Techworks PowerMac 8600/300 Power3D Reviewed by: Jonathan Dreyer, MGA Editor In Chief The Power3D is the first all-gaming 3D accelerator available for the Mac. This card is based on the popular 3Dfx Voodoo chip set which has been all the rage on the PC for a while now. The Power3D provides full-screen 3D acceleration (ONLY full screen, i.e. no 3D in a window) and support for 16 bit color all in one 7 inch PCI slot. The Power3D comes bundled with some great games also, Quake Episode 1 (3Dfx accelerated), MechWarrior 2 (RAVE), VR Soccer (3Dfx), and Weekend Warrior (3Dfx). As you may have guessed, the Power 3D supports both native 3Dfx games and Quickdraw 3D RAVE games. Techworks' listed requirements for the Power3D are: a MacOS PowerPC with at least one available PCI expansion slot, 32mb RAM, and a 640*480 multi-sync monitor. One Note: 32mb of RAM is just not enough! You need at least 48mb, that's the absolute minimum! There is a rather nasty bug with the Power3D. The Power3D operates using a pass-thru cable to your OWN 2D video, be it built-in internal or another PCI card, well the pass-thru cable when used with some Apple monitors will not allow you to use some Apple-Only resolutions, it will only let you use VGA specific resolutions like 800*600. The Games The Power3D comes bundled with some pretty cool games. The most impressive game is Quake, they only included a non-networked version of the first episode but, the first episode is good enough. Once you play 3Dfx native Quake, you can NEVER go back to plain old software Quake again. With 3Dfx Quake you get picture perfect graphics, smoke, translucent water, and NO jaggies at all. 3Dfx Quake is a thing of beauty, I will never play Quake without my Power3D again! MechWarrior 2 is the only RAVE accelerated game included with the Power3D. The speed at which this game runs is a testament to the Power3D's speed. Running MechWarrior with the Power3D and and a ATI Xclaim VR, there is no difference is speed. I bought MechWarrior when it first came out and found the graphics too dull, the RAVE version definitely fixes that, the graphics are smooth and I didn't experience any slow downs at all, even when standing in the middle of huge fire-fights with 8 other Mechs. Weekend Warrior is the game show game brought to you by Pangea software, originally this game was RAVE enhanced and was even bundled with some PowerMac 6500, the 3Dfx port was done very well. I had the chance to run both the RAVE and 3Dfx versions of Weekend Warrior and found the Power3D version to be superior. The only problem I found with Weekend Warrior is that it's not really a game, I thought of it as more of a technological showcase than game. VR Soccer was renamed for North American's, it was originally called Acuta Soccer and was scheduled to be released by MacPlay in North America, that was until MacPlay's bloody spring where they canceled all but 2 of their fore coming titles. At first, I thought VR Soccer was just another techno showcase like Weekend Warrior. That was until I really started playing it, VR Soccer is a well done game with outstanding graphics and excellent gameplay. For screenshots of these and other 3D accelerated games, visit our 3D Gaming section Quake Setup: Pixel Doubled to 640 by 480 (Software) 640 by 480 (Software) 3Dfx Accelerated Frames Per Second: 37 fps 16.9 fps 37 fps Conclusion and Other... In conclusion, The Power3D is definitely a wonderful GAMING add-on. As I stated earlier, the Power3D can only do 3D acceleration in full screen, therefore you can't use any 3D graphics programs with it. The closest Mac competitor is ATI's Xclaim VR using the Rage Pro chipset, the Xclaim only do RAVE accelerated games but can do 3D in windows. More and more 3D accelerated games are coming out all the time now and I believe that 3D acceleration will become the norm in the Macintosh gaming world. So to end, if you're a serious gamer, go for the Power3D! Other Resources for 3D Gaming You can check out the MGA's own 3D Gaming section here or: You can go here for a complete list of 3D accelerated games