3dfx.com shuts down today. (2/19/02)

[DefRef]

Saw over at VE that the site's being taken down. Front page currently says:

To our valued customers:

3dfx Interactive, Inc. is no longer providing support for any 3dfx products and drivers. Information about 3dfx is no longer available from the 3dfx.com website. Please be advised that on February 19, 2002, the 3dfx.com website will be shut down entirely. As a result, the following alternatives have been put in place:

Download 3dfx Drivers
Original 3dfx drivers, 3rd party drivers, tips, resources and user-to-user support are available from Voodoo Files. Visit voodoofiles.com for information about your 3dfx product.

Get NVIDIA Product Information
Did you know NVIDIA GPUs are the graphics of choice for Half Life users? In a recent Valve Software survey, data captured from 35,488 Half Life user machines showed 67% of graphics were NVIDIA. Visit www.nvidia.com for information about the ultimate graphics for gaming.

3dfx is a case study for how to sink a company with smack talk and lousy products to back them up. Learn from their mistakes.

 

[BFG10K]

R.I.P 3dfx.

3dfx is a case study for how to sink a company with smack talk and lousy products to back them up

3dfx did not have lousy products.

 

[DefRef]

Can't stop the playa hating, can you?

3dfx revolutionized gaming with their Voodoo 1 and Voodoo 2 chips (I owned both) and then proceeded to make stupid decision after dumb move and ran themselves into the ground with alternate announcements of "You don't need that feature." and "Wait until the NEXT chip!"

The Voodoo 3 was nothing more than a Banshee 2 and lacked 32-bit color and AGP. "You don't need it. No games use it." was the answer from them. Meanwhile, Nvidia rolled out faster and more feature-laden cards until 3Defects bullsh*t couldn't scam anyone anymore.

Every Nvidia card has come out with features that hardly any games used, BUT (and this is key) the fact that the unleashed cards with T&L and pixel shaders and whatnot convinced GAME DEVELOPERS to include these features in future releases. They weren't gonna waste time coding stuff that no card could run, so Nvidia's taking the lead created the need for software to take advantage of the HW.

It's the classic chicken and the egg scenario: HW drives SW drives HW. 3dfx made cards for yesterday's games and Nvidia made cards for tomorrow's. Look who's here and who's not to judge the results of each strategy.

 

[BFG10K]

Can't stop the playa hating, can you?

What?

Look who's here and who's not to judge the results of each strategy.

3dfx was pulled under from mis-management and poor marketing decisions rather than by crappy products. 3dfx's hardware and driver compatbility and stability was legendary. And despite their lack of features the Voodoo3/4/5 cards were extremely nice boards to use.

 

[Auric]

Word, DefRef. Word.

 

[Finality]

<< 3dfx was pulled under from mis-management and poor marketing decisions rather than by crappy products. 3dfx's hardware and driver compatbility and stability was legendary. And despite their lack of features the Voodoo3/4/5 cards were extremely nice boards to use. >>



Lol you mean how well they work on P4 boards

3dfx made piss poor hardware with a bad management team to back them up. Till the end that company acted like there was nothing wrong. Anyone see how much money they burned in there last quater? It was something like 0.25 Billion which was more than there Market cap at the time. I dont buy the whole lame "it was managements fault" routine. If anything the engineers where to blame. They essentially rehashed the same chip for 4-5 generations (and in 3dfx terms that was 4 years).

 

[DarkKnight]

I had a Voodoo 2 and a PCI Voodoo 5 card and they were really nice cards. I'm going to miss 3dfx

 

[Alex]

its about time.

 

[Deeko]

Silly people.

Voodoo1/2 - You can't deny that they owned everyone.

Voodoo3 - Yes, at the time, I thought it was weak, I got a TNT2 ultra myself. But, looking back, the Voodoo3 lasted much longer, and really in the relatively few games that used 32-bit color, it was way to slow to use(I know from experience).

Voodoo4 - Had it been released on time, would have been good....cuz back then there was no GF2 MX. But when it was released, basically it was a POS.

Voodoo5 - EXTREMELY underrated card. Yes, it lacked T&L and was a little slower. But its IQ was great, 2D quality was great, FSAA simply destroyed the GF2's, and back then there still were glide games floating around. What killed it was the late release. If it had been released on time, things would be VERY different right now.

Oh well....it was the late release of the V5 that killed them in the end, IMO.

 

[Crapgame]

The Voodoo5500 AGP was the most trouble free card I have ever owned, the drivers were outstanding, the compatability flawless. The UI was one of the easiest to use and tweak of any card and the feature set was more than acceptable for its time including not having to use third party tweakers to OC and use the features that it did have. The only thing the card lacked was a T&L unit and 3DFX's only major mistake that really destroyed them was buying and attempting to manufacture its own chips in house, retooling for everyone else is much easier when building the next incarnation. nVidia and ATI farm out the manufactoring of there chips so when it comes to retooling for the next line that initial cost is sucked up by the farm companies they use, that is a huge savings for development costs when you dont have to worry about that.

 

[saucycg]

Funny.

My Voodoo 3 worked beautifully and NEVER EVER crashed my system like my "state-of-the-art" GeForce 3 Ti200 card. After about 300+ "infinite loop" blue screens, I'm about ready to pull that st00pid a$$ nVidia card out, throw it in the microwave, and watch the sparkly lights. I sure wish the a$$wipes at nVidia would spend less time devloping "amazing new technologies" and get the current stuff right.

Oh how I long for the days of my rock solid, stable voodoo3 card/drivers.....mmmmm....

 

[sandorski]

Mismanagement(especially the purchase of STB) is what killed 3dfx, not poor hardware. When 3dfx said we didn't need something, they were right 100% of the time. With Nvidia you get a lot of features that you can't use, sometimes due to no one using them, other times because the features lack the horsepower to be used effectively.

 

[kendogg]

3dfx's drivers were awesome as so their cards. But time to move on.. farewell 3dfx! youll be missed

 

[Auric]

Ding dong the witch is dead!

 

[nippyjun]

3dfx RIP.

 

[DefRef]

All you people who keep yapping, "3dfx was right. We didn't need those features.", really need to reread what I actually wrote.

If someone, ANYONE (not necessarily Nvidia) hadn't introduced hardware able to run advanced graphics features, what make makes you think that developers would've taken the time to code in features that we take for granted now? If all we had was whatever recycled junk 3dfx had wanted to foist on us, would Carmack be able to code Doom 3 the way he wanted. He HATED 3dfx toward the end because they could write drivers properly and their OpenGL implementation was never quite right. 3dfx was married to Glide and refused to realize that people wanted more than the thin gruel that they were ladling out.

I'll never forget the first time I played Quake 2 on my TNT. I never knew that there were blues and greens like that when I played on my V2! Just as people got so used to the sound of vinyl records that they couldn't understand the difference that CDs made, people got so used to the classic "3dfx look" of overfiltered textures and washed-out colors, that they just accepted it as being "the way things are supposed to look". Ever play Homeworld in 16-bit color? It's awful-looking! I was talking to a coworker about how creamy the nebulae looked and looked up some screenshots and realized that the lousy video in my work machine could only run 16-bit color. It was dithered and ugly and a good insight into the low quality I left behind when I switched to Nvidia cards.

3dfx DID create the performance 3D accelerator market and DID demonstrate the benefits of FSAA, BUT they couldn't execute to save their lives and are dead as a result. All they offered was excuses, FUD and "wait until next year" bromides to keep their maniac Zombie followers sated until the next disappointment. Admit it, their fanboys were deluded! For months, they raved, "Voodoo 5 will own you Nvidiots.", and when the cards finally shuffled into stores, too little and too late to compete with Nvidia, they immediately started baaing, "Oh yeah? Well...RAMPAGE will own you!!!" The vaunted VSA100 was little more than an updated V3 and only became powerful when MULTIPLE units were used. They did their demos on boxes with a dozen older chips rigged together to simulate the T-Buffer effects (that was a good idea...NOT!) Zombies panted in expectation of the V5-6000 and swore that they'd buy new cases large enough to encompass it's 2-foot length. Too bad it never came out.

Would things have turned out differently if they'd come out with competitive products, ON SCHEDULE? Maybe, but you can't play "what if" because it doesn't matter. Execution matters and 3dfx didn't execute. End of story. Anything else is just excuses and Nivida hating.

 

[brinstar117]

Some people just have bottled up frustration inside

I suppose it's better to release it on an internet forum than to commit a crime or hurt someone.

Every single 3dfx product that I have owned (voodoo 2, 3, 5 and voodoo tv) has worked flawlessly for me. The drivers were super stable and I never regretted purchasing any of their products. I will miss 3dfx greatly.

 

[RedRooster]

There's a difference between "working flawlessly" and actually competing in the current market, and I think that's what DefRef is mostly getting at(beneath his blantant 3dfx bashing ) 3Dfx products were always too little, too late.
Heck, I have a 4MB Trident that "works flawlessly", I've never seen graphic corruption, the windows drivers install perfectly, and I've never seen a lockup due to the videocard. Did it perform alongside the TNT, a card which was on the market at the same time, no. Does it work flawlessly, yes.

 

[spanky]

dude, i dunno why u r all happy 3dfx is dead. one less competitor in the market prolly means $$$ will go up. the less choice the consumer has... the more the suppliers are gonna rape us for. anyway, i have a voodoo5 and i love it. i also have a voodoo3... great card for budget Counter-Strike system. voodoo cards laugh at smoke and fog. hehe... too bad i can't say the same about my radeon

 

[Freejack2]

Speaking of dead cards what ever happened to those bitboys cards?
There is nothing of notice on their site.

I have a V3-3000, their 800x600 tv implementation sucked, The ATI fills out the screen nicely, the 3dfx had massive blank space on both sides. If I tried to use their software to expand it, there would be lines in the dvd.

I remember getting a voodoo rush card. It was nice but it wasn't the best design. Next card I went to was TNT, then to a v3-3000, then a geforce.
3dfx had the potential to rock nvidia and keep on top but they didn't seem to understand that they had to beat Nvidia at their game. When this all started 3dfx had the money and the engineers to take on Nvidia, but like idiots they flubbed it and Nvidia did a "nobody beats the wiz" when 3dfx folded.

Ati at least knows how to compete with Nvidia. ATI makes some great cards that can match Nvidia's clock for clock. With the joke the GF4-mx's are, I think ATI is going to trounce Nvidia in the budget card market this year.

 

[spanky]

With the joke the GF4-mx's are, I think ATI is going to trounce Nvidia in the budget card market this year.

whats ati got on the horizon for the budget market? the gf4 ti4200 is looking like a killer video card.

 

[DefRef]

<< dude, i dunno why u r all happy 3dfx is dead. one less competitor in the market prolly means $$$ will go up. the less choice the consumer has... the more the suppliers are gonna rape us for >>

When have I heard this before....oh yeah, when 3dfx collapsed! Big, bad, evil Nvidia was gonna charge $2000 for video cards and we were all screwed.

Yeah, that happened.

I paid $320 for a GF2GTS in April 2000 and it delivered ~3000 in 3DM2K1. The GF3Ti200 I got in Nov. 2001 cranked out ~5500 and cost me $150! In less than 2 years, I was able to nearly double my performance for less than HALF the price!

Was someone saying about how lack of competition would make Nvidia lazy and prices higher?

ATI finally decided to try to and be a real competitor with the R8500, but we all know how hard they've had to recover from their self-inflicted foot wounds and how their speed (but not quality) supremacy is already about to end with the introduction of the GF4. Of course, the fanboy shouts of, "Wait for the R300!!! Nvidia will be ATI's B*TCH then! w00t! It's gonna ROCK!", are starting already, as FUD-based specs are being leaked to keep the faithful sated with promises and, more importantly, to keep them from wandering off to buy a GF4. When's the R300 coming? About the same time as the GF5's annoucement? Now wonder Nvidia's laughing their arses off!

If you don't want to buy a GeForce, then DON'T BUY ONE, but please spare me the delusional ranting about how 3dfx was better, etc. I'm NOT bashing anyone, but facts are facts and everyone's playing for 2nd right now. Also, to complain about the prices is foolish. If you want the fastest card, you're gonna have to pay for it. The Ti500 and R8500 are faster, but they're also at least twice as expensive. The Ti200 OCs nicely and provides a great price/performance value. That's why the smart money is getting those, just as they'll prolly get the GF4 4200s.

 

[Parrotheader]

Step away from the keyboard, it's JUST A VIDEO CARD. Yikes! I realize this is probably not the ideal forum to say this in, but some people take this stuff way too seriously.

Regardless of what happened to cause 3dfx's demise, I'll always fondly remember the first time I fired up a game on my first Voodoo2. Call the colors washed out, or whatever you want. But the fact was that it was fast, it was high-res (at the time 800x600 seemed breathtaking to me since I'd previously had to run things below 640x480 on my old Riva128) and it was smoooooth. I need to dig up some of those old games again just for fun.

 

[Rand]

I'm going to agree with the majority in that mis-management and lack of execution killed 3dfx, not poor hardware.
Purchasins STB turned out to be a huge mistake in the long-run and it certainly garnered them a lot of ill will against them in the industry. Additionally, they always relied solely upon the enthusiast market, and the enthusiast market alone has never been strong enough singlehandedly to sustain any company. The V4/5 was waay too late, and they were losing money long before the V4/5 was ever released. They simply couldnt execute on their plans.
And they were never terribly innovative either.

Hardware... well I could say nothing bad about their hardware, besides pure lack of innovation as the only truely 'innovative things they managed way SLI in the V2, and FSAA... though even FSAA wasnt truely innovative as it was common for years in the high end 3D engineering market before 3dfx brought it to the desktop. Hell, the V3 was based upon the same core architecture as the original V1... that alone should speak volumes about their relative lack of innovation.
But...
They had legendary driver support that in their prime simply put anyone else's driver support to shame, their RAM practices were top notch, and customer support was fantastic. 3dfx cards simply worked with no hassle at all, they would work in virtually any system easily and reliably be it Socket7, S270, or SA... one nev er needed to worry that games would run perfectly... if you had 3dfx it was a guarantee.
3dfx has the most solid and reliable hard I've ever seen, bar none. They were decent all around cards that simply worked beautifully.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

The GeForce 4's offer little more than performance increase, faster FSAA, and nView. ATI delivered basically just that with their 8500 of which the ATI retail version of the board can now be purchased for $160.

As far as a response to the GeForce 4, ATI has the 8800 which is powered by the R250 GPU. Are they behind with its release? Well their FireGL 8800 boards powered by the R250 are currently available for sale. It shouldn't be so hard to pump some Radeon 8800 boards out. The R300 is not competition for the GeForce 4 as it is to be released sometime this summer at the very earliest. Chances are that we won't see and R300 powered boards until the fall or close to the release of the NV30 if nVidia stays on track. And the biggest threat to ATI I see from nVidia on the price/performance side of things is the GeForce 4 Ti 4200, and that model looks to be the last to debut (sometime in April?).

We should see some great solutions from both nVidia and ATI...I highly doubt nVidia will roll right over ATI.

Oh, as far as 3Dfx...they were one of the best. Reliable products and great performance. Still love my Voodoo3 3000 for my Glide games.