Any future for3dFX cards?

  • Thread starter Thread starter John
  • Start date Start date
J

John

they didnt make some wise decisions, like sticking with 16 bit low res
cards ~ still awesome cards with Unreal, have a few myself, not for sale.
Buy some vintage 1998-2000 games for $5 each and have a blast ~
 
Serious comments only....I have a half of dozen of em. They used to be the
cream of the crop...what happened?
 
They sold out to NVIDIA. They sold lock, stock and barrow. As far as I
understand, NVIDIA then incorporated 3dfx's AA into the GForce2 cards and
that was the legacy of 3dfx.
 
Not really. 3 or 4 years ago they were pretty good, too anemic to use
nowadays though and driver support is dead.

They lost the graphics war to Nvidia who, instead of supporting all
those users, bought the company and shelved the technology effectively
orphaning all the owners.
 
Yeah....I always thought they were powerful enough to go on forever. I
remember my amazement at the Orchid Righteous 3d. Nothing has impacted me
as much as that debut. I'll keep em for my legacy systems so I can play
thenolder games in all their 3dfx glory.....sniff....sniff.....
 
3dfx started out as a graphics chip company, like nVidia is today. 3dfx sold
no retail products.

They thought they'd become more profitable if they went vertical, so they
bought the graphics card maker STB and started selling graphics cards
directly, mostly cutting of their card maker customers. (3dfx claimed that
the various companies selling cards based on their products were competing
mainly on price, so that it was hurting the profitability of 3dfx itself.)
The business strategy failed.

3dfx also seemed to have technology problems. Their final products relied on
multi-chip configurations to get high performance, and I expect that may
have cost too much to make. nVidia's products overtook them.

3dfx went out of business. nVidia bought some of their assets, but they
didn't buy the company as such. Support for 3dfx cards ended when the lights
went out.

(Either that, or the threat of a Bitboys product frightened them out of
existence.)

I have an Orchid Righteous 3d (Voodoo I card) in a box in the basement. I
hope that if I keep it long enough, it'll be worth a small fortune. ;-)

HTH.

Bob Knowlden

Address may be altered to avoid spam. Replace nkbob with bobkn.
 
Joe said:
Serious comments only....I have a half of dozen of em. They used to be the
cream of the crop...what happened?
Click to expand...
You can still use them for web browsing and word processing if you can
find a driver for your current operating system.

Mike.
 
directly, mostly cutting of their card maker customers. (3dfx claimed that
the various companies selling cards based on their products were competing
mainly on price, so that it was hurting the profitability of 3dfx itself.)
Click to expand...

Like Intel and Microsoft?
The brilliant minds at 3DFX.
 
Not my Voodoo 2, 8 meg.

Just 3d.

Paid 400 bucks for it.

And i don't think i used it much ):

All i need is a XP driver and Pry to my Pagan Gods to get it to work
:)

Bye.
 
mike said:
Not really. 3 or 4 years ago they were pretty good, too anemic to use
nowadays though and driver support is dead.

They lost the graphics war to Nvidia who, instead of supporting all
those users, bought the company and shelved the technology effectively
orphaning all the owners.
Click to expand...

well what would you expect from cut throat business! The final irony is
really that in one takeover, they managed to make all their rivals customers
into new sales for themselves.
 
We Live For The One We Die For The One said:
Not my Voodoo 2, 8 meg.

Just 3d.

Paid 400 bucks for it.

And i don't think i used it much ):

All i need is a XP driver and Pry to my Pagan Gods to get it to work
:)

Bye.
Click to expand...

AFAIA you can still use your Voodoo 2 card. Just install it and connect the
pass through cable to your primary graphic card and then download drivers
from http://www.voodoofiles.com/type.asp?cat_id=1 Windows XP ones are
available. This way your would be able to play old games that require Glide
API to run in 3D Accelerated mode.

Trev
 
Trevor said:
AFAIA you can still use your Voodoo 2 card. Just install it and connect
the pass through cable to your primary graphic card and then download
drivers from http://www.voodoofiles.com/type.asp?cat_id=1 Windows XP
ones are available. This way your would be able to play old games that
require Glide API to run in 3D Accelerated mode.
Click to expand...

Correct... I was using the 3dhq drivers in win2k and they were fine (V3 3k).

Ben
 
Pham said:
They sold out to NVIDIA. They sold lock, stock and barrow. As far as I
understand, NVIDIA then incorporated 3dfx's AA into the GForce2 cards and
that was the legacy of 3dfx.
Click to expand...

GeForce2 was out before they bought 3DFX, AFAIK nobody has used 3DFXs
superior AA.

Ben
 
Bob said:
(Either that, or the threat of a Bitboys product frightened them out of
existence.)
Click to expand...


Have bitboys ever made anything? If they have, have they ever sold it?
They talk a lot... but they don;t seem to come up with any commercial
products.

Ben
 
they didnt make some wise decisions, like sticking with 16 bit low res
cards ~
Click to expand...

At the time 32bit in games was not really feasable so 3DFX was right.
Sure Nvidia and ATI could do 32bit but most games did not run at a
decent frame rate with 32bit on. And 3DFX had a 22bit filter when
playing in 16bit which was way superrior to a Nvidia or ATI card in
16bit. And then of course we get to the V5 which has still not been
matched for it's FSAA, and that card did do 32bit in games. Technology
is not what killed 3DFX, it was poor management and the dweebs buying
into the Nvidia hype machine.
 
They sell the guts, not the commoditized end product. Like 3DFX prior
to the STB acquisition.
Click to expand...

Intel sells the guts. Microsoft's OS is a "commoditized end product",
or at least it was this morning when I went by Staples. Maybe since
then they've pulled all those commoditized end products off the shelf
and discontinued that practice.
 
Not my Voodoo 2, 8 meg.

Just 3d.

Paid 400 bucks for it.
Click to expand...

They were never more than $300 USD, were they?

By "Bucks" I assume you meant american dollars -- since Bucks can be
nothing else.

jw
 
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