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

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1) Mikewarrior - the vast majority of 3dfx folks were laid off 1 hour before the conference call last Friday

2) The only people who will be employeed through February will be the legal eagles who will take care of dividing 3dfx's remaining assets and taking care of the stock/shareholders

3) No more driver updates, unless Wicked3d comes through for us

4) 3dfx was bought out by nvidia because nvidia knew they were going to lose the lawsuit in May, and 3dfx didn't have enough capital to last until May. Via was going to buy 3dfx, but nvidia kept upping the ante until Via bowed out

5) A buddy of mine FINALLY opened his damn mouth and let me know some of the specs of Rampage/SAGE.

OH
MY
GAWD

Christ almighty, it almost brought a tear to my eye to know such technology was going to be killed off.
 
<<3dfx didn't create the 3D card market -- they just did it better,>>

I have a feeling you're just one of those 3dfx bashers. If they didnt create 3D market, who did? S3? Stop joking me. They were the first to make a 3D card, it was defined as 3D acceleration, they driven this trend to a sucess so everybody jumped in, they potentially created a market for 3D accelerators and pioneered it for quite sometime. There is no way you can deny this.


<<until they got too comfortable>>

Like I said, they DID NOT sit their comfortably. They made vital mistakes such as acquiring STB and pissed off their roots like Diamond and Creative. It is understandable that they didnt come up with good enough technology to compete so you can say competition killed them. It just doesnt make sense at all that &quot;comfort&quot; is the cause of their failure.
 
<<Via was going to buy 3dfx, but nvidia kept upping the ante until Via bowed out>>

I just had this feeling that somebody would compete with nVidia for the offer, I was just wonder why ATI didnt get 3dfx, VIA getting 3dfx would be nice too.
 
Im going to disagree.... 3dfx does deserve this..... that DOES NOT mean the employees deserve this. Trust me I know what its like I also lost my job friday. 3dfx brought this upon themselves.... they had the technology they just could not execute. And they could do nothing with the OEM market and that hurt them alot.
 
Dave mentioned that the NDA will be lifted soon. I'm hoping he'll give us detailed specs of all of 3dfx's upcoming boards (or what were supposed to be upcoming).
 
Via was going to buy 3dfx, but nvidia kept upping the ante until Via bowed out

GOOD GRIEF! Is this industry filled with boneheads or what? There's one word that SOMEBODY should have shared with VIA:

Crush

Which is what nVidia is going to do to VIA's integrated video chipset business. Let's see, if I'm shopping for a mobo with integrated video, would I want an integrated S3 Savage or Geforce2 MX? Even if there's a slight higher cost point for the nVidia - and that's not a given - there's a heck of a lot more marketing power using Geforce than Savage. Seems like integrated Voodoo Graphics vs Geforce would have been a heck of a better selling point. Also, I'd read somewhere that even though nVidia's Crush uses shared memory, with DDR system memory the integrated MX is about 10% faster than a regular MX.

Duh.
 


<< They were the first to make a 3D card, it was defined as 3D acceleration >>



No, as much as it hurts, S3's ViRGE card was the first 3D accelerator and 3dfx had the first dedicated 3D-only card...



<< they driven this trend to a success so everybody jumped in, they potentially created a market for 3D accelerators and pioneered it for quite sometime. There is no way you can deny this. >>



There was ATI's Rage chip series. Rendition's V&eacute;rit&eacute; 1000 that appeared around the same time, before and after 3dfx came on the scene with the first Voodoo... So you see, the ball was already rolling, it was just a matter of who did it best, which was 3dfx. The speed of the Voodoo 1 was unmistakable, but they were not the first, nor did they create the market...

As for pioneering, that seemed to stop when each new Voodoo card after V1 turned out to be just
an &quot;amped-up&quot; version of the first V1.



<< Like I said, they DID NOT sit their comfortably. >>



Like you said -- I never said you said that...



<< They made vital mistakes such as acquiring STB and pissed off their roots like Diamond and Creative. >>



I think everyone agrees with that...



<< It is understandable that they didnt come up with good enough technology to compete so you can say competition killed them. It just doesnt make sense at all that &quot;comfort&quot; is the cause of their failure. >>



What does &quot;comfort&quot; mean to you? It means to me that if a company takes on all product production, announces that the consumer doesn't need new features for their card, recycles the same tech at higher and higher prices, then they must believe that &quot;Joe Blow&quot; consumer is going to take it and like it... They must think that they can not fail, it must mean that the company has become &quot;comfortable&quot; in their position and thereby fail to innovate and stay a leader...

As for Rampage, specs may look good on paper, but it doesn't mean much if the product can't be created in a reasonable time frame at a reasonable cost...
 
LXi- 3dfx did not &quot;invent&quot; 3d acceleration, it has been done for quite some time w/ professional level video cards... in the same way nvidia didnt &quot;invent&quot; on chip t&amp;l. What 3dfx did do however is bring great 3d acceleration performance (something that S3 and Rendition didnt do) at a resonable price (if $300 for an addin 3d only card is affordable).

About the main topic though... As i commented on the day this borke.. it trully is a sad day in the computer industry. 3dfx was/is a great company and they (as well as their technology) deserve to be taken advantage of. I hope that their technology, rampage/sage included, lives on in some way over at nvidia. I also hope that their employees move on to bigger and better things. I owned 3 3dfx products (v1,v2,v3) and they were all great cards, no issues whatsoever. I agree that they made mistakes and maybe even brought this on to themselves but i do not agree that this is the right thing and that this is good for the market... it absolutely is not.
 
I would never hate or love any gfx-card/chip company. It´s just electronics. It takes more than that to get me emotionally involved with something. Some of you are taking this way to serious.
3Dfx went down because of piss-poor management and even poorer bussiness desicions. That´s the reason. Any company would go down with that kind of management. It really makes no difference if they make gfx-cards or vaccum cleaners.
Ofcourse I feel a little sorry for some of the people that was working at 3Dfx. But not the executives that was responsible for the disaster. They can only blame them selves. In fact I think that the share holders are the ones that you really should feel sorry about. At least I do. Perhaps some of them had invested lots of money in 3Dfx believing that they would make a strong comeback and make profits again. Now, just before christmas, they reliaze that they have lost most of there money. Perhaps some of them have lost their lifes savings and are almost broke. Not a very nice christmas present.

Regards!
 
It's definitely bad to see 3Dfx go. I still remember fondly of the days of yore when the original Quake THE multiplayer game of the time and everyone only ran it in software mode. Then I remember reading on CNet (back when it was a real website and not an advertising hub) about the Rendition V1000 and the 3Dfx Voodoo 3D chip. It really seemed like mysterious &quot;Voodoo&quot; technology that suddenly made ugly PC Quake look better than any console of the day.

Their contributions to the 3D gaming industry can't be ignored, but unfortunately their downfall was of their own accord. Like countless other technology ghosts before them 3Dfx fell prey to bad management. (Atari, Apple, Aureal) Technology in of itself is not enough in today's competitive business environment but instead must be paired with sound business management to insure longevity and continued success.

I'm taking an optimist's view of nVidia and I think this won't be a bad turn for the industry as long as their is a legitimate second competitor to NVDA. ATI however, must seize this crucial window of opportunity.
 
This is a quote from two month old thread (October 15 )

Casiotech:
'We all heard the rumours of 3dfx going out of business, if so, what will happen to our &quot;lifetime&quot; warranties?'

Spook:
'I think thats their lifetime, not yours.... '

 
Worried about the technology from Rampage never seeing light of day? I wouldn't,

<< FiringSquad: Are the unannounced Rampage, Sage, Spectre and Fear designs included in the asset deal?

Yes, all of 3dfx's core graphics technology is now owned by NVIDIA, including all patents and pending patents. >>



click here for the full story...
 
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