"Is 3Dfx here to stay?" - 1997 interview after Sega contract was terminated

Discussion in 'Videocards - 3dfx' started by ThunderForce, Jan 21, 2016.

  1. ThunderForce

    ThunderForce Guest

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    This interview happened shortly after 3Dfx had been informed by Sega that their contract to provide the graphics system for Sega's next console had been terminated.
    The justification for this being, 3Dfx revealed, through their Initial Public Offering months earlier, that Sega had a new console in development. This was huge mistake for both companies IMO.

    This do doubt contributed to 3Dfx' problems, which also included not being able to bring out a completely new architecture (Rampage) which ultimately, led to them being bought out by Nvidia in 2001.

    With Sega going with NEC's PowerVR2 for Dreamcast instead of the more familiar and far better supported 3Dfx Voodoo tech, it insured EA and other 3rd party companies would not support Sega's console.

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  2. boogieman

    boogieman Ancient Guru

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    Have fond memories of 3DFX. Still have on shelf two Voodoo 2's 12 meg'ers. Remember playing Unreal way back then and wow'd by the graphics.
     
  3. DSparil

    DSparil Guest

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    haha, oh wow. How the powerhouses have fallen. I remember that whole fiasco, when 3dfx was supposed to supply the chipsets for the Sega Dreamcast and the contract went to PowerVR instead. I always remember my 3dfx gaming days though, and to be honest, they were the best and most memorable of my entire PC gaming life. :pc1:
     
  4. Dch48

    Dch48 Guest

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    I never had a 3DFX card. I played Unreal back then in OpenGL on an ATI Rage Fury 32mb AGP card. Unreal needed to have a large patch applied to make that work but work it did.
     

  5. passenger

    passenger Master Guru

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    You've missed a lot, sorry to say, it was only real cool time in gaming...

    ThunderForce: Thanks!
     
  6. AsiJu

    AsiJu Ancient Guru

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    Agreed, Voodoo Graphics was my introduction to 3D acceleration.

    I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw Glide-patched Tomb Raider running for the first time... pure PC gaming magic which I don't think has been equaled before or since.

    Played Unreal with Voodoo Graphics (and Pentium 166) first, I think it was the first game to really cripple the card, didn't run too well at all.

    Then got a Riva TNT AGP and a Celeron 300 A system (oc'ed to 450 MHz) and with the latest patch the game got OpenGL/D3D support finally.
    Which was good as Unreal was the main game the PC got updated for and Riva TNT seemed a better option than Voodoo 2 at the time.

    Needless to say the experience was very different with the new PC.
    I remember thinking that wow, my old PC had 8 MB of system RAM while the new graphics card alone has 16 MB of VRAM.
     
  7. Dch48

    Dch48 Guest

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    My system with the ATI Rage Fury had a Pentium III 450mhz CPU which was later upgraded to 850. The card had 32mb of VRAM. The system had 64mb of RAM which gradually increased up to 256. I got the machine in 1999. Unreal played and looked much better in OpenGL than in D3D.

    Right now, I am playing Need For Speed III, Hot Pursuit from 1998 on both my Win 10 desktop and Win 7 laptop with the nGlide wrapper and the game still looks surprisingly good. It's much better than playing it in DX 7 or 8.
     
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2016
  8. DSparil

    DSparil Guest

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    No doubt! The first time I was over my friends house and saw him playing Quake 2 on his Voodoo card, I couldn't believe my eyes. Up until then, I had been playing games with software rendering, because thats what I had and that was all I knew. I promptly saved my pennies and dived right in with a Voodoo 3 3000. The rest was history :)
     
  9. Dch48

    Dch48 Guest

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    I'll agree. Back in 1999, when I bought my first internet capable computer, I played Need For Speed III on line against a friend. Like I said, at that time I was playing the game on an ATI Rage Fury card and most likely in software rendering but maybe in D3D at a resolution of 800 X 600. I don't really remember. When I went to his place and saw the game on his Voodoo setup, the difference was dramatic. He could have all the reflections, shadows, fires, fog, and all the other special effects that I never saw. I did not rush out and buy a voodoo card though and taking into account what happened to them soon afterwards, I'm glad I didn't.
     
  10. passenger

    passenger Master Guru

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    From 1996-2000 for gaming really it was all about 3dfx/Glide/Voodoo.
    The fastest, the best looking and the coolest.
     

  11. DSparil

    DSparil Guest

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    3dfx was king for many years in that era, and their Glide API was the only way to go for the best gaming experience of that time frame. You wouldn't have made a bad investment unless maybe you picked up a V5 5500 which was their last retail release, save the 6000 which was more rare. After 3dfx, my next card was a Riva TNT2 :infinity:
     
  12. Dch48

    Dch48 Guest

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    Every video card I have had has been ATI/AMD. I've never even had NVidia.

    Started with the Rage Fury, then bought a new computer in 2005 to play World of Warcraft. The m/b in the fury machine had an AGP v1 slot and I couldn't get a good enough card that would fit. The new system had Radeon 200 Xpress integrated that was upgraded to a discrete X700 Pro a short time later. Then in 2011, I bought a laptop with a LLano APU and HD6620G graphics and now I'm using the system in my info. So, no Nvidia, and no Intel anything since that first machine with the PIII.
     
  13. Fender178

    Fender178 Ancient Guru

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    Never owned a 3dFX card but heard great things about them. Also I have fulled around with Glide emulation and with the games that support glide it is indeed a night and day difference. Look at Diablo2 for example.
     
  14. AsiJu

    AsiJu Ancient Guru

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    Yes, I remember that too. I think the texture format was better with OGL or something. D3D looked washed out.

    Oh yes, Quake 2 was another good one. Well, just about every game that had both software and hardware rendering options.

    Just remembered MDK got 3D acceleration support too. There was an internal benchmark in it with reference values for P150 and P200 IIRC.
    With P166 and 3Dfx the reading was off the chart, way past P200... ;)

    IIRC Voodoo 2 had slightly better performance (and ofc Glide support) but we went with Riva TNT because it was newer tech AGP card and had more VRAM.

    Plus I think D3D/OGL performance was better with TNT (Voodoo 2 was faster with Glide). Not sure though, it's ancient history almost now.
     
  15. BlueIce1

    BlueIce1 Active Member

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    The earliest card i can remember having was a Voodoo Banshee. After that I had a TNT2.
     

  16. viper_911

    viper_911 Member

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    remember going to a local pc world for a voodoo 3000 on a boxing day, got stuck in traffic jam for 2 hours what should have been a 15 minute journey,

    was worth the hassle, I will never forget playing quake 2 in glide got me hooked on fps
     
  17. AsiJu

    AsiJu Ancient Guru

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    Banshee was a standalone version of Voodoo Graphics IIRC. Meaning you didn't need a separate 2D card and Banshee could render in a window too.
     
  18. passenger

    passenger Master Guru

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    TNT's tech advantage over previous Riva128 chipset really was speed and multitexturing (patent literally stolen from 3dfx). And TNT was to weak architecture for 32bit color. Then nvidia and drivers...:)

    Voodoo2 was the king over all really, I will always remember Unreal & Unreal Tournament in Glide(I think you can still find some ss from that magical time). 16bit Glide looked better than TNT's 32bit D3D.
     
  19. nav-jack

    nav-jack Master Guru

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    I totally side stepped the voodoo back in the day, sadly. I had an STB velocity 128. My mom's computer had a ati rage pro I think. We both had amd k-6-2 with 3D now lol. Then I went to a dell with a Pentium 4 and up graded it to a matrix g400 max? Bump mapping bro! By then 3dfx was a memory I think cuz I went to a geforce 200ti... Then an athlon 64 3200+ and then a ati radeon 9600 or 9700 pro... Man, time flies
     
  20. passenger

    passenger Master Guru

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