Tuncer Deniz and Jason Sims attended the official 3dfx press conference on the 18th. They learned several things of interest to Mac gamers. The Voodoo5 5500 PCI will be available for purchase at the end of July, while the single-chip Voodoo 4 4500 will be ready at the end of August.

One of the major items of interest was the 3dfx MacTools control panel, which is used to configure and update these cards. It has the ability to auto-update over the Internet, making for very fast updates, and can even re-flash the ROM on a card. This panel will also allow you to enable and disable FSAA and set the default bit depth, presumably, and perhaps tweak the gamma.

Most important for G4 owners, 3dfx hinted that they may make a flashing utility that will allow Mac users to use the AGP Voodoo5 5500 card; this may be their solution, rather than risking the failure of a Mac-specific AGP model for retail. As there is still no word on DVD playback support, there will most likely be few who will be willing to part with their stock ATI cards for now, but such a ROM flashing utility would allow hardcore gamers to enjoy the small speed boost offered by Apple's 2X AGP slot on Sawtooth motherboard G4s. Stay tuned for more details on 3dfx's huge presence at the expo, and follow the link below to see images from the press conference.

Images From 3dfx Press Conference

Mac Voodoo5 Screen Shots

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