it can carry out reviews with >a level of knowledge and competence needed in the PC arena. I expect >to read a review like this in PC-Gamer (sorry pc-gamer). > >Please PC-Format, carry out an in-depth review of these cards, not some >hastilly thrown together ramblings. Instead of telling your readers that >clicking is a bad thing tell them it is a GOOD thing! Get you facts right >about resolutions! Compare image quality across cards, compare SPEED! >They should all run Direct 3D games (e.g. Monster Truck madness) so >COMPARE them. ============================================================================= ANOTHER: (REPLY TO ABOVE:) From: snun@voicenet.com (Steve Nunn) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video Subject: Re: R3D and Monster3D reviews - PC Format goes insane. Date: Fri, 06 Dec 96 23:39:16 GMT >clicking is a bad thing tell them it is a GOOD thing! Get you facts right >about resolutions! Compare image quality across cards, compare SPEED! >They should all run Direct 3D games (e.g. Monster Truck madness) so >COMPARE them. Yeah!! What he said! Amen bro. ============================================================================= ANOTHER: On 7 Dec 1996 00:58:37 GMT, "Charles A. Morris" said: > >> Orchid Righteous 3D >> If only it were cheaper ,supported gamepads and worked the way it >> should work... >> PCF rating 66% > >Um, sorry but what do you mean it doesn't support gamepads! I'm currently >playing the 3dfx version of Tomb Raider with the OR3D and I'm using a >gamepad, the Microsoft SideWinder to be exact. And, I might add, that the >OR3D is IMHO is working "the way it should". Which, BTW, is great. :) > >Lynda (using Charles Morris' account probably ;) ) ============================================================================= ANOTHER: On Mon, 09 Dec 1996 13:34:10 GMT, Timothy_M_Holmes@sbphrd.com (Tim Holmes) said: >Not only did they get the pictures the wrong way round in the review >they used the same picture of the 3DB in their competition for a free >Apocalypse card elsewhere in the mag. > >Tim. ============================================================================= ANOTHER: From: "Andy McEvoy" Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video Subject: Re: R3D vs PowerVR - What's the score? re: PC Format reviews Date: 7 Dec 1996 01:48:55 GMT Have you read the reviews in Edge and PC Gamer? Both of these give a much more balanced viewpoint, and in fact PC Gamer rates the R3D higher than the PVR - funny that all three magazines come from the same publishers. Anyway, I wouldn't read too much into that review - you were happy with your card before you read it, after all. ============================================================================= ANOTHER: From: Robbie Diehl Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video Subject: Re: 3D Reviewed Voodoo - Verite - PC Format (LAME REVIEW) Date: Sun, 08 Dec 1996 11:22:58 -0500 This review is a load of shit. Ignore it. First of all, the 3dfx click isn't "loud". It sounds about like clicking ballpoint pen. Second, rebooting? Uhh, never had a problem with that here, and I have had mine for 2 months. NEVER had my system reboot. Third, supported GAME PADS? What the hell? I play Whiplash with a gamepad. Unless they are talking about supporting a gamepad by having a controller port on the back of it, but when is the last time you ever saw a video card with a gamepad controller port on the back (why the hell would you want one there anyway?). Fourth, what exactly does "worked the way it should" mean? It accelerates 3-D and it does it damned well on my machine. Fifth, what does the number of chips it uses have anything to do with its longevity? From what I hear, it is one of the easiest chipsets to port games because of its good development kit! Is there any other reason why having 2 chips is worse than having 1? No. Sixth, a "kludge" ?????????? To me, the PowerVR seems more of a kludge to me! Why would you want to pass all that video over the PCI bus when you dont have to, and the major market for these boards is for games, where windowed acceleration is not an issue? These people obviously are lame. Seventh, the 3-D Blaster's "greatness" is well depicted in this newsgroup. It is good, but not as fast as the Righteous 3D. They treat it like it is the God of acceleration, which it isn't (none of the cards are). ============================================================================= So only *I* posted eh? This took me just 5 minutes to find these. In all the posts I saw at the time, no-one (that's no-one) came to PCF's defence and said 'no no your all talking crap' because.. because these people here are right and have FACTS to back them up. =============================================================================