Nvidia Nas No Pitty...for a fallen warrior Voodoo

[Jumpman6]

It hurt me to see 3dfx go. It hurts even more that Nvidia won't even back any of 3dfx products.....they are gonna let it die on its own.
Heads up all 3dfx owners. Nvidia will not make any updates they are jus focused on the 3dfx plans thye aquired...

I called the 3dfx customer support number and all the rep BS ..they are telling me " Oh, if your having a problem with your card get new drivers...finally I put them in a corner and they called my card defective. I said " So give me a RMA number let me send you my card and you give me a replacement". They " told me Nvidia doesn't have an answer to that."

Ya it sux....it seemed at a point3dfx was on top of things..all those Nvidia followers now think they are living large with :disgust: their cards. nvidia was nothing before they had to buy out the competition.
.........Let me know what you guyz think.

 

[jbirney]

Yea,

it bothers me that they wont release the source code to MS so that MS can include bare bone V5 drivers in XP. Kind makes you think that nVidia is Evil just like that one thread around here....

 

[RobsTV]

If you bought the card at a store, take it back to them.
Most will gladly work out a refund or credit, since they sold you a card with a stated warranty that is no valid. At the very least, a partial credit towards a new card is better than nothing.

 

[Patgod]

"nvidia was nothing before the bought out..."


are you dumb or something? exactly how do you think they bought out the competition, which btw they didnt do. they sold a better product for 3d gaming, they released next gen products before 3dfx, and managed to run their company without forgetting to pay the power bill.

3dfx was not "bought out" nvidia bought the patents to their tech because 3dfx ASKED THEM TO, they had no more money.

sorry you got a card from a dead company, but you should have known better. i sure as hell wouldnt support a card i dont make, even if all it ment was sending someone source code.

 

[Boogak]

Why are you blaming nvidia? They just bought out some of 3dfx's intellectual property, they didn't buy their existing user base. Nvidia was obviously something since they effectively put 3dfx out of business with their superior execution (product updates, technology, OEM marketing).

Sure it sucks that you won't be getting support for your card, but put the blame where it belongs: 3dfx's incompetent top brass.

 

[Shudder]

3dfx open source drivers? Then that would mean you wouldn't have to buy an Nvidia card instead of just using your v5 in windows xp.. Never going to happen.

F nvidia. F Creative.

 

[Electrode]

If it makes you feel any better, there IS a Voodoo5 driver included with Windows XP.

 

[DoubleL]

Well my 2 cents, I don't think Nvidia put 3dfx out of business, I think the people that reviewed the video cards had more to do with it, they never used the cards in a day to day, Games, Video and so on they just looked at the numbers, If the 5500 looked better and run more stable and had no problems with drivers most but not all reviewer would say go with the Geforce cause in 3DMark it would give you highter numbers, Even though the 5500 looked better, Run better and didn't have the Nvidia problems, Well I didn't buy into it cause I don't set around runing 3DMark all day, I do own a GeForce 3 Asus 8200 but it is in my backup computer, In my main computer I still use and will keep using the 5500, The 5500 is a great card and I think their will be drivers for windows XP

 

[pidge]

I am getting tired of you morons complaining to NVIDIA about support for 3dfx. NVIDIA did not buy out 3dfx. 3dfx was out of cash. They were really desparate for cash. They had a bunch of chips in thier factory but didn't have the money to buy anymore memory to make video cards. They were doing pretty bad. They were doing so bad that they couldn't afford to shut down without borrowing money from NVIDIA. When 3dfx realized they had no choice, they sold their technology to NVIDIA. NVIDIA did not buy out 3dfx nor merge with them. They just bought 3dfx's technology. If you think it would have been nice if NVIDIA had purchased 3dfx so that it could continue offering support for 3dfx products, then yeah it would have. But in that case, I would not want you to run my company nor invest in any company in which you have any business decision making in because you do not have a clue about how to run a business. The selling of the technology by 3dfx and shutting down of the company required stockholder approval from 3dfx stockholders so in the meantime, they had to borrow money from NVIDIA (how nice of NVIDIA ) since they couldn't just outright sell them the technology. Two or three months later, they got the approval and all I.P., patents etc. were transferred to NVIDIA. In the meantime, 3dfx let go of all their employees. They contracted a company who handles customer support for other companies to handle all software issues for 3dfx (that is why it seems like they are morons and don't know much about 3dfx products, I used to work for one of the companies that uses this company for end users customer support and I know how dumb their employees are), and they did not offer to buy back any of the inventory they sold to retailers because they couldn't afford to so retailers were stuck with the task of having to sell the remaining stock of Voodoo cards they had left. A month or two before 3dfx sold their technology to NVIDIA, there was a rumour that NVIDIA might buy out 3dfx. 3dfx denied that rumour and reassured that they were in the process of launching their Voodoo 6 6000 video card. I am sure they knew what financial condition they were in but they didn't care and they deceived their customers, the retailers and maybe some of their engineers who worked hard for 3dfx. 3dfx continued offering hardware support until they ran out of replacement video cards. That lasted until January only. The rest is history. So you see...3dfx is the company you should be griping to, not NVIDIA. :| The Voodoo 5 5500 and the Voodoo cards before that were great cards. Except for the Voodoo 5 5500, all the previous cards I speak from experience. So I can see why some of you like to defend 3dfx but it is really not NVIDIA's fault or responsability.

 

[TravisBickle]

... let you know what I think? I think you're a waste of time and space. thExorcist is bad enough. are you breeding? too much trying to be cool, bad spelling, blah, would you care to tell us how many threads you posted the exact same lines in today?

 

[Jumpman6]

No I'm not dumb like you make your self out to be.....Maybe if you keep up with the news you would understand the situation. Ya 3dfx was in some trouble ,but companies bounce back. Nvidia was all over on 3dfx to sell its goods. So for a person like yourself..watch that show " You Don't KNow JACK.....A..S. S

 

[Boogak]

<< Nvidia was all over on 3dfx to sell its goods. >>



Bwahah, ok, you are now officially a troll. Here's some paragraphs straight from 3dfx.com:

The company reported a net loss of $178.6 million for the quarter, or $4.53 per share, using 39,442,000 shares in the per share calculation. For the nine months ending October 31, 2000, the company reported a net loss of $291.5 million, or $9.69 per share.

In a separate announcement dated December 15, 2000, 3dfx Interactive announced its intention to substantially reduce costs in order to best conserve its resources. These cost-cutting measures include a significant reduction in the company's work force as well as other measures. In addition, the company's Board of Directors and advisors are recommending to its shareholders that they approve a plan to sell most of 3dfx's assets to NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA-news) and that shareholders also approve a plan to dissolve the company following completion of the asset sale.


In case all those big words confuse you, here's the gist of it.
1.) 3dfx was losing money big time, they lost almost $300 million in the first 9 months of 2000.
2.) 3dfx's OWN Board of Directors and advisors recommended to sell their assets to Nvidia. Again, because they were BROKE. There was no way in hell they could've come back.

 

[Killrose]

First off, the person you talked to at customer support should have just flat out told you that the 3dfx warranty you got when you bought your card is not honored by Nvidia. And that Nvidia bought some of the intellectual properties of 3dfx and NOT their product liabilities.

Second, come on, what did you really expect them to say? Maybe: &quot;Oh, we're terribly sorry, we'll ship you out a brand new model V6500 fedex overnite to you right now&quot;?

You bought a no warranty, as is product. Now go over to the for sale/trade forums and get yourself a cheap replacement.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

LOL-
3dfx vs nVidia:The Neverending Story

Jumpman, you are living in some fantasy world where business competitors help one another and share. Sorry buddy- corporation has one goal only- make profit for shareholders.
The Mr. Rogers concepts are not present in the business world.

 

[jbirney]

My biggest beef is with nVidia not letting MS have the source code. Or not open source it. There is no reason for them not to give MS the code so MS can include V5 drivers in the XP builds. And yes if you read the nVnews or other sites you have it that MS did drop the V5 thanks to our frineds nVidia. And yes last I hear nVidia dose own the source code to the 3DFX V5 drivers.

Maybe they don't want to open source the drivers due to any of their newly aquired IP might be exposed so that I may understand.

However the source code to MS under an NDA is the same thing they do with their GF/TNT drivers. No reason not to do the SAME thing with the 3DFX drivers...

 

[Wah]

<< There is no reason for them not to give MS the code so MS can include V5 drivers in the XP builds. >>



How about...so people go out and buy new nvidia geforce cards.

I would like you to tell me why nvidia SHOULD give the source code to MS... so they can do a favor for all the 3dfx owners out there? please.... its all about making money man. I disagree with it, but I don't blame them.

 

[Compellor]

Well, Creative Labs bought the rights/patents to Aureal (A3D), and I still own a Diamond Monster MX300 sound card which virtually has no driver support to speak of. Do you see me complaining about it? The card still works great using the 2048 reference drivers which are well over a year old. When the OS/software/game support fades away for it, I'll upgrade to something new.

The death of 3Dfx was a tragedy, but they dug their own grave by deciding to manufacture their own video cards. They should have stuck to making 3D only solutions, letting others to produce the cards; that was their bread and butter. I'd LOVE to go back to having a Matrox 2D/3Dfx 3D card combo from years ago, but with today's technology.

 

[ElFenix]

making a 3d only solution would never have made 3dfx a profitable company because the OEMs wouldn't be able to sell it to businesses, and the vast majority of home uses looked at the riva 128zx and say, hey, why buy a voodoo2 when this says it does 3D and 2D? so 3dfx came out with a 2d/3d part, the voodoo3. at the time, buying stb looked like a good move, and it resulted in 3dfx's only profitable quarters. problem was, 3dfx lost pretty much ever oem contracting deal stb had, and never regained them. they couldn't possibly have regained them with as huge a contraption as the v5500. not to mention that that product was horribly late, probably because 3dfx hand optimized its chips, as opposed to nvidia letting a computer brute-force the design. i'm sad that 3dfx's tech probably won't see the light of day for a long time, if ever, and i wonder if they would have taken the market lead had they survived to see that the geforce 3 really isn't much faster than anything else at current games (and will probably be slow on games that actually can use its tech since they'll be designed for nv2a and geforce 4 or whatever the heck it will be called). but you know what? 3dfx's management really sucked. sucked hard core. their sales team probably sucked hard core as well, hence the inability to get OEM contracts. so, i'll have to move on, and cheer for kyro or radeon 2 or maybe bitboys.

i sorta wish intel would have bought 3dfx. use it to break into gaming graphics. and update the i810.

 

[Finality]

OEM contracts have more to do than the simple management and marketing team.

You have to look at the fact that 3dfx never EVER had the feature checklist OEMs where after. Chosing between two equal cards comparable in nearly all respects but add about 6 or 7 more features and they see which one they would pick.

3dfx never really stood a chance the way there design team was thinking. Sure they could have done things differently but it still would not have made a difference.

That brings us back to the whole 'Rampage' card. If it was so great that would mean it would have to have a lot of 'useless' features. Isn't that what 3dfx people have been whining about for so long? I didn't see anyone making a big noise when Matrox introduced EMBM instead it seemed like the second coming.

 

[RobsTV]

3dfx had a policy of &quot;they know what's best&quot;, and it doesn't matter what the consumer &quot;thinks they need&quot;. They though they could rule the 3d world, the way they wanted, not the way we wanted! They said Glide was what we needed. They said we did not need 32 bit color, and we needed 16 bit color with speed. They were too stubborn, and ignored the market. When the 16 bit V3 came out, nvidia and ATI came out with 32 bit cards, and OEM jumped on the 32 bit cards. Heck, many are still selling new Athlon 1.4GHz systems with TNT2 based cards! By the time 3dfx came out with a 32 bit card, it was too late. They already burned too many bridges, and nvidia and ATI were too deeply entrenched in the OEM market. Blame no one but 3dfx for their arrogance.

 

[AaronP]

yeah, 3Dfx was very arrogant, I remember talking to one of their head honchos at Gencon in Milwaukee, and I was like:

&quot;man you guys need to come out with a faster card&quot;

and his response was

&quot;why do we need to?&quot;

and I said:

&quot;So your card will be able to run at a decent speed with higher polygon counts and resolutions.&quot;

And this is the god's honest truth, he said to me:

&quot;Polygon counts are meaningless, and you don't get a better image with a higher resolution.&quot;
----

Right there I was like, &quot;OK, give me my free mouse pad and I'll walk away.&quot;
---------


That arrogance that they knew best and everyone else was wrong was a really bad way to operate. Their biggest screw up though was buying STB. THey should have stuck to making chips and &quot;refernce designs&quot; like Nvidia and let other companies like Creative, Diamond, Hercules, etc... make the actual boards.

It's really too bad that there is no Voodoo 6 or whatever coming out. I would love to take my Voodoo 5 and keep all the same features, just make it like 4 times faster!

 

[TheKidd]

I guess maybe the image quality was improved by the time 3dfx made the v5000, but I had a voodoo banshee and the image quality flat out sucked! My geforce 2 gts's image quality blows it out of the water. For those of you that think that 3D Mark scores aren't important, you are wrong. Maybe you can play all the current games fine on a V5500, but next generation games are not going to run well. Also, the size, power requirements and heat generated by the Voodoo 5 was pathetic! It was a pathetic attempt by 3dfx to outpace nVidia by simply scaling up old technology, and they failed miserably. I'm not saying that nVidia is the greatest company in the world, but they are a hell of a lot better than 3dfx was before their demise.

 

[DoubleL]

No card can beat the 5500 for image quality 2D or 3D, I have a lot of cards to play around with Asus 6800, 7700 and the new 8200 and the newest Radeons and others, 3D Mark scores are not important, I heard the same thing when the 3000 was the new card and their are a lot of people playing the newest games on the 3000 and it still is all they want, By the time they come out with the next generation of games that the 5500 will not work with you can bet the GeForce 3 will be a thing of the past to, I mean come on now they have the newest and best that is going to play the new generation of games out every 6 to 8 months, The people that make games are not stupid, They are not going to make a game for a few cards, Get what ever card you want and enjoy what you have but just cause people like the 5500 don't call them and 3dfx names, Most the ones putting the 5500 down has never seen one run, I like the 8200 to that is why I have one in my back up computer, Let people use what they like and chill out it is just video cards,

 

[Archknight]

Yeah, it is a tragedy to see 3dfx go, but there is no one to blame but themselves (or maybe some of those reviewers too, just a little bit). They brought their own demise.

Although I general would go with Nvidia, but why Nvidia should have pity for 3dfx. Nvidia fought hard with 3dfx back then.

Well maybe Nvidia should just say, &quot;here is some cash, go and revive yourselves to become one of my greatest nemesis again&quot;. Sure not. If you were Nvidia, will you do it?

 

[Einz]

I just hope that nVidia will properly use all the technology that they acquired from 3dfx. I want to see a dual chip Geforce series, that would be nice. BTW, I own a Voodoo5 5500 and it still has the best FSAA around.