Which was worst: When nVidia bought ULi or when Creative Labs bought Aureal?

[StormRider]

For me it was when nVidia bought ULi. ULi was producing some really fine motherboard chipsets and now it's all over.

 

[SonicIce]

when Creative Labs bought Aureal

 

[corkyg]

Neither - when AMD bought ATI.

 

[secretanchitman]

when nvidia bought 3dfx...i was sad.

 

[ultimatebob]

Lenovo buying IBM's PC division kinda bummed me out. They invented the PC, and now it's owned by China

 

[corkyg]

Agree about Lenovo - but a much earlier, tragic acquisition was when Symantec bought Central Point and eliminated two of the best utilities on the planet - PC Tools and XTree. It was in 1995.

"The new, Windows 95 generation of Symantec Norton products-- the two described in this article, along with Norton Utilities 95, described in July's issue, have gained from Symantec's acquisition of Central Point's product line, including both PC Tools and XTree."

Actually, this thread probably belongs elsewhere.

 

[Sphexi]

When 3dFX bought STB. At the time STB was the ONLY card manufacturer using NVIDIA chipsets, and 3dFX was dominating the market for chips. They wanted both sides though, so they bought STB, and stopped selling their chips to other card makers. Everybody turned to NVIDIA, and obviously that worked out great.

Unfortunately, STB got screwed in the process, and they had some of the best cards around. I still have a STB Velocity 128 around somewhere, and a 4400 (TNT based). Awesome cards.

 

[So]

EASILY when Creative bought Aureal. The entire market has died since then. There are still decent chipsets.

 

[Zoinks]

Originally posted by: So
EASILY when Creative bought Aureal. The entire market has died since then. There are still decent chipsets.

Agreed.

 

[0roo0roo]

aureal big time. sound card market has been dead ever since. i still have an old secondary pc that still runs a monster sound 3d aureal was the sound card markets amd. imagine if amd were dead..thats the kinda hell that happened.

chipsets are still fine compared.

 

[Pariah]

Aureal and 3dfx were both completely dead (and bankrupt) by the time they got bought out. Neither buyout had any affect on their respective markets as both companies were well past the point of no return.

3dfx buying STB was a pretty awful strategy that completely backfired. I doubt AMD purchasing ATi will turn out that badly, but that was a really peculiar one in my book. I don't see anything good coming out of that merger especially for ATi.

 

[Howard]

Originally posted by: SonicIce
when Creative Labs bought Aureal

After financially raping them.

 

[n7]

Originally posted by: corkyg
Neither - when AMD bought ATI.

I really hope you are wrong on that, but only time will tell...

 

[Slugbait]

Originally posted by: Sphexi
When 3dFX bought STB. At the time STB was the ONLY card manufacturer using NVIDIA chipsets, and 3dFX was dominating the market for chips. They wanted both sides though, so they bought STB, and stopped selling their chips to other card makers. Everybody turned to NVIDIA, and obviously that worked out great.

Unfortunately, STB got screwed in the process, and they had some of the best cards around. I still have a STB Velocity 128 around somewhere, and a 4400 (TNT based). Awesome cards.

Actually, 3Dfx wasn't dominating when they bought STB...they were number three (or four?) and was never as high as number two. The most dominant was Intel, followed closely by ATI. I believe Matrox still had a major foothold putting them into number three due to their vastly superior 2D...most gamers I knew (including myself) had Millennium/Voodoo boxes.

But yeah, as I remember, 3Dfx purchased STB primarily to manufacture cards themselves, and get out of the OEM market. Bad move, they could have made their own boards plus had a chance to take the OEM market away from Intel and ATI.

However, I've joked about this many times: back in '98, STB went to war with ATI to see who could write the worst drivers...ATI won by default when STB got purchased.

 

[ed21x]

when adobe acquired Macromedia, I was sad... but not as sad as ATI/AMD- now ATi has just lost around 90% of the potential marketshare from Intel customers.

 

[sonoma1993]

hen Creative Labs bought Aureal, I miss those sound cards. I have a aureal vortex sound card in one of my motherboard boxes that are in my room somewhere. I also miss 3dfx.

 

[ForumMaster]

when Creative bought Aureal. the sound card market has died and is solely dominated by Creative. why hasn't anyone sued them for having a monopoly?

ULi has good chipsets but their death didn't end in vain. they added a lot of really good technology that nVidia is incorporating into their chipsets. wasn't it a ULi chipset that was first used for true dual PCI-E x16? or was it two nvidia chips?

 

[A5]

They're not really a monopoly since the vast majority of PC sound devices are onboard chips made by Realtek or AD.

 

[Pariah]

Originally posted by: Slugbait

Originally posted by: Sphexi
When 3dFX bought STB. At the time STB was the ONLY card manufacturer using NVIDIA chipsets, and 3dFX was dominating the market for chips. They wanted both sides though, so they bought STB, and stopped selling their chips to other card makers. Everybody turned to NVIDIA, and obviously that worked out great.

Unfortunately, STB got screwed in the process, and they had some of the best cards around. I still have a STB Velocity 128 around somewhere, and a 4400 (TNT based). Awesome cards.

Actually, 3Dfx wasn't dominating when they bought STB...they were number three (or four?) and was never as high as number two. The most dominant was Intel, followed closely by ATI. I believe Matrox still had a major foothold putting them into number three due to their vastly superior 2D...most gamers I knew (including myself) had Millennium/Voodoo boxes.

But yeah, as I remember, 3Dfx purchased STB primarily to manufacture cards themselves, and get out of the OEM market. Bad move, they could have made their own boards plus had a chance to take the OEM market away from Intel and ATI.

However, I've joked about this many times: back in '98, STB went to war with ATI to see who could write the worst drivers...ATI won by default when STB got purchased.

3dfx was number 2 behind ATi when they bought out STB. Intel who had a huge lead in the graphics chips market doesn't count, because their huge volume lead was due to onboard graphics which didn't compete against the performance add in market that 3dfx occupied. Once they bought STB, all of their OEM customers left for other chip makers (NVidia, ATi, etc), because they didn't want to compete against the company who was selling them chips, which ruined 3dfx. Nvidia soon passed 3dfx for number 2, and the rest is history. I also owned a Millenium/3dfx box back in the day, but Matrox was never more than a niche company that had little market share.

Tough to go after Creative for monopoly abuse when they likely hold under 10% of the market. Unlike onboard video which is worthless for gaming, which the vast majority of home computers are used for, onboard audio is good enough for the overwhelming majority of users out there making it a direct competitor to Creative. It's difficult to compete with good enough for free, which has far more to do with the stagnant sound card market than Creative does.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: Slugbait
However, I've joked about this many times: back in '98, STB went to war with ATI to see who could write the worst drivers...ATI won by default when STB got purchased.

Yeah, but ATI already had 13 years previous experience writing bad drivers, so ATI would have won anyway.

 

[Slugbait]

Originally posted by: Pariah
3dfx was number 2 behind ATi when they bought out STB. Intel who had a huge lead in the graphics chips market doesn't count, because their huge volume lead was due to onboard graphics which didn't compete against the performance add in market that 3dfx occupied.

I could be wrong, but as I recall, back then ATI came in second to Intel only because of the huge presence they had due to onboard graphics which also didn't compete against the performance add in market that 3Dfx occupied. In fact, when ATI came into existence, it was exclusively doing onboard graphics (and they never exited that market, instead branching further into it years later with Microsoft and Nintendo). So we shouldn't count ATI onboard graphics either, which would drop their ranking.

Second, you're comparing apples to oranges...as an add-in card, the 3Dfx competition was PowerVR, in which case 3Dfx was number one. There wasn't really a number three...

But let's go ahead and jump to the day before the purchase of STB, compare apples with apples, and also ignore Intel's foothold and say they don't deserve to be ranked (we'll give a pass to ATI): there was Voodoo Rush, but it bombed too deep to get 3Dfx ranked in the top two (or four...) despite continued Voodoo2 sales. Voodoo Banshee was better, but had limited adoption by OEMs, plus Rage had aged, and nVidia was firmly on the scene by then...again, not able to rank in the top two.

...but Matrox was never more than a niche company that had little market share

Matrox was not a niche company, and they quickly built a huge market share behind the original Millenium. Later their G200 bested Voodoo2 in both resolution and color depth. Their only critical issue was OpenGL...it was resolved during the G400 timeline, but by that time DirectX was maturing, the competition had improved their own 2D quality and ran away with 3D performance. Only now are Matrox a niche company...back when STB was purchased, Matrox was still a powerhouse that had respectable 3D and unquestionable 2D.

 

[Sniper82]

Originally posted by: Sphexi
When 3dFX bought STB. At the time STB was the ONLY card manufacturer using NVIDIA chipsets, and 3dFX was dominating the market for chips. They wanted both sides though, so they bought STB, and stopped selling their chips to other card makers. Everybody turned to NVIDIA, and obviously that worked out great.

Unfortunately, STB got screwed in the process, and they had some of the best cards around. I still have a STB Velocity 128 around somewhere, and a 4400 (TNT based). Awesome cards.

the 4400 was my very first 3D card. Twas great even though I got it in the PCI flavor.

 

[Smartazz]

Originally posted by: SonicIce
when Creative Labs bought Aureal

When did that happen?

 

[KGB]

Originally posted by: sonoma1993
hen Creative Labs bought Aureal, I miss those sound cards. I have a aureal vortex sound card in one of my motherboard boxes that are in my room somewhere. I also miss 3dfx.

I just found my old Vortex2 card (Diamond MM MX300) in my stash.
God, I miss that card. Does anyone know if XP has native drivers for this?

I anyone running a Vortex2 (8830) card in XP and if so, what drivers are you using?