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Why did 3DFX fail?

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I remember slapping in my Voodoo 3DFX card and being blown away by the graphics. I turned on hardware rendering for Quake 2 and was like "WHOA!!!".
 
They failed because they stopped allowing third party video card makers from using their hardware. Instead of seeing a ton of options when looking for a Voodoo card like you did previously, you saw a whole three options after they decided to be the only supplier of Voodoo cards.


So all these OEM's went looking and started making cards with chips from other suppliers. Nails in the coffin of Voodoo.
 
GTaudiophile said:
So many good memories! I remember the anticipation of a new card launch. nVidia would release. ATI would counter. Vice versa. It was war.

Now all we care about are phones...
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Anticipation for an ATI launch? Are you kidding?

They had good hardware at a cheap price, but damn they couldn't write software! Every so often I'd jump on their new release looking at the benchmarks and the prices, get all excited, then I install their drivers... and... fuck I have to throw this in the trash their software still is buggy and unstable as all hell! Wasn't until their 9xxx cards that ATI was finally an actual option to purchase.


Back in those early days I went the 3dfx route while a friend bought an early nvidia TNT, I got to play every game straight out of the box while my friend would have to devote at least a half hour to adjusting settings on every game to find a combination that ran stable on the TNT card.

3dfx failed because they didn't know how to evolve their technology. They kept releasing new products but they still used their old technology and performed exactly how you'd expect the old technology to perform. nvidia quickly trounced them in speed.
 
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RadiclDreamer said:
I'm pretty sure there have been more than a few "nvidia sli on a single card" choices out there.
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Nvidia didn't bring the new SLI back till 2004 (2 cards) and it wasn't until 2006 that they officially produced a single card with 2 GPUs (I believe).

Somewhere around 2005 Gigabyte went out on their own and produced a bastard child Nvidia based card with 2 GPUs.
 
Still have my Voodoo 2 SLI cards, in their boxes in a closet. They were part of my favorite gaming rig of all time, a Celeron 333a @ 540MHz, on air, with a heatsink that wasn't the size of a toaster. A 24/7 62% OC without water, dry ice, or LN2, and it was 100% stable... try doing that shit today. 😀 Back in the day, that beast was one of the fastest machines in the world.
 
The Voodoo 3000 + Unreal Tournament was the best damn PC gaming experience in the late 90's. Graphics were so damn smooth.

The 4000 and 5000 were let downs in comparison.
 
I remember when I told my friends dad that I had the Voodoo 3, and he said, "I want the Voodoo. I want the Voodoo".
 
Newell Steamer said:
I remember slapping in my Voodoo 3DFX card and being blown away by the graphics. I turned on hardware rendering for Quake 2 and was like "WHOA!!!".
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LOL- every person I talked to had this experience:

"I plugged the card in and didn't see any difference."

"You have to turn on hardware acceleration."

"Oh, I didn't know that.....WHHHHOOOOAAAAAAA!!!!!"

Of course kids today are used to 3D games, so it's no big deal now.
 
Train said:
The Voodoo 3000 + Unreal Tournament was the best damn PC gaming experience in the late 90's. Graphics were so damn smooth.

The 4000 and 5000 were let downs in comparison.
Click to expand...
the GF2 GTS I bought back then blew that combination away.

I used OpenGL instead of DX. I also found a third party OpenGL driver for UT99 that really helped performance.
 
Unreal Tournament Facing Worlds CTF games. So many good times drinking and lan partying with that map.
 
That acquisition of STB did them in. It cut their exposure and marketshare over night. It introduced costs they didnt have before. It allowed a feisty competitor to swoop in an take all of their former OEMs(Nvidia).
 
My first Voodoo experience was with the first Voodoo card and playing the first Tomb Raider in 3dfx glide mode! Man, I was blown away! I still have my 2 Voodoo 2 cards. I wish I had an old ISA mobo and windows 3.1/Dos 6.x to play it on.
 
cbrsurfr said:
Nvidia didn't bring the new SLI back till 2004 (2 cards) and it wasn't until 2006 that they officially produced a single card with 2 GPUs (I believe).

Somewhere around 2005 Gigabyte went out on their own and produced a bastard child Nvidia based card with 2 GPUs.
Click to expand...

Yes, but they still made them.
 
Fritzo said:
LOL- every person I talked to had this experience:

"I plugged the card in and didn't see any difference."

"You have to turn on hardware acceleration."

"Oh, I didn't know that.....WHHHHOOOOAAAAAAA!!!!!"

Of course kids today are used to 3D games, so it's no big deal now.
Click to expand...

I was looking for a video of this that wasn't 10 mins long. Anyone know of a video showing how it looked on and off?
 
Skel said:
I was looking for a video of this that wasn't 10 mins long. Anyone know of a video showing how it looked on and off?
Click to expand...

Here's a split screen:

quake-split.jpg
 
I was in the middle of the 3dfx and NVDA debate, here and silicon investor. First as a 3dfx supporter. I was one of the first people to get a voodoo 5 because they gave me one when I visits them in their office. That visit (I met their CFO and a few of their other leaders) convinced me that NVDA would win.

Michael
 
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