So, when my Voodoo 3 went bad awhile ago, my dad handed me an ATI Rage Pro Turbo (AGP).
Thing is, when I got a V3 1000 later... for some reason it felt like some graphics (particularly 2D ones) looked sharper with the Pro Turbo than the V3. Of course the Rage Pro Turbo can't do Glide, but is it actually better for older MS-DOS or non-3D-accelerated games? Or am I imagining that?
It would surprise me.
2D graphics quality is mainly a combination of RAMDAC output and analog filter quality. ATi's in-house cards generally had very competent examples of both, but STB's efforts with the Voodoo3-series were considered extremely good, second only to perhaps contemporary Matrox cards. As with all other things analog, there's room for subjective perception/preference, but assuming both cards are in good condition and working normally, I'd expect the V3-1000 to win in 2D picture quality as well, although not by a massive margin - for really crap 2D quality in the same era, go to no-name el-cheapo cards with S3 or SiS chipsets.
I'd say it should at least be good at 2D Windows games and most DOS games. A few DOS games don't play well with ATI and Matrox cards, but those problematic games are mainly older EGA side scrollers that should still work on hardware that's older than what you'll be using this card in. It should work fine for most VGA/SVGA DOS games that you're most likely to play on a machine of its era.
The 3D performance is arguably lacking in comparison with newer cards, most people say the 3D performance of a Rage Pro Turbo is roughly equivalent to a Voodoo1. At least it has support for the proprietary ATICIF API which is supported in some 3D Windows games from the 1995-97 era (Tomb Raider is the one game that comes to mind).
