did nvidia ever use the 3dfx technology?

[Schadenfroh]

i mean they bought allot of it and didnt they hire people from 3dfx and aureal? I have yet to hear anyword on any technology they used from 3dfx, i mean, i see no remakes of GLIDE, SLI, or anything based on rampage which supposidly had free FSAA

 

[Insomniak]

Does it matter? If the products are good, who cares what tech was used, and if the products are bad, who cares what tech was used?

Doesn't change much. :-\

 

[EarthwormJim]

I thought some of the people who developed the Geforce FX series originated from 3dfx, hence the FX designation?

 

[modedepe]

Originally posted by: EarthwormJim
I thought some of the people who developed the Geforce FX series originated from 3dfx, hence the FX designation?

I heard that also. I'm not sure if any of the old 3dfx technology was used though, either in that line or any of nvidia's other cards.

 

[Dman877]

Remember the pics of GF2's with 2 and 4 gpu's back when that deal went down? 🙂

 

[yhelothar]

Originally posted by: modedepe

Originally posted by: EarthwormJim
I thought some of the people who developed the Geforce FX series originated from 3dfx, hence the FX designation?

I heard that also. I'm not sure if any of the old 3dfx technology was used though, either in that line or any of nvidia's other cards.

The geforcefx series was co designed with many ex-3dfx employees

 

[VIAN]

Nvidia: Never again, you ex3dfx emplyees, go to the mail room. 🙂

 

[BugsBunny1078]

3dfx owned.

 

[BenSkywalker]

anything based on rampage which supposidly had free FSAA

It was the chip after Rampage that was supposed to have free AA(NOT FSAA, just MSAA), Fear IIRC. It was to be a TBR which I doubt nV will ever move to. Free AA should be part of the PVR5 chip when that arrives.

 

[batmanuel]

Originally posted by: virtualgames0

Originally posted by: modedepe

Originally posted by: EarthwormJim
I thought some of the people who developed the Geforce FX series originated from 3dfx, hence the FX designation?

I heard that also. I'm not sure if any of the old 3dfx technology was used though, either in that line or any of nvidia's other cards.

The geforcefx series was co designed with many ex-3dfx employees

Which is probably why the FX series was behind schedule, not as fast as the competition, and doesn't run Direct X properly. I'm just waiting for a two and four chip GFFX board to show up on a PCB big enough to snowboard on. Since when was it ever a good idea to hire the employees of a company that you basically put out of business? Common sense would tell you that it is quite possible that their engineer's kung-fu may not be the best. You have to wonder about the caliber of people they had, when for quite a long time 3dfx couldn't even work out how to build a 2D display chip. Even when they managed to get one going, it was way behind ATi and Matrox in terms of visual quality. Sad. I blame a lot of nVidia's current woes on those 3dfx guys. And I have owned a lot of nVidia products (GeForce 2 MX, GeForce 4 Ti 4200, nForce motherboard), so I'm not an ATi zealot either. But I really am considering a Radeon for my next card.

 

[Schadenfroh]

i dont think that it was the engineers fault 3dfx went under, the management was to blame IMO, the engineers that 3dfx were good, management led them in the wrong direction

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
i dont think that it was the engineers fault 3dfx went under, the management was to blame IMO, the engineers that 3dfx were good, management led them in the wrong direction

yea, boards that took up the entire length of the pc case, multiple "gpu's", external power supplies.. i'm sure "management" thought those up.

sarcasm aside tho, i think there was plenty of blame to go around, but the whole stb purchase and thier abrupt change and attempt to become a gfx card "manufacturer" caused many problems imo. so many problems, that one late release was enough to send them tumbling.

from a business standpoint, they took on too much, too fast, and from an engineering standpoint, their arrogance and short-sighted designs took it's toll. unfortunately, some of these t5raits seem to have passed on to nvidia... let's just hope it's only a short term situation and nv will get back on track w/ nv40.

 

[chsh1ca]

Originally posted by: CaiNaM

yea, boards that took up the entire length of the pc case, multiple "gpu's", external power supplies.. i'm sure "management" thought those up.

As opposed to the better solution of providing a drive connector that if left disconnected you end up with no functioning 3D? There's something to be said for a solution that takes care of itself. 🙂

Kidding aside, 3DFX wasn't the first or the last to think a multichip solution was a good one. Look at XGI. Time has sort of still proven that it is generally still far less expensive to manufacture one excellent chip than it is to manufacture two decent chips and try and get them to work together.