Former 3DFX form New Company, 3DPower

[Simulat]

"More live (VERY EXCLUSIVE) coverage here from Computex 2001, Taiwan. Former employees of 3DFX (including x-CTO, Scott Sellers) will be announcing a totally new company called 3DPower this Monday!

We have been informed that about 90% of the former employees of 3DFX will be working for this company, according to our source 3DPower will be debuting with a graphics card called the 3DPower Absolute, which is believed to be based around the 3DFX RamPage graphics chipset - SLI may not be gone after all. The PCB of the card will be black with gold componets seated in a nifty wooden box.

It seems 3DPower has secretly formed this new company without nVidia nor 3DFX knowing, what will nVidia have to say about this? - It could raise some serious legal issues. We should be able to speak to nVidia about this tomorrow. We also must stress that this information has not been confirmed, but it does come from a reliable source. Again this is not confirmed, but as I see it 3DPower and Absolute Multimedia have merged, which potentially could make one very influential company. Take care!"

From Tweaktown.

 

[Sunner]

Sounds like foobar.

Didnt nVidia buy the entire technology portfilio when they bought what was left of 3dfx?

If so, what would this new chip be based off, there's no way they could have developed a new chip already?

 

[Simulat]

"To our valued customers:

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for the support you've given 3dfx over the years. Through all our ups and downs, we've always been proud of our extremely loyal customers and fans. That's what makes our recent actions so difficult.

Although we've done our best to avoid taking drastic action, we have finally been forced to admit that there is no possible way we can continue in our current state. As such, we have negotiated an agreement with nVidia that will allow us to provide the best possible result to our creditors, investors, employees and customers.

Under this agreement, nVidia will acquire certain , specific assets from 3dfx including technology, company and product brands and other assets. In addition, the 3dfx board of directors has recommended to our shareholders the dissolution of the company over the next few months. Until that time, however, 3dfx products will remain available at various retail and online locations, and we will continue to support our current and future customers. For additional information, please see the press releases that were issued by 3dfx on December 15, 2000. "

Not sure if they own the rights to all the technology. Who knows, may just be a wild rumor.

 

[Sunner]

Im pretty sure there was a press release that said nVidia got pretty much everything useful, including brand names and IP portfolio.

 

[zBob]

Hi,

Just checked out www.3dpower.com (or co.uk) to see if there was any info on this "new 3dfx based" card - the only interesting thing I could see that had any similarity was the 3DPower Morpheus via Absolute, that is on pre-order with them. It also appears to have a black PCB with gold components and comes in a nifty wooden box. This did say it was a GeForce 3 though - no mention of anything else.

If the whole story isn't true it might be that someone confused this new product with a prospective "3dfx" one.

I have to say if true, and legal matters and patents notwithstanding, it could only be a good thing for the graphics card market - Kyro keeping prices down with good performance, nVidia being expensive but pushing the frontiers forward, ATI maybe in the middle with nice looking Trueform, imagine if 3DPower and then Matrox come out with cards - I might be able to afford something almost state of the art!

zBob

 

[TheCorm]

3D Power! ? They have been around a little while, their site is www.3dpower.com.

I have bought a couple of cards made by them, Both OEM MX's. Both work fine and they were cheaper than even companies like Jetway.

They appear to primarily be using Geforce2 chipsets, interesting things going on there...

Corm

 

[vss1980]

Hmmm, strange, not sure if they are actually taking over the old 3dpower company or starting a new one. Well, it does say a new company called 3DPower. There is no rule against what name you give yourself.

Personally I would love to see how they plan to do buisness. If they have lets say a good majority of the ex-3dfx staff, they will still need time to get things together like money, a chip-maker on board (like ST for example).

 

[zBob]

Just checked out www.x3dfx.com the web site set up by ex-3dfx employees for driver support and tech discussion.

http://pub43.ezboard.com/fx3dfxfrm1.showMessage?topicID=1767.topic

The moderator of the discussion board has stated that it appears to be a hoax?

 

[Killrose]

First off, I think they ment 90% of their employees are from the old 3dfx company. There is no way they could afford to have 90% of the old 3dfx work force (in numbers) employed now. Did'nt a bunch go to Nvidia?
And secondly, I smell "patent infringement lawsuit" in the air. I just don't see how Nvidia could have been dumb enough to leave enough intelectual property left for a potential competitor to rise out of the ashes of their most fierce competitor.
Unless they actually show up Monday with a working refrence design board,
and show us real numbers, umm.....can anybody say Vaporware?

 

[Deeko]

If this is true, they would have to start COMPLETELY over, cause if I remember correctly nvidia owns all of 3dfx' intellecual property now.

 

[LuciferHaze]

nVidia owns all of 3dfx patents that are worth having so any new company'd have to start from scratch. The only hope we have is that nVidia will incorporate the best of 3dfx (RFSS FSAA and Programmable SLI) in their future products.

 

[Simulat]

This link claims to have contacted Scott Sellers and verified that its just a rumor.

The card referred to as coming in the wooden box seems to be the 3dpower Morpheus Geforce3 - saw a photo of it.