3dfx
Encyclopedia
3dfx Interactive was a company that specialized in the manufacturing of 3D graphics processing unit
s and, later, graphics cards. It was a pioneer in the field for several years in the late 1990s until 2000 when it underwent one of the most high-profile demises in the history of the PC
industry. It was headquartered in San Jose, California
until, on the verge of bankruptcy, many of its intellectual assets (and many employees) were acquired by its rival, Nvidia
. 3dfx Interactive filed for bankruptcy on October 15, 2002.
alumni) with backing from Gordie Campbell's TechFarm, 3dfx released its Voodoo Graphics chip in 1996. The company only manufactured the chips and some reference
boards, and initially did not sell any product to consumers; rather, it acted as an OEM
supplier for graphics card companies, which designed, manufactured, marketed, and sold their own graphics cards including the Voodoo chipset.
3dfx gained fame due to their great success within the arcade market. At the time, arcades were a very visible place to go visit and see the latest in 3D gaming and technology. The first arcade machine that 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics hardware was used in was called ICE Home Run Derby, a game released in 1996. Later that year they were featured in more popular titles, such as Atari's
San Francisco Rush and Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey
. 3Dfx received a lot of focus from the media because of the obvious graphical prowess of these titles, and that new game consoles such as Nintendo 64
, PlayStation
, and Sega Saturn
would be showcases for similar next-generation graphics.
A typical Voodoo Graphics PCI
expansion card consisted of a DAC
, a frame buffer processor and a texture mapping unit, along with 4 MB of EDO DRAM. The RAM and graphics processors operate at 50 MHz. It provided only 3D acceleration and as such the computer also needed a traditional video controller for conventional 2D software. A pass-through VGA cable daisy-chained
the video controller to the Voodoo, which was itself connected to the monitor. The method used to engage the Voodoo's output circuitry varied between cards, with some using mechanical relays while others utilized purely digital components. The mechanical relays emitted an audible "clicking" sound when they engaged and disengaged.
The Voodoo's primary competition were products from PowerVR
and Rendition
. PowerVR produced a similar 3D-only add-on card with capable 3D support, although it was not comparable to Voodoo Graphics in either image quality or performance. 3Dfx saw intense competition in the market from cards that offered the combination of 2D and 3D acceleration. While these cards, such as Matrox Mystique
, S3 ViRGE
, and ATI 3D Rage
, offered unquestionably inferior 3D acceleration, their lower cost and simplicity often appealed to OEM system builders. Rendition's Vérité V1000 was an integrated (3D+VGA) single-chip solution as well that was perhaps Voodoo's closest competitor, but it too did not have comparable 3D performance and its 2D capabilities were considered merely adequate relative to other 2D cards of the time.
s of the era (Direct3D
, OpenGL
, and QuickDraw 3D
), which hid low-level hardware details behind an "abstraction layer
", with the goal of providing application developers a standard, hardware-neutral interface.
The advantage of an abstraction layer is that game developers save programming effort and gain flexibility by writing their 3D rendering code once, for a single API, and the abstraction layer allows it to run on hardware from multiple manufacturers. This advantage is still in place today. However, in the early days of the 3D graphics card, Direct3D and OpenGL implementations were either non-existent or, at minimum, substantially less mature than today, and computers were much slower and had less memory. The abstraction layers' overhead crippled performance in practice. 3dfx had therefore created a strong advantage for itself by aggressively promoting Glide, which was designed specifically around the Voodoo hardware, and therefore did not suffer from the performance hit of a higher level abstraction layer.
While there were many hit games that used Glide, including several coin-op/arcade games from Midway Games and Atari Games (e.g., San Francisco Rush, NFL Blitz, Hydrothunder, etc.) and games like Eidos' Tomb Raider, the killer application
for Voodoo Graphics was the MiniGL
driver developed specifically to allow hardware acceleration of the game Quake, by id Software
, on 3dfx cards. The driver implemented only the subset of OpenGL used by Quake.
By 2000, the improved performance of Direct3D and OpenGL on the average personal computer, coupled with the huge variety of new 3D cards on the market, the widespread support of these standard APIs by the game developer community and the closure of 3dfx, would make Glide obsolete.
AT25/AT3D 2D component, but there were some built with a Macronix chip and there were initial plans to partner with Trident
but no such boards were ever marketed.
The Rush had the same specifications as Voodoo Graphics but did not perform as well because the Rush chipset had to share memory bandwidth with the CRTC of the 2D chip. Furthermore, the Rush chipset was not directly present on the PCI bus but had to be programmed through linked registers of the 2D chip. Like the Voodoo Graphics, there was no interrupt
mechanism, so the driver had to poll the Rush in order to determine whether a command had completed or not; the indirection through the 2D component added significant overhead here and tended to back up traffic on the PCI interface. The typical performance hit was around 10% compared to Voodoo Graphics, and even worse in windowed mode. Later Rush boards released by Hercules had 8 MiB
VRAM and a 10% higher clock speed to close the performance gap.
A rare third version was produced which featured a Cirrus Logic
2D chip. This version fixed the PCI bus collisions and memory interface problems.
Some manufacturers bundled a PC version of Atari Games
' racing game San Francisco Rush, the arcade version of which used a Voodoo Graphics chipset.
Sales of the Voodoo Rush cards were very poor, and the cards were discontinued within a year. The company would not attempt another 2D/3D solution again until the release of the Voodoo Banshee in 1998.
In 1998, 3dfx released Voodoo's successor, the popular Voodoo2. The Voodoo2 was architecturally similar, but the basic board configuration added a second texturing unit, allowing two textures to be drawn in a single pass.
The Voodoo2 required three chips and a separate VGA graphics card, whereas new competing 3D products, such as the ATI Rage Pro, Nvidia RIVA 128
, and Rendition Verite 2200, were single-chip products. Despite some shortcomings, such as the card's dithered 16-bit 3D color
rendering and 800×600
resolution limitations, no other manufacturers' products could match the smooth framerates that the Voodoo2 produced. It was a landmark (and expensive) achievement in PC 3D-graphics. Its excellent performance, and the mindshare gained from the original Voodoo Graphics, resulted in its success. Many users even preferred Voodoo2's dedicated purpose, because they were free to use the quality 2D card of their choice as a result. Some 2D/3D combined solutions at the time offered quite sub-par 2D quality and speed.
The arrival of the Nvidia RIVA TNT
with integrated 2D/3D chipset would offer minor challenge to the Voodoo2's supremacy months later.
(SLI) to the gaming market. In SLI mode, two Voodoo2 boards were connected together, each drawing half the scan line
s of the screen. For the price of a second Voodoo2 board, users could easily improve 3D throughout. A welcome result of SLI mode was an increase in the maximum resolution supported, now up to 1024×768. However, due to the high cost and inconvenience of using three separate graphics cards (two Voodoo 2 SLI plus the general purpose 2D graphics adapter), the Voodoo2 SLI scheme, though revolutionary at the time, had minimal effect on the total market share that the Voodoo2 held and was not a financial success.
The potential of the Voodoo2's SLI was limited by CPU bottlenecking Still, the long-term accomplishment of this technology can be seen in its usefulness in gaming as late as 2004.
SLI capability was not offered in subsequent 3dfx board designs, although the technology would be later used to link the VSA-100 chips on the Voodoo 5.
Having since acquired 3dfx, Nvidia in 2004 reintroduced the SLI brand (initially called Scalable Link Interface
) in the GeForce 6 Series
. ATI Technologies
has also since introduced its own multi-chip implementation, dubbed "CrossFire
". Although NVIDIA SLI and ATI Crossfire operate on the original SLI principle of utilizing the power of multiple video cards, the implementation is different.
unit) Voodoo2 3D hardware. Due to the missing second TMU, in 3D scenes which used multiple textures per polygon
, the Voodoo2 was significantly faster. However, in scenes dominated by single-textured polygons, the Banshee could match or exceed the Voodoo2 due to its higher clock speed and resulting greater pixel fillrate. While it was not as popular as Voodoo Graphics or Voodoo2, the Banshee sold a respectable number of units.
Banshee's 2D acceleration was the first such hardware from 3Dfx and it was very capable. It rivaled the fastest 2D cores from Matrox
, Nvidia, and ATI
. It consisted of a 128-bit 2D
GUI
engine and a 128-bit VESA VBE 3.0
VGA core. The graphics chip capably accelerated DirectDraw
and supported all of the Windows Graphics Device Interface
(GDI) in hardware, with all 256 raster
operations and tertiary functions, and hardware polygon acceleration. The 2D core achieved near-theoretical maximum performance with a null driver test in Windows NT
.
While Nvidia had yet to launch a product in the add-in board market that sold as well as 3dfx's Voodoo line, the company was gaining steady ground in the OEM market. The Nvidia RIVA TNT was a similar, highly integrated product that had two major advantages in greater 3D speed and 32-bit 3D color support. 3dfx, by contrast, had very limited OEM sales, as the Banshee was only adopted in small numbers by OEMs.
to develop a new video game console
hardware platform. Sega solicited two competing designs: a unit code-named "Katana", developed in Japan using NEC
and VideoLogic technology, and "Blackbelt", a system designed in the United States using 3dfx technology.
However on July 22 of 1997, Sega announced that it was terminating the development contract (EN, July 28). At that time Sega actually told 3Dfx it was going to use NEC's PowerVR chipset for its game console, said Ms. Onopchenko. Sega told 3Dfx it had not terminated the contract because of the chipset performance and gave no indication as to why it decided to terminate the contract with 3Dfx, added Ms. Onopchenko, "We have requested that Sega return our confidential information and technology and they have failed to honor that request for one month now," said Ms. Onopchenko. "We believe there is a risk because Sega has no sign of returning our trade secrets and now is working with a competitor in NEC."
3Dfx said Sega has still not given a reason as to why it terminated the contract or why it chose NEC's accelerator chipset over 3Dfx's.
According to Dale Ford, senior analyst at Dataquest, a market research firm based in San Jose, Calif., a number of factors could have influenced Sega's decision to move to NEC, including NEC's proven track record of supplying chipsets for the Nintendo 64 and the demonstrated ability to be able to handle a major influx of capacity if the company decided to ramp up production on a moment's notice.
"This is a highly competitive market with price wars happening all the time and it would appear that after evaluating a number of choices—and the ramifications each choice brings—Sega went with a decision that it thought was best for the company's longevity," said Mr. Ford. "Sega has to make a significant move to stay competitive and they need to make it soon. Now whether this move is to roll out another home console platform or move strictly to the PC gaming space is unknown."
Sega quickly quashed "Blackbelt" and used "Katana" as the model for the product that would be marketed and sold as the Dreamcast. 3dfx sued Sega for breach of contract, accusing Sega of starting the deal in bad faith in order to take 3dfx technology. The case was settled out of court.
to develop 2D and 3D Windows device driver
s for Rampage in the summer of 1998. The hardware team in Austin initially focused on Rampage, but then worked on transform and lighting (T&L) engines and on MPEG decoder technology. (Later, these technologies were part of the Nvidia asset purchase in December 2000.)
3dfx executed a major strategy change just prior to the launch of Voodoo3 by purchasing STB Technologies, which was one of the larger graphics card manufacturers at the time; the intent was for 3dfx to start manufacturing, marketing, and selling its own graphics cards, rather than functioning only as an OEM
supplier. STB was obviously intended to give 3dfx access to that company's considerable OEM resources and sales channels, but the intended benefits of the acquisition never materialized. The two corporations were vastly different entities, with different cultures and structures, and they never integrated smoothly.
STB prior to the 3dfx acquisition also approached Nvidia as a potential partner to acquire the company. At the time, STB was Nvidia's largest customer and was only minimally engaged with 3dfx. 3dfx management mistakenly believed that acquiring STB would ensure OEM design wins with their products and that product limitations would be overcome with STB's knowledge in supporting the OEM sales/design win cycles. Nvidia decided not to acquire STB and to continue to support many brands of graphics board manufacturers. After STB was acquired by 3dfx, Nvidia focused on being a virtual graphics card manufacturer for the OEMs and strengthened its position in selling finished reference designs ready for market to the OEMs. STB's manufacturing facility in Juarez, Mexico was not able to compete from either a cost or quality point of view when compared to the burgeoning Original design manufacturer
s (ODMs) and Contract electronic manufacturers (CEMs) that were delivering solutions in Asia for Nvidia. Prior to the STB merger finalizing, some of 3dfx's OEMs warned the company that any product from Juarez will not be deemed fit to ship with their systems, however 3dfx management believed these problems could be addressed over time. Those customers generally moved to Nvidia solutions and no longer chose to ship 3dfx products.
The acquisition of STB was one of the main contributors to 3dfx's downfall; the company did not sell any Voodoo 4 or 5 chips to third party manufacturers which were a significant source of revenue for the company. These third-party manufacturers turned into competitors and began sourcing graphics chips from NVIDIA. This also further alienated 3dfx's remaining OEM customers, as they had a single source for 3dfx products and could not choose a CEM to provide cost flexibility. The OEMs saw 3dfx as a direct competitor in retail. With the purchase of STB 3dfx created a line of Velocity boards (a STB brand) that used crippled Voodoo3 chips, as a product to target the low-end market. The chip came with only a single functional TMU, making it similar to a Voodoo Banshee.
As 3dfx focused more on the retail graphics card space, further inroads into the OEM space were limited. A significant requirement of the OEM business was the ability to consistently produce new products on the six month product refresh cycle the computer manufacturers required; 3dfx did not have the methodology nor the mindset to focus on this business model. In the end, 3dfx opted to be a retail distribution company manufacturing their own branded products.
The Voodoo 3 was heavily hyped as the graphics card that would make 3dfx the undisputed leader but the actual product was below expectations. Though it was still the fastest as it edged the RIVA TNT2
by a small margin, the Voodoo3 lacked 32-bit color and large texture support. Though at that time few games supported large textures and 32-bit color, and those that did generally were too demanding to be run at playable framerates, the features "32-bit color support" and "2048x2048 textures" were much more impressive on paper than 16-bit color and 256x256 texture support. The Voodoo3 sold relatively well, but was disappointing compared to the first two models and 3dfx gave up the market leadership to Nvidia.
As 3dfx attempted to counter the TNT2 threat, it was surprised by Nvidia's GeForce 256
. The GeForce was a single-chip processor with integrated transform, lighting, triangle setup/clipping (hardware T&L), and rendering engines, giving it a significant performance advantage over the Voodoo3.
. However, Napalm was delayed, and in the meantime Nvidia brought out their landmark GeForce 256
chip, which shifted even more of the computational work from the CPU to the graphics chip. Napalm would have been unable to compete with the GeForce, so it was redesigned to support multiple chip configurations, like the Voodoo2 had. The end-product was named VSA-100, with VSA standing for Voodoo Scalable Architecture. 3dfx was finally able to have a product that could defeat the GeForce.
However, by the time the VSA-100 based cards made it to the market, the GeForce 2 and ATI Radeon
cards had arrived and were offering higher performance at that price point. The only real advantage the Voodoo 5 5500 had over the GeForce 2 GTS or Radeon was its superior anti-aliasing
implementation, and the fact that it didn't take such a large performance hit (relative to its peers) when anti-aliasing was enabled. 3dfx was fully aware of the Voodoo 5's speed deficiency, so they touted it as quality over speed, which was a reversal of the Voodoo 3 marketing which emphasized raw performance over features. 5500 sales were respectable but volumes were not at a level to keep 3dfx afloat.
The Voodoo 5 5000, which had 32 MB of VRAM to the 5500's 64 MB, was never launched, as the smaller frame buffer didn't significantly reduce cost over the Voodoo 5 5500.
The only other member of the Voodoo 5 line, the Voodoo 4 4500, was as much of a disaster as Voodoo Rush, because it had performance well short of its value-oriented peers combined with a late launch. Voodoo 4 was beaten in almost all areas by the GeForce 2 MX — a low-cost board sold mostly as an OEM part for computer manufacturers — and the Radeon VE
.
One unusual trait of the Voodoo 4 and 5 was that the Macintosh versions of these cards had both VGA and DVI output jacks, whereas the PC versions only had the VGA connector. Also, the Mac versions of the Voodoo 4 and 5 had an Achilles' heel in that they did not support hardware-based MPEG2 acceleration, which hindered the playback of DVDs on a Mac equipped with a Voodoo graphics card.
The Voodoo 5 6000 never made it to market, due to a severe bug resulting in data corruption on the AGP bus on certain boards, and was limited to AGP 2x. It was thus incompatible with the then-new Pentium 4
motherboards. Later tests proved that the Voodoo 5 6000 outperformed not only the GeForce 2 GTS and ATI Radeon 7200
, but also the faster GeForce 2 Ultra and Radeon 7500
. In some cases it was shown to compete well with the GeForce 3, trading performance places with the card on various tests. However, the prohibitively high production cost of the card, particularly the 4 chip setup, external power supply and 128 MB of VRAM (a very large amount back then), would have likely hampered its competitiveness.
proceedings. 3dfx, as a whole, would have had virtually no chance of successfully contesting these proceedings, and instead opted to be bought by Nvidia; ceasing to exist as a company. The history of and participants in the 3dfx/Nvidia deal making can be read in the respective companies financial filings from that time period. The resolution and legality of those arrangements (with respect to the purchase, 3dfx's creditors and its bankruptcy proceedings) were still being worked through the courts , nearly 9 years after the sale. A majority of the engineering and design team working on "Rampage" (the successor to the VSA-100 line) that remained with the transition, were requested and remained in house to work on what became the GeForce FX
series. Others are known to have accepted employment with ATI to bring their knowledge to the creation of the X series of video cards and reform their own version of SLI known as "Crossfire" and yet another interpretation of 3Dfx's SLI ideal.
After Nvidia acquired 3dfx, mainly for its intellectual property, they announced that they would not provide technical support for 3dfx products. Drivers and support are still offered by community websites. However, while being functional, the drivers do not carry a manufacturer's backing and are treated as "Beta" by users still wanting to deploy 3dfx cards in more current systems. Nvidia offered a limited time program under which 3dfx owners could trade in their cards for Nvidia cards of equal performance value . On December 15, 2000 3dfx apologized to the customers with a final press release.
s including unsupported reports of spending $30,000–50,000 on company lunches and other non-essentials each month, even up to the last two weeks before closing its doors. Others state that these expenses were simply umbrella figures and entirely legitimate during the consideration of a sell. Not just fine dining and lunches, but luncheons over a period of time which is very typical for any large company.
Second, the company prioritized its next-generation designs and resulting high-end products, frequently ignoring the mid and low end sectors. Nvidia chose comparatively short development cycles, typically releasing a new product line each cycle and a high-end refresh midway through, and generally had a product priced to suit each market segment as older products and technologies moved progressively down-market. ATI quickly adopted a similar schedule. 3dfx however pursued lengthy, ambitious development cycles on higher end products and then attempted to fill in the down-market sectors with detuned versions of the newest release. This strategy eventually faltered as Nvidia and ATI cards built successively upon earlier gains, eventually exceeding 3dfx in overall performance. Nvidia's flagship GeForce 256
and GeForce 2 GTS are often given credit for the demise of the competing Voodoo 3 and Voodoo 5
, respectively, but it is also important to note that the GeForce 2 MX midrange derivative was what successfully targeted the mass-market. The MX acquired substantial market share for Nvidia, and 3dfx's reaction, the Voodoo 4 4500, was uncompetitive in both price and performance when finally released.
Third, although 1997 was marked by analysts as a turning point for 3dfx due to the marketing led by the new CEO Greg Ballard, there was criticism of Ballard's understanding of R&D
in the graphics industry. Single-card 2D/3D solutions were taking over the market, and although Ballard saw the need and attempted to direct the company there with the Voodoo Banshee and the Voodoo3, both of these cost the company millions in sales and lost market share while diverting vital resources from the Rampage project. Then 3dfx released word in early 1999 that the still-competitive Voodoo2 would only support OpenGL and Glide under Microsoft's Windows 2000 operating system, and not DirectX. Many games were transitioning to DirectX at this point, and the announcement caused many PC gamers – the core demographic of 3dfx's market – to switch to Nvidia or ATI offerings for their new machines.
Fourth, the merger with STB alienated 3dfx from much of its previous market, and never developed into the right kind of arrangement to broaden 3dfx's distribution base from what the company had when still acting as a chipset supplier to third parties. The merger consequently diverted vital resources from 3dfx's chip development operations without ever producing a corresponding payback in sales.
Fifth, the next-generation "Rampage" project was exceedingly ambitious and delayed repeatedly as the company continued to vacillate on its commitment to Rampage development versus short-term retail products, such as the Voodoo 3 and Napalm/VSA-100. The Rampage design team was using a pioneering synthesis tool set which was still under development as the design proceeded. Originally scheduled for demonstration at the 1998 Comdex
event, the first functional samples of the product only debuted in 3dfx's labs in December 2000. The 2D and 3D driver software was already up and running to support the test hardware, but the impending release of Rampage was too little, too late. The deal to "wind down" the company and transfer core assets to Nvidia was less than 2 weeks from closure at that point.
Sixth, 3dfx never incorporated scan test structures into their chips, without which thorough post production chip testing is impossible, removing the possibility of yield diagnostics. This is also noted by the purchasing party (nVidia) that incorporate such tests and continue to have lower yields than prospected although said "needed" test is mandatory for thrusting yields.
While some have speculated that shipping the "Rampage" might have saved 3dfx, the fact remains that the company never mastered the new concept of relatively cheap, high-performance designs with integrated 3D acceleration, which was rapidly becoming the de facto
standard of PC graphics vise 2D. The success of "Rampage" would not have simply depended upon raw performance and the up and coming public awareness based on reviewers moving to the web, but also the cost of manufacturing. It remains unknown whether "Rampage" would have been a practical product, let alone enough to keep the company alive in the card industry.
Notes:
Graphics processing unit
A graphics processing unit or GPU is a specialized circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory in such a way so as to accelerate the building of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display...
s and, later, graphics cards. It was a pioneer in the field for several years in the late 1990s until 2000 when it underwent one of the most high-profile demises in the history of the PC
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
industry. It was headquartered in San Jose, California
San Jose, California
San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...
until, on the verge of bankruptcy, many of its intellectual assets (and many employees) were acquired by its rival, Nvidia
NVIDIA
Nvidia is an American global technology company based in Santa Clara, California. Nvidia is best known for its graphics processors . Nvidia and chief rival AMD Graphics Techonologies have dominated the high performance GPU market, pushing other manufacturers to smaller, niche roles...
. 3dfx Interactive filed for bankruptcy on October 15, 2002.
Early history
Founded in 1994 by Ross Smith, Gary Tarolli and Scott Sellers (all SGISilicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics, Inc. was a manufacturer of high-performance computing solutions, including computer hardware and software, founded in 1981 by Jim Clark...
alumni) with backing from Gordie Campbell's TechFarm, 3dfx released its Voodoo Graphics chip in 1996. The company only manufactured the chips and some reference
Reference design
Reference design refers to a technical blueprint of a system that is intended for others to copy. It contains the essential elements of the system; however, third parties may enhance or modify the design as required....
boards, and initially did not sell any product to consumers; rather, it acted as an OEM
Original Equipment Manufacturer
An original equipment manufacturer, or OEM, manufactures products or components that are purchased by a company and retailed under that purchasing company's brand name. OEM refers to the company that originally manufactured the product. When referring to automotive parts, OEM designates a...
supplier for graphics card companies, which designed, manufactured, marketed, and sold their own graphics cards including the Voodoo chipset.
3dfx gained fame due to their great success within the arcade market. At the time, arcades were a very visible place to go visit and see the latest in 3D gaming and technology. The first arcade machine that 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics hardware was used in was called ICE Home Run Derby, a game released in 1996. Later that year they were featured in more popular titles, such as Atari's
Atari
Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA . The original Atari, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in...
San Francisco Rush and Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey
Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey
Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey is a video game developed by Atari Games and released for the arcade in 1996.-Summary:This video game was later ported to the Nintendo 64 console on October 31, 1996, where it was the first-ever 4-player game for the Nintendo 64...
. 3Dfx received a lot of focus from the media because of the obvious graphical prowess of these titles, and that new game consoles such as Nintendo 64
Nintendo 64
The , often referred to as N64, was Nintendo′s third home video game console for the international market. Named for its 64-bit CPU, it was released in June 1996 in Japan, September 1996 in North America, March 1997 in Europe and Australia, September 1997 in France and December 1997 in Brazil...
, PlayStation
PlayStation
The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console first released by Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan on December 3, .The PlayStation was the first of the PlayStation series of consoles and handheld game devices. The PlayStation 2 was the console's successor in 2000...
, and Sega Saturn
Sega Saturn
The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console that was first released by Sega on November 22, 1994 in Japan, May 11, 1995 in North America, and July 8, 1995 in Europe...
would be showcases for similar next-generation graphics.
Voodoo Graphics PCI
Towards the end of 1996, the cost of EDO DRAM dropped significantly and 3Dfx was able to enter the consumer PC hardware market with aggressive pricing compared to previous 3D graphics solutions for computers. The Voodoo heralded a new era of high-performance and high-quality 3D graphics for gaming. Prior to it, games such as Doom and Quake had compelled video game players to move from their 80386s to 80486s, and then to the Pentium.A typical Voodoo Graphics PCI
Peripheral Component Interconnect
Conventional PCI is a computer bus for attaching hardware devices in a computer...
expansion card consisted of a DAC
Digital-to-analog converter
In electronics, a digital-to-analog converter is a device that converts a digital code to an analog signal . An analog-to-digital converter performs the reverse operation...
, a frame buffer processor and a texture mapping unit, along with 4 MB of EDO DRAM. The RAM and graphics processors operate at 50 MHz. It provided only 3D acceleration and as such the computer also needed a traditional video controller for conventional 2D software. A pass-through VGA cable daisy-chained
Daisy chain (electrical engineering)
In electrical and electronic engineering a daisy chain is a wiring scheme in which multiple devices are wired together in sequence or in a ring...
the video controller to the Voodoo, which was itself connected to the monitor. The method used to engage the Voodoo's output circuitry varied between cards, with some using mechanical relays while others utilized purely digital components. The mechanical relays emitted an audible "clicking" sound when they engaged and disengaged.
The Voodoo's primary competition were products from PowerVR
PowerVR
PowerVR is a division of Imagination Technologies that develops hardware and software for 2D and 3D rendering, and for video encoding, decoding, associated image processing and Direct X, OpenGL ES, OpenVG, and OpenCL acceleration....
and Rendition
Rendition (company)
Rendition was a maker of 3D graphics chipsets in the mid- to late-90's. They were known for products such as the Vérité 1000 and Vérité 2x00 and for being one of the first 3D chipset makers to directly work with Quake developer John Carmack to make a hardware-accelerated version of the game ....
. PowerVR produced a similar 3D-only add-on card with capable 3D support, although it was not comparable to Voodoo Graphics in either image quality or performance. 3Dfx saw intense competition in the market from cards that offered the combination of 2D and 3D acceleration. While these cards, such as Matrox Mystique
Matrox Mystique
The Mystique and Mystique 220 are 2D, 3D, and video accelerator cards for personal computers designed by Matrox, using the VGA connector. The original Mystique was released in 1996, with the slightly upgraded Mystique 220 coming in 1997.-History:...
, S3 ViRGE
S3 ViRGE
The S3 Virtual Reality Graphics Engine graphics chipset was one of the first 2D/3D accelerators designed for the mass market.-Introduction:...
, and ATI 3D Rage
ATI Rage
The ATI Rage is a series of graphics chipsets offering GUI 2D acceleration, video acceleration, and 3D acceleration. It is the successor to the Mach series of 2D accelerators.-3D RAGE :...
, offered unquestionably inferior 3D acceleration, their lower cost and simplicity often appealed to OEM system builders. Rendition's Vérité V1000 was an integrated (3D+VGA) single-chip solution as well that was perhaps Voodoo's closest competitor, but it too did not have comparable 3D performance and its 2D capabilities were considered merely adequate relative to other 2D cards of the time.
Glide API
Originally developed for arcade games that included non-Intel architectures, Glide was created to handle error prone tasks like chip initialization for the programmer, but implemented nothing more than what the Voodoo hardware was directly capable of. This strategy differed from that of other 3D APIApplication programming interface
An application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...
s of the era (Direct3D
Direct3D
Direct3D is part of Microsoft's DirectX application programming interface . Direct3D is available for Microsoft Windows operating systems , and for other platforms through the open source software Wine. It is the base for the graphics API on the Xbox and Xbox 360 console systems...
, OpenGL
OpenGL
OpenGL is a standard specification defining a cross-language, cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. The interface consists of over 250 different function calls which can be used to draw complex three-dimensional scenes from simple primitives. OpenGL...
, and QuickDraw 3D
QuickDraw 3D
QuickDraw 3D, or QD3D for short, is a 3D graphics API developed by Apple Inc. starting in 1995, originally for their Macintosh computers, but delivered as a cross-platform system....
), which hid low-level hardware details behind an "abstraction layer
Abstraction layer
An abstraction layer is a way of hiding the implementation details of a particular set of functionality...
", with the goal of providing application developers a standard, hardware-neutral interface.
The advantage of an abstraction layer is that game developers save programming effort and gain flexibility by writing their 3D rendering code once, for a single API, and the abstraction layer allows it to run on hardware from multiple manufacturers. This advantage is still in place today. However, in the early days of the 3D graphics card, Direct3D and OpenGL implementations were either non-existent or, at minimum, substantially less mature than today, and computers were much slower and had less memory. The abstraction layers' overhead crippled performance in practice. 3dfx had therefore created a strong advantage for itself by aggressively promoting Glide, which was designed specifically around the Voodoo hardware, and therefore did not suffer from the performance hit of a higher level abstraction layer.
While there were many hit games that used Glide, including several coin-op/arcade games from Midway Games and Atari Games (e.g., San Francisco Rush, NFL Blitz, Hydrothunder, etc.) and games like Eidos' Tomb Raider, the killer application
Killer application
A killer application , in the jargon of marketing teams, has been used to refer to any computer program that is so necessary or desirable that it proves the core value of some larger technology, such as computer hardware, gaming console, software, or an operating system...
for Voodoo Graphics was the MiniGL
MiniGL
The term MiniGL was applied to a wide range of incomplete OpenGL implementations provided by graphics card hardware companies including 3dfx, PowerVR and Rendition in the late 1990s. They owe their genesis to the computer game Quake....
driver developed specifically to allow hardware acceleration of the game Quake, by id Software
Id Software
Id Software is an American video game development company with its headquarters in Richardson, Texas. The company was founded in 1991 by four members of the computer company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and artist Adrian Carmack...
, on 3dfx cards. The driver implemented only the subset of OpenGL used by Quake.
By 2000, the improved performance of Direct3D and OpenGL on the average personal computer, coupled with the huge variety of new 3D cards on the market, the widespread support of these standard APIs by the game developer community and the closure of 3dfx, would make Glide obsolete.
Voodoo Rush
In August 1997, 3dfx released the Voodoo Rush chipset, combining a Voodoo chip with a 2D chip that lay on the same circuit board, eliminating the need for a separate VGA card. Most cards were built with an Alliance SemiconductorAlliance Semiconductor
Alliance Semiconductor Corporation designs and manufactures memory and memory-intensive logic. Alliance's product lines include Static Random Access Memory , Pseudo SRAM , Dynamic Random Access Memory , Flash Memory, and embedded memory and logic solutions. For a little while they also sold some...
AT25/AT3D 2D component, but there were some built with a Macronix chip and there were initial plans to partner with Trident
Trident Microsystems
Trident Microsystems is a supplier of display-processors for flat panel displays . At one time, Trident was also a supplier of PC graphics chipsets and sound controllers.- History :...
but no such boards were ever marketed.
The Rush had the same specifications as Voodoo Graphics but did not perform as well because the Rush chipset had to share memory bandwidth with the CRTC of the 2D chip. Furthermore, the Rush chipset was not directly present on the PCI bus but had to be programmed through linked registers of the 2D chip. Like the Voodoo Graphics, there was no interrupt
Interrupt
In computing, an interrupt is an asynchronous signal indicating the need for attention or a synchronous event in software indicating the need for a change in execution....
mechanism, so the driver had to poll the Rush in order to determine whether a command had completed or not; the indirection through the 2D component added significant overhead here and tended to back up traffic on the PCI interface. The typical performance hit was around 10% compared to Voodoo Graphics, and even worse in windowed mode. Later Rush boards released by Hercules had 8 MiB
MIB
MIB may refer to any of several concepts:* Master of International Business, a postgraduate business degree* Melayu Islam Beraja, the adopted national philosophy of Brunei* Motion induced blindness, a visual illusion in peripheral vision...
VRAM and a 10% higher clock speed to close the performance gap.
A rare third version was produced which featured a Cirrus Logic
Cirrus Logic
Cirrus Logic is a fabless semiconductor supplier specializing in analog, mixed-signal, and audio DSP integrated circuits . They are presently headquartered in Austin, Texas. Their audio processors and audio converters are found in many professional audio and consumer entertainment products,...
2D chip. This version fixed the PCI bus collisions and memory interface problems.
Some manufacturers bundled a PC version of Atari Games
Atari Games
Atari Games Corporation was an American producer of arcade games, and originally part of Atari, Inc..-History:When, in 1984, Warner Communications sold the Atari Consumer division of Atari Inc...
' racing game San Francisco Rush, the arcade version of which used a Voodoo Graphics chipset.
Sales of the Voodoo Rush cards were very poor, and the cards were discontinued within a year. The company would not attempt another 2D/3D solution again until the release of the Voodoo Banshee in 1998.
Voodoo2
The Voodoo2 required three chips and a separate VGA graphics card, whereas new competing 3D products, such as the ATI Rage Pro, Nvidia RIVA 128
RIVA 128
Released in late 1997 by Nvidia, the RIVA 128, or "NV3", was one of the first consumer graphics processing units to integrate 3D acceleration in addition to traditional 2D and video acceleration...
, and Rendition Verite 2200, were single-chip products. Despite some shortcomings, such as the card's dithered 16-bit 3D color
Highcolour
High color graphics is a method of storing image information in a computer's memory such that each pixel is represented by two bytes...
rendering and 800×600
Display resolution
The display resolution of a digital television or display device is the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed. It can be an ambiguous term especially as the displayed resolution is controlled by all different factors in cathode ray tube , flat panel or projection...
resolution limitations, no other manufacturers' products could match the smooth framerates that the Voodoo2 produced. It was a landmark (and expensive) achievement in PC 3D-graphics. Its excellent performance, and the mindshare gained from the original Voodoo Graphics, resulted in its success. Many users even preferred Voodoo2's dedicated purpose, because they were free to use the quality 2D card of their choice as a result. Some 2D/3D combined solutions at the time offered quite sub-par 2D quality and speed.
The arrival of the Nvidia RIVA TNT
RIVA TNT
The RIVA TNT, codenamed NV4, is a 2D, video, and 3D graphics accelerator chip for PCs that was manufactured by Nvidia. It was released in mid 1998 and cemented Nvidia's reputation as a worthy rival within the developing consumer 3D graphics adapter industry. The first RIVA TNT based card released...
with integrated 2D/3D chipset would offer minor challenge to the Voodoo2's supremacy months later.
SLI
The Voodoo2 introduced Scan-Line InterleaveScan-Line Interleave
Scan-Line Interleave from 3dfx is a method for linking two video cards or chips together to produce a single output. It is an application of parallel processing for computer graphics, meant to increase the processing power available for graphics. SLI from 3dfx was introduced in 1998 and used in...
(SLI) to the gaming market. In SLI mode, two Voodoo2 boards were connected together, each drawing half the scan line
Scan line
A scan line or scanline is one line, or row, in a raster scanning pattern, such as a line of video on a cathode ray tube display of a television set or computer monitor....
s of the screen. For the price of a second Voodoo2 board, users could easily improve 3D throughout. A welcome result of SLI mode was an increase in the maximum resolution supported, now up to 1024×768. However, due to the high cost and inconvenience of using three separate graphics cards (two Voodoo 2 SLI plus the general purpose 2D graphics adapter), the Voodoo2 SLI scheme, though revolutionary at the time, had minimal effect on the total market share that the Voodoo2 held and was not a financial success.
The potential of the Voodoo2's SLI was limited by CPU bottlenecking Still, the long-term accomplishment of this technology can be seen in its usefulness in gaming as late as 2004.
SLI capability was not offered in subsequent 3dfx board designs, although the technology would be later used to link the VSA-100 chips on the Voodoo 5.
Having since acquired 3dfx, Nvidia in 2004 reintroduced the SLI brand (initially called Scalable Link Interface
Scalable Link Interface
Scalable Link Interface is a brand name for a multi-GPU solution developed by NVIDIA for linking two or more video cards together to produce a single output...
) in the GeForce 6 Series
GeForce 6 Series
The GeForce 6 Series is Nvidia's sixth generation of GeForce graphic processing units. Launched on April 14, 2004, the GeForce 6 family introduced PureVideo post-processing for video, SLI technology, and Shader Model 3.0 support .-GeForce 6 Series features:-SLI:The Scalable Link...
. ATI Technologies
ATI Technologies
ATI Technologies Inc. was a semiconductor technology corporation based in Markham, Ontario, Canada, that specialized in the development of graphics processing units and chipsets. Founded in 1985 as Array Technologies Inc., the company was listed publicly in 1993 and was acquired by Advanced Micro...
has also since introduced its own multi-chip implementation, dubbed "CrossFire
ATI CrossFire
AMD CrossFireX is a brand name for the multi-GPU solution by Advanced Micro Devices, originally developed by ATI Technologies. The technology allows up to four GPUs to be used in a single computer to improve graphics performance.-First-generation:CrossFire was first made available to the public...
". Although NVIDIA SLI and ATI Crossfire operate on the original SLI principle of utilizing the power of multiple video cards, the implementation is different.
Voodoo Banshee
Near the end of 1998, 3dfx released the Voodoo Banshee, which used a lower price achieved through higher component integration, and a more complete feature-set including 2D acceleration, to target the mainstream consumer market. A single-chip solution, the Banshee was a combination of a 2D video card and partial (only one texture mappingTexture mapping
Texture mapping is a method for adding detail, surface texture , or color to a computer-generated graphic or 3D model. Its application to 3D graphics was pioneered by Dr Edwin Catmull in his Ph.D. thesis of 1974.-Texture mapping:...
unit) Voodoo2 3D hardware. Due to the missing second TMU, in 3D scenes which used multiple textures per polygon
Polygon (computer graphics)
Polygons are used in computer graphics to compose images that are three-dimensional in appearance. Usually triangular, polygons arise when an object's surface is modeled, vertices are selected, and the object is rendered in a wire frame model. This is quicker to display than a shaded model; thus...
, the Voodoo2 was significantly faster. However, in scenes dominated by single-textured polygons, the Banshee could match or exceed the Voodoo2 due to its higher clock speed and resulting greater pixel fillrate. While it was not as popular as Voodoo Graphics or Voodoo2, the Banshee sold a respectable number of units.
Banshee's 2D acceleration was the first such hardware from 3Dfx and it was very capable. It rivaled the fastest 2D cores from Matrox
Matrox
Matrox is a producer of video card components and equipment for personal computers. Based in Dorval, Quebec, Canada it was founded by Lorne Trottier and Branko Matić....
, Nvidia, and ATI
ATI Technologies
ATI Technologies Inc. was a semiconductor technology corporation based in Markham, Ontario, Canada, that specialized in the development of graphics processing units and chipsets. Founded in 1985 as Array Technologies Inc., the company was listed publicly in 1993 and was acquired by Advanced Micro...
. It consisted of a 128-bit 2D
2D computer graphics
2D computer graphics is the computer-based generation of digital images—mostly from two-dimensional models and by techniques specific to them...
GUI
Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
engine and a 128-bit VESA VBE 3.0
VESA BIOS Extensions
VESA BIOS Extensions is a VESA standard, currently at version 3, that defines the interface that can be used by software to access compliant video boards at high resolutions and bit depths...
VGA core. The graphics chip capably accelerated DirectDraw
DirectDraw
DirectDraw is part of Microsoft's DirectX API. DirectDraw is used to render graphics in applications where top performance is important. DirectDraw also allows applications to run fullscreen or embedded in a window such as most other MS Windows applications. DirectDraw uses hardware acceleration if...
and supported all of the Windows Graphics Device Interface
Graphics Device Interface
The Graphics Device Interface is a Microsoft Windows application programming interface and core operating system component responsible for representing graphical objects and transmitting them to output devices such as monitors and printers....
(GDI) in hardware, with all 256 raster
Raster graphics
In computer graphics, a raster graphics image, or bitmap, is a data structure representing a generally rectangular grid of pixels, or points of color, viewable via a monitor, paper, or other display medium...
operations and tertiary functions, and hardware polygon acceleration. The 2D core achieved near-theoretical maximum performance with a null driver test in Windows NT
Windows NT
Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix. It was intended to complement...
.
While Nvidia had yet to launch a product in the add-in board market that sold as well as 3dfx's Voodoo line, the company was gaining steady ground in the OEM market. The Nvidia RIVA TNT was a similar, highly integrated product that had two major advantages in greater 3D speed and 32-bit 3D color support. 3dfx, by contrast, had very limited OEM sales, as the Banshee was only adopted in small numbers by OEMs.
Dreamcast
In 1997, 3dfx was working with entertainment company SegaSega
, usually styled as SEGA, is a multinational video game software developer and an arcade software and hardware development company headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, with various offices around the world...
to develop a new video game console
Video game console
A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
hardware platform. Sega solicited two competing designs: a unit code-named "Katana", developed in Japan using NEC
NEC
, a Japanese multinational IT company, has its headquarters in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. NEC, part of the Sumitomo Group, provides information technology and network solutions to business enterprises, communications services providers and government....
and VideoLogic technology, and "Blackbelt", a system designed in the United States using 3dfx technology.
However on July 22 of 1997, Sega announced that it was terminating the development contract (EN, July 28). At that time Sega actually told 3Dfx it was going to use NEC's PowerVR chipset for its game console, said Ms. Onopchenko. Sega told 3Dfx it had not terminated the contract because of the chipset performance and gave no indication as to why it decided to terminate the contract with 3Dfx, added Ms. Onopchenko, "We have requested that Sega return our confidential information and technology and they have failed to honor that request for one month now," said Ms. Onopchenko. "We believe there is a risk because Sega has no sign of returning our trade secrets and now is working with a competitor in NEC."
3Dfx said Sega has still not given a reason as to why it terminated the contract or why it chose NEC's accelerator chipset over 3Dfx's.
According to Dale Ford, senior analyst at Dataquest, a market research firm based in San Jose, Calif., a number of factors could have influenced Sega's decision to move to NEC, including NEC's proven track record of supplying chipsets for the Nintendo 64 and the demonstrated ability to be able to handle a major influx of capacity if the company decided to ramp up production on a moment's notice.
"This is a highly competitive market with price wars happening all the time and it would appear that after evaluating a number of choices—and the ramifications each choice brings—Sega went with a decision that it thought was best for the company's longevity," said Mr. Ford. "Sega has to make a significant move to stay competitive and they need to make it soon. Now whether this move is to roll out another home console platform or move strictly to the PC gaming space is unknown."
Sega quickly quashed "Blackbelt" and used "Katana" as the model for the product that would be marketed and sold as the Dreamcast. 3dfx sued Sega for breach of contract, accusing Sega of starting the deal in bad faith in order to take 3dfx technology. The case was settled out of court.
Decline
In early 1998, 3dfx embarked on a new development project. The Rampage development project was new technology for use in a new graphics card that would take approximately two years to develop, and would supposedly be several years ahead of the competition once it debuted. The company hired hardware and software teams in Austin, TexasAustin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
to develop 2D and 3D Windows device driver
Device driver
In computing, a device driver or software driver is a computer program allowing higher-level computer programs to interact with a hardware device....
s for Rampage in the summer of 1998. The hardware team in Austin initially focused on Rampage, but then worked on transform and lighting (T&L) engines and on MPEG decoder technology. (Later, these technologies were part of the Nvidia asset purchase in December 2000.)
Voodoo3 and strategy shift
Original Equipment Manufacturer
An original equipment manufacturer, or OEM, manufactures products or components that are purchased by a company and retailed under that purchasing company's brand name. OEM refers to the company that originally manufactured the product. When referring to automotive parts, OEM designates a...
supplier. STB was obviously intended to give 3dfx access to that company's considerable OEM resources and sales channels, but the intended benefits of the acquisition never materialized. The two corporations were vastly different entities, with different cultures and structures, and they never integrated smoothly.
STB prior to the 3dfx acquisition also approached Nvidia as a potential partner to acquire the company. At the time, STB was Nvidia's largest customer and was only minimally engaged with 3dfx. 3dfx management mistakenly believed that acquiring STB would ensure OEM design wins with their products and that product limitations would be overcome with STB's knowledge in supporting the OEM sales/design win cycles. Nvidia decided not to acquire STB and to continue to support many brands of graphics board manufacturers. After STB was acquired by 3dfx, Nvidia focused on being a virtual graphics card manufacturer for the OEMs and strengthened its position in selling finished reference designs ready for market to the OEMs. STB's manufacturing facility in Juarez, Mexico was not able to compete from either a cost or quality point of view when compared to the burgeoning Original design manufacturer
Original Design Manufacturer
An original design manufacturer is a company which designs and manufactures a product which is specified and eventually branded by another firm for sale. Such companies allow the brand firm to produce without having to engage in the organization or running of a factory...
s (ODMs) and Contract electronic manufacturers (CEMs) that were delivering solutions in Asia for Nvidia. Prior to the STB merger finalizing, some of 3dfx's OEMs warned the company that any product from Juarez will not be deemed fit to ship with their systems, however 3dfx management believed these problems could be addressed over time. Those customers generally moved to Nvidia solutions and no longer chose to ship 3dfx products.
The acquisition of STB was one of the main contributors to 3dfx's downfall; the company did not sell any Voodoo 4 or 5 chips to third party manufacturers which were a significant source of revenue for the company. These third-party manufacturers turned into competitors and began sourcing graphics chips from NVIDIA. This also further alienated 3dfx's remaining OEM customers, as they had a single source for 3dfx products and could not choose a CEM to provide cost flexibility. The OEMs saw 3dfx as a direct competitor in retail. With the purchase of STB 3dfx created a line of Velocity boards (a STB brand) that used crippled Voodoo3 chips, as a product to target the low-end market. The chip came with only a single functional TMU, making it similar to a Voodoo Banshee.
As 3dfx focused more on the retail graphics card space, further inroads into the OEM space were limited. A significant requirement of the OEM business was the ability to consistently produce new products on the six month product refresh cycle the computer manufacturers required; 3dfx did not have the methodology nor the mindset to focus on this business model. In the end, 3dfx opted to be a retail distribution company manufacturing their own branded products.
The Voodoo 3 was heavily hyped as the graphics card that would make 3dfx the undisputed leader but the actual product was below expectations. Though it was still the fastest as it edged the RIVA TNT2
RIVA TNT2
The RIVA TNT2 was a graphics processing unit manufactured by Nvidia starting in early 1999. The chip is codenamed "NV5" because it is the 5th graphics chip design by Nvidia, succeeding the RIVA TNT . RIVA is an acronym for Real-time Interactive Video and Animation accelerator...
by a small margin, the Voodoo3 lacked 32-bit color and large texture support. Though at that time few games supported large textures and 32-bit color, and those that did generally were too demanding to be run at playable framerates, the features "32-bit color support" and "2048x2048 textures" were much more impressive on paper than 16-bit color and 256x256 texture support. The Voodoo3 sold relatively well, but was disappointing compared to the first two models and 3dfx gave up the market leadership to Nvidia.
As 3dfx attempted to counter the TNT2 threat, it was surprised by Nvidia's GeForce 256
GeForce 256
The GeForce 256 is the original release in Nvidia's "GeForce" product-line. Released on August 31, 1999, the GeForce 256 improves on its predecessor by increasing the number of fixed pixel pipelines, offloading host geometry calculations to a hardware transform and lighting engine, and adding...
. The GeForce was a single-chip processor with integrated transform, lighting, triangle setup/clipping (hardware T&L), and rendering engines, giving it a significant performance advantage over the Voodoo3.
Voodoo 4 and 5
The company's next (and as it would turn out, final) product was code-named Napalm. Originally, this was just a Voodoo3 modified to support newer technologies and higher clock speeds, with performance estimated to be around the level of the RIVA TNT2RIVA TNT2
The RIVA TNT2 was a graphics processing unit manufactured by Nvidia starting in early 1999. The chip is codenamed "NV5" because it is the 5th graphics chip design by Nvidia, succeeding the RIVA TNT . RIVA is an acronym for Real-time Interactive Video and Animation accelerator...
. However, Napalm was delayed, and in the meantime Nvidia brought out their landmark GeForce 256
GeForce 256
The GeForce 256 is the original release in Nvidia's "GeForce" product-line. Released on August 31, 1999, the GeForce 256 improves on its predecessor by increasing the number of fixed pixel pipelines, offloading host geometry calculations to a hardware transform and lighting engine, and adding...
chip, which shifted even more of the computational work from the CPU to the graphics chip. Napalm would have been unable to compete with the GeForce, so it was redesigned to support multiple chip configurations, like the Voodoo2 had. The end-product was named VSA-100, with VSA standing for Voodoo Scalable Architecture. 3dfx was finally able to have a product that could defeat the GeForce.
However, by the time the VSA-100 based cards made it to the market, the GeForce 2 and ATI Radeon
Radeon R100
The Radeon R100 is the first generation of Radeon graphics chips from ATI Technologies. The line features 3D acceleration based upon Direct3D 7.0 and OpenGL 1.3, and all but the entry-level versions offloading host geometry calculations to a hardware transform and lighting engine, a major...
cards had arrived and were offering higher performance at that price point. The only real advantage the Voodoo 5 5500 had over the GeForce 2 GTS or Radeon was its superior anti-aliasing
Anti-aliasing
In digital signal processing, spatial anti-aliasing is the technique of minimizing the distortion artifacts known as aliasing when representing a high-resolution image at a lower resolution...
implementation, and the fact that it didn't take such a large performance hit (relative to its peers) when anti-aliasing was enabled. 3dfx was fully aware of the Voodoo 5's speed deficiency, so they touted it as quality over speed, which was a reversal of the Voodoo 3 marketing which emphasized raw performance over features. 5500 sales were respectable but volumes were not at a level to keep 3dfx afloat.
The Voodoo 5 5000, which had 32 MB of VRAM to the 5500's 64 MB, was never launched, as the smaller frame buffer didn't significantly reduce cost over the Voodoo 5 5500.
The only other member of the Voodoo 5 line, the Voodoo 4 4500, was as much of a disaster as Voodoo Rush, because it had performance well short of its value-oriented peers combined with a late launch. Voodoo 4 was beaten in almost all areas by the GeForce 2 MX — a low-cost board sold mostly as an OEM part for computer manufacturers — and the Radeon VE
Radeon R100
The Radeon R100 is the first generation of Radeon graphics chips from ATI Technologies. The line features 3D acceleration based upon Direct3D 7.0 and OpenGL 1.3, and all but the entry-level versions offloading host geometry calculations to a hardware transform and lighting engine, a major...
.
One unusual trait of the Voodoo 4 and 5 was that the Macintosh versions of these cards had both VGA and DVI output jacks, whereas the PC versions only had the VGA connector. Also, the Mac versions of the Voodoo 4 and 5 had an Achilles' heel in that they did not support hardware-based MPEG2 acceleration, which hindered the playback of DVDs on a Mac equipped with a Voodoo graphics card.
The Voodoo 5 6000 never made it to market, due to a severe bug resulting in data corruption on the AGP bus on certain boards, and was limited to AGP 2x. It was thus incompatible with the then-new Pentium 4
Pentium 4
Pentium 4 was a line of single-core desktop and laptop central processing units , introduced by Intel on November 20, 2000 and shipped through August 8, 2008. They had a 7th-generation x86 microarchitecture, called NetBurst, which was the company's first all-new design since the introduction of the...
motherboards. Later tests proved that the Voodoo 5 6000 outperformed not only the GeForce 2 GTS and ATI Radeon 7200
Radeon R100
The Radeon R100 is the first generation of Radeon graphics chips from ATI Technologies. The line features 3D acceleration based upon Direct3D 7.0 and OpenGL 1.3, and all but the entry-level versions offloading host geometry calculations to a hardware transform and lighting engine, a major...
, but also the faster GeForce 2 Ultra and Radeon 7500
Radeon R100
The Radeon R100 is the first generation of Radeon graphics chips from ATI Technologies. The line features 3D acceleration based upon Direct3D 7.0 and OpenGL 1.3, and all but the entry-level versions offloading host geometry calculations to a hardware transform and lighting engine, a major...
. In some cases it was shown to compete well with the GeForce 3, trading performance places with the card on various tests. However, the prohibitively high production cost of the card, particularly the 4 chip setup, external power supply and 128 MB of VRAM (a very large amount back then), would have likely hampered its competitiveness.
Acquisition and bankruptcy
In late 2000, not long after Voodoo 4's launch, several of 3dfx's creditors decided to initiate bankruptcyBankruptcy
Bankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....
proceedings. 3dfx, as a whole, would have had virtually no chance of successfully contesting these proceedings, and instead opted to be bought by Nvidia; ceasing to exist as a company. The history of and participants in the 3dfx/Nvidia deal making can be read in the respective companies financial filings from that time period. The resolution and legality of those arrangements (with respect to the purchase, 3dfx's creditors and its bankruptcy proceedings) were still being worked through the courts , nearly 9 years after the sale. A majority of the engineering and design team working on "Rampage" (the successor to the VSA-100 line) that remained with the transition, were requested and remained in house to work on what became the GeForce FX
GeForce FX
The GeForce FX or "GeForce 5" series is a line of graphics processing units from the manufacturer NVIDIA.-Overview:...
series. Others are known to have accepted employment with ATI to bring their knowledge to the creation of the X series of video cards and reform their own version of SLI known as "Crossfire" and yet another interpretation of 3Dfx's SLI ideal.
After Nvidia acquired 3dfx, mainly for its intellectual property, they announced that they would not provide technical support for 3dfx products. Drivers and support are still offered by community websites. However, while being functional, the drivers do not carry a manufacturer's backing and are treated as "Beta" by users still wanting to deploy 3dfx cards in more current systems. Nvidia offered a limited time program under which 3dfx owners could trade in their cards for Nvidia cards of equal performance value . On December 15, 2000 3dfx apologized to the customers with a final press release.
Cause of decline
The cause of 3dfx's decline is a debated topic assuming several factors contributed in some measure. One of the first reactions was that there were rare claims that the company spent too lavishly on employee perqPERQ
The PERQ, also referred to as the Three Rivers PERQ or ICL PERQ, was a pioneering workstation computer produced in the early 1980s....
s including unsupported reports of spending $30,000–50,000 on company lunches and other non-essentials each month, even up to the last two weeks before closing its doors. Others state that these expenses were simply umbrella figures and entirely legitimate during the consideration of a sell. Not just fine dining and lunches, but luncheons over a period of time which is very typical for any large company.
Second, the company prioritized its next-generation designs and resulting high-end products, frequently ignoring the mid and low end sectors. Nvidia chose comparatively short development cycles, typically releasing a new product line each cycle and a high-end refresh midway through, and generally had a product priced to suit each market segment as older products and technologies moved progressively down-market. ATI quickly adopted a similar schedule. 3dfx however pursued lengthy, ambitious development cycles on higher end products and then attempted to fill in the down-market sectors with detuned versions of the newest release. This strategy eventually faltered as Nvidia and ATI cards built successively upon earlier gains, eventually exceeding 3dfx in overall performance. Nvidia's flagship GeForce 256
GeForce 256
The GeForce 256 is the original release in Nvidia's "GeForce" product-line. Released on August 31, 1999, the GeForce 256 improves on its predecessor by increasing the number of fixed pixel pipelines, offloading host geometry calculations to a hardware transform and lighting engine, and adding...
and GeForce 2 GTS are often given credit for the demise of the competing Voodoo 3 and Voodoo 5
Voodoo 5
The Voodoo 5 was the last and most powerful graphics card line that 3dfx Interactive released. All members of the family were based upon the VSA-100 graphics processor. Only the single-chip Voodoo 4 4500 and dual-chip Voodoo 5 5500 made it to market....
, respectively, but it is also important to note that the GeForce 2 MX midrange derivative was what successfully targeted the mass-market. The MX acquired substantial market share for Nvidia, and 3dfx's reaction, the Voodoo 4 4500, was uncompetitive in both price and performance when finally released.
Third, although 1997 was marked by analysts as a turning point for 3dfx due to the marketing led by the new CEO Greg Ballard, there was criticism of Ballard's understanding of R&D
Research and development
The phrase research and development , according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, refers to "creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of...
in the graphics industry. Single-card 2D/3D solutions were taking over the market, and although Ballard saw the need and attempted to direct the company there with the Voodoo Banshee and the Voodoo3, both of these cost the company millions in sales and lost market share while diverting vital resources from the Rampage project. Then 3dfx released word in early 1999 that the still-competitive Voodoo2 would only support OpenGL and Glide under Microsoft's Windows 2000 operating system, and not DirectX. Many games were transitioning to DirectX at this point, and the announcement caused many PC gamers – the core demographic of 3dfx's market – to switch to Nvidia or ATI offerings for their new machines.
Fourth, the merger with STB alienated 3dfx from much of its previous market, and never developed into the right kind of arrangement to broaden 3dfx's distribution base from what the company had when still acting as a chipset supplier to third parties. The merger consequently diverted vital resources from 3dfx's chip development operations without ever producing a corresponding payback in sales.
Fifth, the next-generation "Rampage" project was exceedingly ambitious and delayed repeatedly as the company continued to vacillate on its commitment to Rampage development versus short-term retail products, such as the Voodoo 3 and Napalm/VSA-100. The Rampage design team was using a pioneering synthesis tool set which was still under development as the design proceeded. Originally scheduled for demonstration at the 1998 Comdex
COMDEX
COMDEX was a computer expo held in Las Vegas, Nevada, each November from 1979 to 2003. It was one of the largest computer trade shows in the world, usually second only to the German CeBIT, and by many accounts one of the largest trade shows in any industry sector...
event, the first functional samples of the product only debuted in 3dfx's labs in December 2000. The 2D and 3D driver software was already up and running to support the test hardware, but the impending release of Rampage was too little, too late. The deal to "wind down" the company and transfer core assets to Nvidia was less than 2 weeks from closure at that point.
Sixth, 3dfx never incorporated scan test structures into their chips, without which thorough post production chip testing is impossible, removing the possibility of yield diagnostics. This is also noted by the purchasing party (nVidia) that incorporate such tests and continue to have lower yields than prospected although said "needed" test is mandatory for thrusting yields.
While some have speculated that shipping the "Rampage" might have saved 3dfx, the fact remains that the company never mastered the new concept of relatively cheap, high-performance designs with integrated 3D acceleration, which was rapidly becoming the de facto
De facto
De facto is a Latin expression that means "concerning fact." In law, it often means "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but not officially established." It is commonly used in contrast to de jure when referring to matters of law, governance, or...
standard of PC graphics vise 2D. The success of "Rampage" would not have simply depended upon raw performance and the up and coming public awareness based on reviewers moving to the web, but also the cost of manufacturing. It remains unknown whether "Rampage" would have been a practical product, let alone enough to keep the company alive in the card industry.
Chipset table
| Chipset | Release Date | Components (PPxTMU)6 |
Core (MHz) |
Memory (MHz) |
Fillrate7 Pix/Tex |
Memory Bus Width9 |
Memory (MiB) |
Bus |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Voodoo Graphics | October 1996 | SST-1 chipset (1x1). No VGA Video Graphics Array Video Graphics Array refers specifically to the display hardware first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, but through its widespread adoption has also come to mean either an analog computer display standard, the 15-pin D-subminiature VGA connector or the 640×480 resolution... . |
50 | 50 | 50/50 | 64-bit×2 | 4/6 EDO | PCI Peripheral Component Interconnect Conventional PCI is a computer bus for attaching hardware devices in a computer... |
| Voodoo Rush | April 1997 | SST-96 chipset (1x1). 2D+3D Chip. | 75 | 75 | 75/75 | 64-bit×2 | 6/8 EDO | PCI |
| Voodoo2 | January 1998 | SST-2 chipset (1x2). No VGA. | 90 | 90 | 90/180 | 64-bit×3 | 8/12 EDO | PCI |
| Voodoo Banshee | October 1998 | Single-Chip (1x1) (2D/3D) | 100 | 110 | 100/100 | 128-bit | 8/16 SD SDRAM Synchronous dynamic random access memory is dynamic random access memory that is synchronized with the system bus. Classic DRAM has an asynchronous interface, which means that it responds as quickly as possible to changes in control inputs... /SG |
AGP Accelerated Graphics Port The Accelerated Graphics Port is a high-speed point-to-point channel for attaching a video card to a computer's motherboard, primarily to assist in the acceleration of 3D computer graphics. Since 2004 AGP has been progressively phased out in favor of PCI Express... 1x/PCI |
| Velocity 100 | July 1999 | Avenger core (1x1). 1 Disabled TMU. | 143 | 143 | 143/143 | 128-bit | 8 SG | AGP 2x |
| Velocity 200 | Not released | Avenger core (1x1). 1 Disabled TMU. | 143 | 143 | 143/143 | 128-bit | 16 SG | AGP 2x |
| Voodoo3 1000 | March 1999 | Avenger core (1x2) | 125 | 125 | 125/250 | 128-bit | 8 SG | AGP 2x |
| Voodoo3 2000 | April 1999 | Avenger core (1x2) | 143 | 143 | 143/286 | 128-bit | 16 SD/SG | AGP 2x/PCI |
| Voodoo3 3000 | April 1999 | Avenger core (1x2) | 166 | 166 | 166/333 | 128-bit | 16 SD/SG | AGP 2x/PCI |
| Voodoo3 3500 | July 1999 | Avenger core (1x2), A/V processor | 183 | 183 | 183/366 | 128-bit | 16 SD | AGP 2x |
| Voodoo 4-2 4200 | Not released | 1 x VSA-1018 (2x1) | 183 | 183 | 366/366 | 64-bit | 32 DDR DDR SDRAM Double data rate synchronous dynamic random access memory is a class of memory integrated circuits used in computers. DDR SDRAM has been superseded by DDR2 SDRAM and DDR3 SDRAM, neither of which are either forward or backward compatible with DDR SDRAM, meaning that DDR2 or DDR3 memory modules... |
AGP 4x/PCI |
| Voodoo 4 45005 | October 2000 | 1 x VSA-100 (2x1) | 166 | 166 | 333/333 | 128-bit | 32 SD | AGP 4x/PCI |
| Voodoo 4 4800 | Not released | 1 x VSA-100 (2x1) | 166 | 166 | 333/333 | 128-bit | 64 SD | AGP 4x/PCI |
| Voodoo 5 5000 | Not released | 2 x VSA-100 (2x1) | 166 | 166 | 667/667 | 128-bit×2 | 321 SG | AGP 2x/PCI |
| Voodoo 5 55005 | June 2000 | 2 x VSA-100 (2x1) | 166 | 166 | 667/667 | 128-bit×2 | 642 SD | AGP 2x/PCI |
| Voodoo 5 6000 | Not released | 4 x VSA-100 (2x1) | 166/1664 | 166/1664 | 1333/1333 | 128-bit×4 | 1283 SD | AGP 2x |
| Spectre 1000 | Not released | 1 x Rampage (4x1) | 200-250 (planned) | 200-250 (planned) | 800-1000 | 128-bit | 64 DDR | AGP 4x |
| Spectre 2000 | Not released | 1 x Rampage (4x1) + 1 x Sage T&L-Chip | 200-250 (planned) | 200-250 (planned) | 800-1000 | 128-bit | 64 DDR | AGP 4x |
| Spectre 3000 | Not released | 2 x Rampage (4x1) + 1 x Sage T&L-Chip | 200-250 (planned) | 200-250 (planned) | 1600-2000 | 128-bit | 128 DDR | AGP 4x |
Notes:
- 1 Shared by two processors; effectively 16 MiB VRAM.
- 2 Shared by two processors; effectively 32 MiB VRAM.
- 3 Shared by four processors; effectively 32 MiB VRAM.
- 4 The Voodoo 5 6000 was originally intended to have a core and memory clock of 183 MHz, but 3dfx reduced the clock speed to 166 MHz in an attempt to get the boards stable while operating in 2/4/8x AA modes. Since the instability problem was due to a design flaw in the PCB the reduction in clockspeed did nothing in regards to the problem. 3400 and 3700 boards with the "PCI bus modification" by ex-3dfx engineer H.S. run stable in all modes with speeds upwards of 190 MHz.
- 5 Macintosh versions were released later with the same specs, but only in PCI (66 MHz).
- 6 Pixel pipeline/s x Texture management unit/s (TMU).
- 7 Fillrate is measured in Megapixels/sec for pixel fillrate and Megatexels/sec for texture fillrate. Taking advantage of double texture fillrate per clock cycle requires the game engine to make use of multitexturing.
- 8 Daytona core
- 9 Voodoo boards with multiple chips often have independent memory buses for each chip's memory bank. This resulted in boards with large amounts of memory, but the memory was split between the completely separate chips. So while a Voodoo2 has 8 or 12 MiB of RAM, this RAM is split up between the texture and framebufferFramebufferA framebuffer is a video output device that drives a video display from a memory buffer containing a complete frame of data.The information in the memory buffer typically consists of color values for every pixel on the screen...
.
-
- In the case of Voodoo2 12 MiB, there is 4 MiB texture RAM for each texture processor and 4 MiB for the framebuffer. When a game is not multitexturing, a total of 8 MiB texture memory is available. With multitexturing, this is halved to 4 MiB. SLI, however, does not double the available RAM because the boards separately calculate their part of the scene.
-
- This split-RAM architecture caused the resolution limits on the older boards. For Voodoo Graphics' 4 MiB RAM (2 MiB framebuffer) framebuffer size only allowed for a 640 × 480 resolution when z-buffering was used. Some games managed 800 × 600 without z-buffer, such as MechWarrior 2 3Dfx Edition, Jedi KnightStar Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces IIStar Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II is a first person shooter computer game. It was developed and published by LucasArts and released on October 9, 1997. It was made available on Steam on September 16, 2009. It is based on the Star Wars franchise and is a sequel to Star Wars: Dark Forces...
, and Need for Speed IIINeed for Speed III: Hot PursuitNeed for Speed III: Hot Pursuit, released in Japan as Over Drivin' III: Hot Pursuit, is a 1998 racing video game, developed by Electronic Arts Canada and published by Electronic Arts. It is the third major title in the Need for Speed series, significantly incorporating police pursuits as a major...
.
- This split-RAM architecture caused the resolution limits on the older boards. For Voodoo Graphics' 4 MiB RAM (2 MiB framebuffer) framebuffer size only allowed for a 640 × 480 resolution when z-buffering was used. Some games managed 800 × 600 without z-buffer, such as MechWarrior 2 3Dfx Edition, Jedi Knight