3DFX Not Quitting Video Card Business

CitizenC writes "According to this GameCenter.Com story, at the Comdex trade show in Las Vegas on Wednesday, Wolford told Gamecenter that the Voodoo5 6000 has not been cancelled, that 3dfx will not start selling current chipset technology to third parties such as Creative Labs and ELSA, that Voodoo products, including current graphics and TV cards, will continue to be manufactured, and that the company isn't going belly-up any time soon."

Comments

Re:3DFX

[Dr. Merkw�rdigliebe]

It's perhaps more tragic than Netscape's downfall. In 1995 it was generally assumed 3D-cards would be the next big thing in graphics. nVidia was one of the first with their NV1 chip. Then others followed, all with their own API, since Direct3D did not yet exist in usable form. There were so-so chips such as S3's Virge and excellent add-on cards with Rendition's Verite or the PowerVR.

But one company simply outclassed 'm all. The Voodoo 1 was somewhat expensive, but in a league of its own. With its excellent API (Glide) and John Carmack's GLQuake port it conquered the market.

I don't think they lost it because they didn't innovate, they lost it because their innovations (high fill-rate, FSAA) weren't what the market wanted. This is how nVidia after their desastrous NV1 and NV2 chips came back with the NV3 and especially the NV4 (TNT).

High fill-rate was secondary to 32-bit color and sound OpenGL support. 3dfx realised this too late and it's been downhill ever since.