Sad To See 3dfx go away. They did not deserve to end like this

[jzodda]

Well I have not owned a 3dfx based card in a few years but I am sad anyway. Not only for the loss of competition but for the families of those laid off so close to Christmas. I honestly dont understand why people become zombies toward one company or another anyhow. Its hard to stay loyal these days as companies seem to have lifespans of only a few years in this business (sigh). I just move to the best card on the market at the time I want a new card. Currently I have a Radeon, before that it was a TNT-2 Ultra, before that a Matrox G200 and Voodoo2 SLI, and before that an S3 for 2d and the original Monster 3d.

I have to say that I remember fondly the days right after I bought the monster 3d back in early 1996. To this day I cant remember a time when there was such a foward leap in the graphics of 3d gaming and I dont see such a forward leap happening again anytime soon either untill we start moving toward Photo-realism. I was stunned by how Mechwarrior looked in 3d back then, and I wont forget it. It was that 3dfx card that really got me interested in the details of computer tweaking. (Anyone remember Operation3dfx run by Jeremy Alford and friends?)

Its too bad that a good company has gone by the wayside. Why they bough STB in the first place and in doing so screwed companies like Diamond, Megabyte, Creative and others is beyond me. Their demise can be traced directly from the decision to get rid of their OEM partners and do all the work themselves.

I know hundreds of you all already weighed in on this and I have nothing new to add, but I felt like commenting anyway as a way of saying goodbye.

 

[Mikewarrior2]

Those families are not laid off yet. Won't be until febuary.



Mike

 

[RSI]

It's sad to hear about this, but what did you expect?

BTW, Mike congrats on Elite.

-RSI

 

[jzodda]

Really? I am very glad to hear that Mike. Thanks for letting me know. That takes a bit of the sting out of it. At least the folks that will be on their way out have some time to get jobs before the axe falls. That is the only decent way to lay off people. (If there is ever a decent way) I have had friends who worked for companies that folded and let go of everyone on that day and nobody even saw it coming.

 

[Mikewarrior2]

Thanks, and it was a bit of shock when i got it... left for the day, came back at night and saw elite... weird .

But to further my earlier post, I do feel really bad about how 3dfx ended up going. Did I expect this outcome, no. I expected somebody to buy 3dfx, just not nvidia.


Jzodda,

I'm almost certain that employees will remain employees until at least febuary. One of the things in the press release was that 3dfx Gets 15 million in "advance" to keep the company running until the transfer of assets is complete. And it is very good that the employees will have time to find other jobs before they are laid off.


Mike

 

[Passions]

thats what u get for being greedy.

 

[bluemax]

Huh? What? Who was being greedy? 3dfx? Sheesh... all businesses could be considered "greedy" in the sense they ALL want you to buy their product and not someone else's.

 

[pdo]

a moment of silence for once a great company. tis a very sad day for all.

 

[kami]

bobby ribs, what are you smoking?

well said jzodda. We'd never be where we are if it wasn't for 3dfx. I too will never forget loading up GLQuake and Mechwarrior 2 for the first time on my P100 and Voodoo1.
Sad to see them go...

 

[UberNeuman]

It's not sad at all. 3dfx fell on their own sword. Mind you, it's taken a couple of years, but they did it to themselfs by:

1. Offering little improvement over past offerings Voodoo/Voodoo2/Voodoo3
2. Not open sourcing Glide
3. Refusing to add wanted features to their cards -- who remembers the 32-bit fiasco?
4. Deciding to take on Video Card production, closing off many areas of sale by being the only
ones to offer the Voodoo brand
5. Blowing wads of cash on TV and print ads

The people that know their stuff will more than likely be snatched up by Nvida and other card companies...

 

[xtreme2k]

Honestly, I was kinda shocked to see 3dfx suddenly got sold to nvidia.

I mean, I knew they arent doing great, but I thought they MIGHT have a chance with rampage and stuff. I know they WILL DEFINATELY die if their rampage isnt successful since they have used up all their cash reserves for sure by then, I just dont expect them to die so soon.

 

[jzodda]

Uber,

some very good points. 3dfx was very dismissive of the 16 vs 32 bit thing, and they lost on that one at the very least from a public relations standpoint. Not open-sourcing glide also was in retrospect a poor business decision because if they opensourced it back in 1996 it could have become a much wider standard. I still see the worst decision they ever made was buying STB and getting out of the OEM business.

Well now its Nvidia and ATI. Maybe the bitboys will get in on the act if they can ever get that card I have been reading about since 1997 to market someday.

 

[Mikewarrior2]

bitboys... let's see alpha silicon from them first.


Mike

 

[UberNeuman]

Heard a lot about the bit-boys, but have they "ever" put out anything?

 

[Czar]

I guess people will allways stay behind the second best untill the best is dead, 3dfx used to make the best cards, they failed. nVidia was number two at that time and now they are number one. Next job for me is start bashing nVidia, just have to find something to bash them with.

I will allways stay behind Matrox though.

People will now start to go to Ati, they are number two now.

 

[sandorski]

I have never fully understood 3dfx bashing. They never were a huge company, their market share has always been small in the over all market, they launched the whole 3d gaming graphics era, their cards have always been fast, and they were right not to jump on the 32bit bandwagon when 32bit was first introduced. Also, 3dfx cards always worked, the latest drivers were always the best drivers, they never introduced features that were essentially unuseable due to lack of supporting infrastructure(why they held back on 32bit), and they always delivered what they promised.

Sure, they kept Glide as a proprietary API, but no one was prevented from buying a 3dfx card to take advantage of Glide and most non-3dfx cards were not really able to optimally use Glide(hehe, probably a Catch 22 situation). Heck, 3dfx didn't even threaten most vidcard/chip manufacturers with the early Voodoo's, as they were 3d only cards requiring a separate 2d card.

I always get the impression that 3dfx bashers/haters at one time bought an awesomeish 2d/3d card just to play some awesome game they saw. They install the game and card, only to find out that the game has software rendering only on non-3dfx cards or that DirectX 3.0-6.0 sucks! So instead of admitting that they may have made a mistake, they decide to hate 3dfx!?

3dfx's biggest mistake was buying STB(as mentioned earlier in the thread), although before that they decided to go in a different direction that essentially abandoned the philosophy that made them successfull to begin with. Perhaps we can all learn something from this whole situation: If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

 

[sandorski]

Hahaha, just realized that is jzodda's sig

 

[LXi]

Yet there are still people out there who has absolutely no sympathy whatsoever to this disaster, I cannot imagine how cold hearted someone can be giving absolutely no respect and sympathy to 3dfx for what they have done. They CREATED 3D aceeleration!

 

[Czar]

<< I always get the impression that 3dfx bashers/haters at one time bought an awesomeish 2d/3d card just to play some awesome game they saw. They install the game and card, only to find out that the game has software rendering only on non-3dfx cards or that DirectX 3.0-6.0 sucks! So instead of admitting that they may have made a mistake, they decide to hate 3dfx!? >>


Could you please explain to me what you mean by this?

 

[LXi]

Czar:

I understood it perfectly.

 

[UberNeuman]

LXi - as I, and others in many different posts have said, that 3dfx had the graphics world in its hands...

and they dropped it... That's the way of the world. If you become too comfortable in your place, you tend to lose it...

[the edit part]3dfx didn't create the 3D card market -- they just did it better, until they got too comfortable[\da edit ends]

 

[BFG10K]

I agree, they did not deserve to go like this. A big part of their demise can be attributed to the reviewers who seemed to have a large bias against them. Regarding the purchase issue, I would have been happier if 3dfx instead decided to merge with ATi and combine their forces against nVidia, instead of simply being swallowed up.

3dfx's drivers and hardware were rock solid and always worked well. I just hope they release a few more driver updates before they completely die off.

 

[LXi]

Im well aware of the causes of their downfalls, I dont think its because they sat there comfortably, I thnk its because they made too many vital mistakes on how their resources should be used. One mistake after another, they tried to recover, again and again, and apparently they've made more mistakes than they can handle, and there it goes. I understand its their fault, nobody could've saved them, but I still pitty them for this disastrous ending.

 

[jzodda]

sandorski

That was a great way to end your post! and to think I was thinking the other day of changing my sig to my system specs. Well this is a sign not to change it

 

[DeathroweR]

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