Why did 3dfx Voodoo vid card maker die ?

Mojo

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Hi guy


Now that I may look at buying nForce4 SLI. Lets go back in time to my
first big 3D card buy.........3dfx Voodoo2. I bought two to use for
SLI, and they was not cheap back then. These voodoo rocked. The best
and fastest on the market. How can a company go from being Number #
1 to out of business in just a few years. ? ANYONE remember the
history of 3dfx and what happened to them.



Still have my Voodoo2 SLI in my PC just for the hell of
it...................................... Funny how low it benchmarks
now...................hehehheheheh


Thanks
 
G

Guest

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"Mojo" <mojo@juno.com> wrote in message
news:sll9q0dlasmqqbv474t3l57ivp6h8eac7q@4ax.com...
> Hi guy
>
>
> Now that I may look at buying nForce4 SLI. Lets go back in time to my
> first big 3D card buy.........3dfx Voodoo2. I bought two to use for
> SLI, and they was not cheap back then. These voodoo rocked. The best
> and fastest on the market. How can a company go from being Number #
> 1 to out of business in just a few years. ? ANYONE remember the
> history of 3dfx and what happened to them.
>
>
>
> Still have my Voodoo2 SLI in my PC just for the hell of
> it...................................... Funny how low it benchmarks
> now...................hehehheheheh
>
>
> Thanks
>
nVidia bought 3D FX several years ago.

Joe
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

Mojo adjusted his/her tin foil beanie and asbestos underwear to write:

> Hi guy
>
>
> Now that I may look at buying nForce4 SLI. Lets go back in time to my
> first big 3D card buy.........3dfx Voodoo2. I bought two to use for
> SLI, and they was not cheap back then. These voodoo rocked. The best
> and fastest on the market. How can a company go from being Number #
> 1 to out of business in just a few years. ? ANYONE remember the
> history of 3dfx and what happened to them.

I have still got a boxed 32 meg AGP Oxygen card never been used and a
couple of other Vodoos that are still in servers. If I could find the
DVI adapter for my V3 3500 TV AGP version I would have that working as
well but alas I think it went when I moved house ( anyone in the UK got
a spare? )

--
Mark
Illegitimi Non Carborundum!
Twixt hill and high water, N.Wales, UK
onfxvgpnvfr-ng-tzk-qbg-pb-hx
 

Mike

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>
>"Mojo" <mojo@juno.com> wrote in message
>news:sll9q0dlasmqqbv474t3l57ivp6h8eac7q@4ax.com...
>> Hi guy
>>
>>
>> Now that I may look at buying nForce4 SLI. Lets go back in time to my
>> first big 3D card buy.........3dfx Voodoo2. I bought two to use for
>> SLI, and they was not cheap back then. These voodoo rocked. The best
>> and fastest on the market. How can a company go from being Number #
>> 1 to out of business in just a few years. ? ANYONE remember the
>> history of 3dfx and what happened to them.
>>
>>
>>
>> Still have my Voodoo2 SLI in my PC just for the hell of
>> it...................................... Funny how low it benchmarks
>> now...................hehehheheheh
>>
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>nVidia bought 3D FX several years ago.
>
>Joe
>

I had all their cards right through to their ill-fated 5 series (they skipped
the 4) wasted a fortune over the years, I remember paying £292 for one of the
first Voodoo 2 cards, and like the other poster... I added a second later so I
could run in SLI mode for a little extra speed.. ehehehe

Then switched to the Geforce cards right through to the crop duster and then to
the ATI 9800 Pro and only last week switched again to the 6800 GT.

As I said.. a fortune. ;-))) But when you get to my age you have to have yer
toys... well there's nothing else.. is there?...sad old git.. :-((

Mike
 

Tim

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"Mike" <dy73ui39aHe5@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:hkn9q0hcfrh3tm8avcv7k80lvntmivid6h@4ax.com...
> >
>
> Then switched to the Geforce cards right through to the crop duster
>

crop duster?

>
> ... when you get to my age you have to have yer toys...
>

And compared to a Porsche they're a steal (unless you also have Porsche
payments).
 

unkn2232324

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3Dfx had quite a few problems:

* Voodoo 3000 ish series, while being the first 3Dfx all in one GPU (banshee
was a 2D chip + 3d Chip .. ugh), didn't have much over V2SLI, if at all?
* Concentrating on its proprietry Glide while providing much poorer Direct X
support (not full OpenGL support either, only a miniport driver?)
* Buying STB (?) and trying to get into the big OEM market, making their own
graphics cards.
* R&D developement team which stalled progress with the voodoo 3000 line,
and had massive delays with is Voodoo 4/5 series of cards (Which
incidentally were it first 32bit 3D graphics cards).
* It also bought some other small startup graphics technology company in the
meantime (I forget the name, but BitBoys springs to mind for some reason) -
which would only have slowed down its product development even more.
* 3Dfx made the decision to go for multi-GPU boards, instead of the nVidia
(and others) all in one GPU solution - making 3Dfx boards larger, hungrier
and more expensive.
* The Voodoo 5 series was too late, too slow, too expensive and not feature
rich enough.

nVidia seems to have a fantastic R&D team ... and whilst not perfect their
aggressive 6 month product cycle, with range of high end to budget chips and
solid drivers, allowed them to become #1. They challenged slightly with Riva
128, basically caught up with the TNT, went ahead with the TNT2 line, and
slaughtered them with the GeForce. 3Dfx made some bad decisions and sat on
its existing technology (and name) too long.

Probably a lot of gaps in my history here :)
 

chip

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"Mojo" <mojo@juno.com> wrote in message
news:sll9q0dlasmqqbv474t3l57ivp6h8eac7q@4ax.com...
> Hi guy
>
>
> Now that I may look at buying nForce4 SLI. Lets go back in time to my
> first big 3D card buy.........3dfx Voodoo2. I bought two to use for
> SLI, and they was not cheap back then. These voodoo rocked. The best
> and fastest on the market. How can a company go from being Number #
> 1 to out of business in just a few years. ? ANYONE remember the
> history of 3dfx and what happened to them.

Simple. They got too greedy. Instead of producing IP and letting others
share their success (Diamond, Orchid etc) they decided they wanted to have
it all, and to only produce the cards themselves, thereby squeezing out all
their partners. There were other issues too (16-bit color limitations and
other stuff), but their stupid marketing strategy was the final nail in
their coffin.

Chip
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

"G" <i.have.too@much.spam.com> wrote in message
news:Xx6pd.47343$K7.34343@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>
> Probably a lot of gaps in my history here :)


Not bad, but don't forget Microsoft pumped huge revenues into nVidia, and
not 3dFX, giving unstoppable momentum to a company already on the move.

This influx of cash gave nvidia the resources to hire engineers (they
eventually hired most of the 3dfx engineers, to their GeForceFX dismay).

The inside info from Microsoft gave them an inside track to DirectX
optimizations, not to mention cross platform ovelap with Xbox development,
two more advantages.
 
G

Guest

Guest
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"Mojo" <mojo@juno.com> wrote in message
news:sll9q0dlasmqqbv474t3l57ivp6h8eac7q@4ax.com...
> Hi guy
>
>
> Now that I may look at buying nForce4 SLI. Lets go back in time to my
> first big 3D card buy.........3dfx Voodoo2. I bought two to use for
> SLI, and they was not cheap back then. These voodoo rocked. The best
> and fastest on the market. How can a company go from being Number #
> 1 to out of business in just a few years. ? ANYONE remember the
> history of 3dfx and what happened to them.

They quit making video cards and now make disk labels and USB memory dongles
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

"Chip" <anneonymouse@virgin.net> wrote in message
news:30kbjgF31gm03U1@uni-berlin.de...
>
> "Mojo" <mojo@juno.com> wrote in message
> news:sll9q0dlasmqqbv474t3l57ivp6h8eac7q@4ax.com...
> > Hi guy
> >
> >
> > Now that I may look at buying nForce4 SLI. Lets go back in time to my
> > first big 3D card buy.........3dfx Voodoo2. I bought two to use for
> > SLI, and they was not cheap back then. These voodoo rocked. The best
> > and fastest on the market. How can a company go from being Number #
> > 1 to out of business in just a few years. ? ANYONE remember the
> > history of 3dfx and what happened to them.
>
> Simple. They got too greedy. Instead of producing IP and letting others
> share their success (Diamond, Orchid etc) they decided they wanted to have
> it all, and to only produce the cards themselves, thereby squeezing out
all
> their partners. There were other issues too (16-bit color limitations
and
> other stuff), but their stupid marketing strategy was the final nail in
> their coffin.
>
> Chip


Not a question of being "too greedy", 80% of the market is OEM sales, buying
STB would have been a great idea had they gotten that which at the time ATI
owned
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

Dont forget that the Voodoo range only accelerated 16bit colour at huge
frame rates and Nvidia was pushing 32bit colour at good frame rates. So a
lot of people myself included went with quality of graphics over speed and
jumped camp.

Nathan


"G" <i.have.too@much.spam.com> wrote in message
news:Xx6pd.47343$K7.34343@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>
> 3Dfx had quite a few problems:
>
> * Voodoo 3000 ish series, while being the first 3Dfx all in one GPU
> (banshee was a 2D chip + 3d Chip .. ugh), didn't have much over V2SLI, if
> at all?
> * Concentrating on its proprietry Glide while providing much poorer Direct
> X support (not full OpenGL support either, only a miniport driver?)
> * Buying STB (?) and trying to get into the big OEM market, making their
> own graphics cards.
> * R&D developement team which stalled progress with the voodoo 3000 line,
> and had massive delays with is Voodoo 4/5 series of cards (Which
> incidentally were it first 32bit 3D graphics cards).
> * It also bought some other small startup graphics technology company in
> the meantime (I forget the name, but BitBoys springs to mind for some
> reason) - which would only have slowed down its product development even
> more.
> * 3Dfx made the decision to go for multi-GPU boards, instead of the nVidia
> (and others) all in one GPU solution - making 3Dfx boards larger, hungrier
> and more expensive.
> * The Voodoo 5 series was too late, too slow, too expensive and not
> feature rich enough.
>
> nVidia seems to have a fantastic R&D team ... and whilst not perfect their
> aggressive 6 month product cycle, with range of high end to budget chips
> and solid drivers, allowed them to become #1. They challenged slightly
> with Riva 128, basically caught up with the TNT, went ahead with the TNT2
> line, and slaughtered them with the GeForce. 3Dfx made some bad decisions
> and sat on its existing technology (and name) too long.
>
> Probably a lot of gaps in my history here :)
>
 

Tim

Distinguished
Mar 31, 2004
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0
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"Friendly Guru" <someone@microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:rLSdnW5OA4r63jjcRVn-gQ@comcast.com...
>
>
> (they eventually hired most of the 3dfx engineers, to their GeForceFX
> dismay).
>

You're blaming the shortcomings of the GeForce FX line on former 3dfx
engineers?
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

"Tim" <argybargy@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:30mdt0F31v9hhU1@uni-berlin.de...
>
> "Friendly Guru" <someone@microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:rLSdnW5OA4r63jjcRVn-gQ@comcast.com...
> >
> >
> > (they eventually hired most of the 3dfx engineers, to their GeForceFX
> > dismay).
> >
>
> You're blaming the shortcomings of the GeForce FX line on former 3dfx
> engineers?

Yes, it was they who designed and created it. nVidia has three teams that
work independantly of each other, the team that created the FX line were
ex-3dfx employees. Hence, the name.

Since that time, those engineers have been redistributed to the other teams
and now only two teams remain, this has all been explained in many 'behind
the scene' stories, shareholder meetings, online tours, etc.
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

"Friendly Guru" <someone@microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:6ZCdna3oaJU8lTvcRVn-3g@comcast.com...
>
> "Tim" <argybargy@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:30mdt0F31v9hhU1@uni-berlin.de...
> >
> > "Friendly Guru" <someone@microsoft.com> wrote in message
> > news:rLSdnW5OA4r63jjcRVn-gQ@comcast.com...
> > >
> > >
> > > (they eventually hired most of the 3dfx engineers, to their GeForceFX
> > > dismay).
> > >
> >
> > You're blaming the shortcomings of the GeForce FX line on former 3dfx
> > engineers?
>
> Yes, it was they who designed and created it. nVidia has three teams that
> work independantly of each other, the team that created the FX line were
> ex-3dfx employees. Hence, the name.
>
> Since that time, those engineers have been redistributed to the other
teams
> and now only two teams remain, this has all been explained in many 'behind
> the scene' stories, shareholder meetings, online tours, etc.

There was nothing wrong with the FX series had it been released on time,
since it wasn't by the time they did release it the card wasn't as fast as
what ATI had and Nvidia more than made up with it by releasing faster cards
from the same chip family later
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia,alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video (More info?)

"Mojo" <mojo@juno.com> wrote in message
news:0mubq059b003322u0t41ied11a46hd166r@4ax.com...
> Thank you guys for the history lesson

Please, if you're gonna crosspost, do it right...that way everyone in every
group you've crossposted it to individually can see responses without
posting the same response to different groups. I would say that in this
instance, crossposting is somewhat acceptable, although what this has to do
with the ATI forum is anyone's guess...

Go to www.3dfxzone.it for good Voodoo stuff, Mesa GL, and more current
drivers...the company might have passed on, but driver development is still
alive and kicking...