Guillemot was kind enough to ship me one of their early production run boards this week, and I was curious enough about the Banshee chip to waste no time in installing and testing this hot video product. Pretty impressive! Janes f15 went from max 25 fps on my Metabyte Wicked-2 (12 meg) to 40 fps! Listen up and I'll tell the whole tale.

Test System:

• PII 300, ASUS P2L97 512K
• 96 meg SDRam
• Toshiba 24x CD
• Colorado T1000
• Metabyte Wicked3d-2
• Iomega ZIP
• TM Montego
• PDPI L4
• TM HOTAS
• Quickshot Masterpilot

Something of a hybrid, the Banshee might pass almost unnoticed if it weren't for four factors: 1) it supports 16 meg of onboard RAM and will exceed the old 3dfx limitation of 1024x768 resolution; 2) its a 2d/3d single board solution with a 128 bit 2d engine; 3) its faster than a single Voodoo2 board by an average of 20%; 4) pricing will be UNDER $100 US! Sorry, no AGP yet.

WHAT? Faster than a single V2, higher resolution, and less money? Nothing is crazier than computer hardware. Not long ago we told you about the new Celeron A, the best CPU buy ever. Now here is the same phenomenon in video hardware.

Getting Set for Banshee

Installation of Voodoo 2 boards in general is a snap. However, that isn't always the case when installing one Voodoo2 board over another, and Banshee is a variety of V2. I followed instructions by de-installing my Metabyte board first, and then just shut down WIN98 and tore out both my STBV4400 as well as the Metabyte Wicked 2.

On reboot I was in 640x480, which makes a royal mess of my twisted but logical desktop. No matter, I simply selected Display Properties and chose the Advanced Mode and Change Display. I was off and installing new drivers a second later, then chose Restart and rebooted back into WIN98.

Guillemot has taken the unusual step of actually providing an installation guide in the form of a short manual. Since this is not an ADD-ON card but replaces your main display card it was a wise move.

The board itself is very compact. You would never guess this was a high powered 2d/3d board. Like the TNT based boards its much shorter than the 12 meg V2 incarnations, yet sports a full 16 meg of SGRam. Yes, that is SGRAM not the typical SDRAM. This memory is about 20% faster, and it shows. A metallic green heat sink graces the single accelerator chip.

The Phoenix is a screamer. My first attempt was Falcon 4, I was still hoping that Banshee would match TNT's speed under Glide. Unfortunately, Banshee didn't like something about the F4 alpha and I couldn't do a compare. Ditto with Microsoft Combat Flight Sim. This leads me to believe that the drivers supplied are DX5 compatible but not ready for DX6.

Total Air War

Next I tried Total Air War. TAW fired up immediately, and immediately I could see that something NEW had arrived in town. Wow. The speed increase and smoothness were quite noticeable, especially in thick clouds. Amazing. I would estimate a 30% increase in speed at 800x600 under Glide, but it could be higher.

Click to continue . . .

Hmm. This was getting interesting! I then fired up Janes F15 and chose SINGLE mission, CHEMIRAQ. I left my default settings unchanged, with max detail and expert flight model. The numbers on my Metabyte board were 20 on the runway with AB full on and brake set, 25 at 200 knots before pulling the nose up, and 25 when airborne just after bringing up the gear.

Janes F15

The numbers on Banshee were 21.5 sitting on the runway with full AB, 38 at 200 knots before pulling the nose up, and 40 when airborne just after bringing up the gear. WOW! I checked to see if I was still breathing...

Now, everyone knows that more memory is better, and that faster memory can make a slight difference in frame rate, but obviously a lot more is happening here. In fact, when I pulled the Phoenix out of its slot to replace my other video boards, I was as impressed with the heat it was generating as its performance. This thing runs hot; even the PCB board was almost too hot to touch.

Not that surprising, since Banshee runs at 100MHz compared to the 90-95 MHz standard for the Voodoo2 chipset. I wish I could have run F4 on this board, but it will have to wait for the beta or a driver update for the Phoenix which should be any day now.

The best V2 speed I have managed in the F4 alpha was running under Glide at 800x600. But TNT beat my 12 meg V2 board by 30%. I have a feeling that Banshee will even that score. However, the new generation of V2 boards arriving this month will also have a new memory technology and may come closer to Banshee in performance.

SUMMARY

Another key improvement in Banshee is that it adds a full 24-bit floating point color pipeline, offering substantial image improvement over Voodoo2. However, I need a good current D3d simulation before I draw any conclusions here. It's at least possible that Banshee will come closer to the image quality of the new D3d boards. Stay tuned and we'll post the info as soon as we can test.

In the meantime, for under $100 US, this board will obviously redefine entry level graphics performance on PII machines. Unfortunately, there is no TV out on the Maxi Gamer Phoenix, but perhaps we'll see this on the AGP version which should arrive in a month or so. (Note however that the AGP version doesn't add advanced AGP features, it only frees up a PCI slot).

I'm a bit concerned about the heat generated by this board. I suspect that those with cases lacking extra cooling may run into problems and I would recommend adding a cooling fan on or near the heat sink.

If you are an F15 nut but have not yet invested in 3dfx hardware, Banshee is your destiny. You WILL buy one! If you've been flying F15 on 1st generation 3dfx hardware on a PII system, this board will be your answer. If you've been spending sleepless nights awaiting TAW and need 3dfx power, here it is!

The Maxi Gamer Phoenix is a fantastic entry into the 3d hardware scene. With 2d/3d integration, and complete D3d, Glide and OpenGL support on one board, the Phoenix is a screaming single board gaming solution.

For reviews of most of the major 3d accelerator boards, see the links on our Video Hardware page. Watch for a review of Metabyte's Banshee based "Vengeance" early next week!