October 7th, 1999

[4:45 PM] Mac Optimized Voodoo 3 Card (EvilEye) Now Expected To Ship In October The good people at MacTell have told The Mac Observer that the EvilEye Voodoo 3 card is now expected to ship later this month. EvilEye is a MacTell branded 3D card based on 3dfx's Voodoo 3 technology. It is also the only Voodoo 3 card that is shipping with Mac optimized drivers. According to Greg Snyder, VP Marketing and Corporate Communications at MacTell: Mactell is shipping EvilEye by the end of October. The shipping date was moved from the original September date in order to ensure full native OpenGL support and bring the greatest value to our customers. EvilEye will now ship with full native OpenGL, Rave, and Glide support for the Macintosh. Sources close to MacTell have told us that the Mac optimization has resulted in some incredible performance, though the company will not comment on EvilEye performance. While 3dfx has released generic drivers that allow Mac users to enjoy PC versions of Voodoo 3, MacTell has been working hard to optimize their card for the Mac. This should allow Mac users to enjoy performance that meets or exceeds that of our PC game playing brethren. The Mac Observer Spin: This is an exciting product to come to the Mac. That said: <RANT> Driver development is a miserable and boring proposition by all accounts. Most efforts by Mac companies to develop optimized Mac drivers for Voodoo cards has been met with indifference from Mac consumers. In fact, in most cases, Mac users have done our market the grave disservice of downloading Mac drivers from a Mac company while buying a PC card. They then complain because there are not enough Mac companies bringing cool cards to the Mac. The Mac Observer has been crusading to make consumers aware that it costs a lot of money to develop the optimized performance demanded by users. In the PC world, that cost is spread out among the legions of users who game on the PC platform and the cost of PC cards is that much lower. In the Mac world, companies simply have fewer people to sell to meaning they have to recoup costs by selling at a higher price. MacTell has already said that they intend to release EvilEye at a price point that is comparable to PC branded cards, which is great. Hopefully Mac gamers will not be as short sighted as they have been in years past and opt to pay for the optimized performance that EvilEye should be delivering. This goes for any other product brought to the Mac as well. </RANT> MacTell