The Voodoo 3 is faster.

Period correct benchmarks can be found on Anandtech.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-05-10, 20:43:

The Voodoo 3 is faster.

Period correct benchmarks can be found on Anandtech.

thank you!

On average, both graphics cards are equally fast. The TNT2 M64 has advantages in DOS, but uses more conventional memory. The TNT2 has MPEG2 acceleration, the Voodoo 3 doesn't really. On the other hand, the Voodoo is faster with DirecetDraw, but this only affects a few games. The decision is still easy ,because the Voodoo 3 supports glide.

They are not equally fast. The TNT2 M64 performs like a TNT most of the time, though it can surpass it at lower resolutions such as 640x480. It is severely bandwidth limited due to the 64bit bus.
As a reminder, the Voodoo 2 was the contemporary to the TNT.

Voodoo 3 matches the performance of a Voodoo2 SLI setup on the 2000 model and 3000 & 3500 are a bit faster. Stuttering and thrashing which can plague Voodoo 2 are also gone, thanks to unified memory. Voodoo 3 trades blows with the TNT2 cards, not TNT2 M64.

Demolition-Man wrote on 2024-05-10, 21:18:

The TNT2 has MPEG2 acceleration

only marketing wise :] It has "Hardware color space conversion" just like Voodoo3. gf256 added motion compensation, and only 2002 GeForce4 MX added iDCT. By 2002 even a potato cpu could flawlessly decode DVD in software.

I recently tested the two cards against each other, but the PCI variants. Compared to the Voodoo 3, the DVD player on the TNT M64 at least started with hardware acceleration. But not much came out of it, that's true.
So i still would prefer the Voodoo 3.^^

"Better" is about more than just raw speed.

Voodoo3 cards were manufactured by 3Dfx after taking over STB, and they were manufactured well. In particular the analog components/filters were good, resulting in a sharp, clear and vibrant image.

TNT2-M64 cards were made by a number of companies, but were usually low-end options, as high-end buyers bought the TNT2, TNT2 Pro and TNT2 Ultra. So a lot of those manufacturers cut corners when it came to quality of design and components, leading to fuzzy output and blander colours, particularly at higher resolutions. The best TNT2-M64 cards were probably on par with a V3, but the worst were downright terrible. You don't specifiy exactly which TNT2-M64 cards you have, but odds are their analog output will be worse than a V3.