They didn’t move with the times honestly. Used their own Glide API, were slow to adopt some things others were doing, such as 32bit colour, hardware t&l etc. Then the Geforce 256 happened and completely changed the GPU landscape.
Edit: as someone else astutely pointed out. Not using third parties to build cards wouldn’t have done them any favours either.
Muddybulldog
They went into competition with their partners. Once they moved design and development in-house it left a void that OEMs filled by working with Nvidia.
While they may have saved money in R&D, etc. they completely miscalculated what impact the loss of their partners marketing would have.
WooptieBooptie
No money
lepobz
GeForce 256
Pappagallo1
I was rocking their Voodoo3 3000 AGP together with a Pentium II 333MHz. Did like Unreal, Hidden & Dangerous, Viper Racing, Grand Prix Legends, Worms 2, Half Life, Need For Speed etc. Marketing was great but I remember noticing the lack of 32bit support even back then. Not that you noticed much with the 1024×768 era pixels. You kinda rode the Glide high horse once on that team.
Hattix
3dfx got lost.
It had two technology branches: Avenger and Rampage/Specter
Rampage was taking a long time, as it was completely new technology. Avenger (Voodoo 3) was existing technology, originally devloped for the Banshee project.
An evolution of Avenger became VSA-100 (Voodoo 4/5), but VSA-100 was TNT2 class hardware competing with GeForce 2. It was two years old the moment it was released.
VSA-100 took resources away from Rampage/Specter, meaning that, by the time VSA-100 had failed. 3dfx had just no money left, no product, and no way forwards.
Nvidia bought 3dfx’s smoking remains for its patent portfolio. 3dfx, Nvidia, Intel, SGI, and ATI were involved in a very complex multi-way patent licensing/infringement battle, and the acquisition of 3dfx put Nvidia in a much stronger place.
Extreme_Wrangler_489
I couldn’t believe my Vodoo Banshee would improve my gaming experience so much, now I can’t believe that was a thing.
Their Rampage chipset was delayed too many times, forcing them to release hardware that wasn’t up to scratch. While it did have a few new features, VSA-100 was essentially just a doubled up Voodoo 3. Even if it resolved some of the issues the Voodoo 3 architecture had (notably 32-bit colours and higher texture resolution), it ran at the same speed and didn’t really otherwise have much of a performance improvement. The improvement came from doubling up the chips in the Voodoo 5. I don’t think a Voodoo 4 4500 was really any faster than a Voodoo 3 3000.
They also dropped out of offering manufacturers the chance to produce their cards after buying STB, a company that had not a great track record and which had issues in manufacturing chips of the complexity 3dfx needed. Lesser chips made, lesser cards sold.
VSA-100 had to be rushed out to get something out on the market while they tried to get Rampage done, and it just wasn’t a decent competitor for the GeForce 2 and ATi 8500. Rampage looked promising and was perhaps weeks away from making it to the market, but then they shut down. Nvidia was committed to a six month release schedule at the time and 3dfx could not match that.
Nvidia bought them, promptly told all of their new customers that they would be getting absolutely zero support, and let the brand die.
Fnittle
My gaming career (addiction) all started with my dad coming home with a voodoo 2 and I could finally play Turok! 🦖
3DFX will forever have a special place in my heart
steveu33
nVidia mastered the process of coming out with a new generation every 9 months. GPU makers which could not keep up, ie all the rest, were quickly forced out of the market.
12 Comments
They didn’t move with the times honestly. Used their own Glide API, were slow to adopt some things others were doing, such as 32bit colour, hardware t&l etc. Then the Geforce 256 happened and completely changed the GPU landscape.
Edit: as someone else astutely pointed out. Not using third parties to build cards wouldn’t have done them any favours either.
They went into competition with their partners. Once they moved design and development in-house it left a void that OEMs filled by working with Nvidia.
While they may have saved money in R&D, etc. they completely miscalculated what impact the loss of their partners marketing would have.
No money
GeForce 256
I was rocking their Voodoo3 3000 AGP together with a Pentium II 333MHz. Did like Unreal, Hidden & Dangerous, Viper Racing, Grand Prix Legends, Worms 2, Half Life, Need For Speed etc. Marketing was great but I remember noticing the lack of 32bit support even back then. Not that you noticed much with the 1024×768 era pixels. You kinda rode the Glide high horse once on that team.
3dfx got lost.
It had two technology branches: Avenger and Rampage/Specter
Rampage was taking a long time, as it was completely new technology. Avenger (Voodoo 3) was existing technology, originally devloped for the Banshee project.
An evolution of Avenger became VSA-100 (Voodoo 4/5), but VSA-100 was TNT2 class hardware competing with GeForce 2. It was two years old the moment it was released.
VSA-100 took resources away from Rampage/Specter, meaning that, by the time VSA-100 had failed. 3dfx had just no money left, no product, and no way forwards.
Nvidia bought 3dfx’s smoking remains for its patent portfolio. 3dfx, Nvidia, Intel, SGI, and ATI were involved in a very complex multi-way patent licensing/infringement battle, and the acquisition of 3dfx put Nvidia in a much stronger place.
I couldn’t believe my Vodoo Banshee would improve my gaming experience so much, now I can’t believe that was a thing.
Tech Jesus did a video on it:
https://youtu.be/-aMiEszQBik?si=njgaFe6rcRBVvjrI
Their Rampage chipset was delayed too many times, forcing them to release hardware that wasn’t up to scratch. While it did have a few new features, VSA-100 was essentially just a doubled up Voodoo 3. Even if it resolved some of the issues the Voodoo 3 architecture had (notably 32-bit colours and higher texture resolution), it ran at the same speed and didn’t really otherwise have much of a performance improvement. The improvement came from doubling up the chips in the Voodoo 5. I don’t think a Voodoo 4 4500 was really any faster than a Voodoo 3 3000.
They also dropped out of offering manufacturers the chance to produce their cards after buying STB, a company that had not a great track record and which had issues in manufacturing chips of the complexity 3dfx needed. Lesser chips made, lesser cards sold.
VSA-100 had to be rushed out to get something out on the market while they tried to get Rampage done, and it just wasn’t a decent competitor for the GeForce 2 and ATi 8500. Rampage looked promising and was perhaps weeks away from making it to the market, but then they shut down. Nvidia was committed to a six month release schedule at the time and 3dfx could not match that.
Nvidia bought them, promptly told all of their new customers that they would be getting absolutely zero support, and let the brand die.
My gaming career (addiction) all started with my dad coming home with a voodoo 2 and I could finally play Turok! 🦖
3DFX will forever have a special place in my heart
nVidia mastered the process of coming out with a new generation every 9 months. GPU makers which could not keep up, ie all the rest, were quickly forced out of the market.
GeForce happened