3 ms·

When I first saw 3dfx graphics, I knew it was the dawn of a new era. I bought thousands of dollars in stock in the company. I lost it all because unfortunately

When I first saw 3dfx graphics, I knew it was the dawn of a new era. I bought thousands of dollars in stock in the company. I lost it all because unfortunately nVidia ate their lunch because they marketed themselves better. They had full 32-bit color vs 3dfx who had the superior technology but only had 16 or 24 bit color. 3DFX spent a lot of time trying to explain why it didn't matter but in the end it did. It mattered to the gamers at the time, and they basically died and I lost a huge amount of money that took years to pay off. It took me a long time to move over to nVidia because of my hurt ego but they were the superior technology in the long run.

taneq 8y ago
32-bit colour is still just 24-bit colour with 8 bits of stencil or whatever (or at least was back when 3dfx was relevant). The only company I know of that was doing higher bit depths was Matrox who had 10-bit colour iirc. I remember back in the day "serious gamers would never use a combined 2D/3D card". Then nVidia came out with their Riva chipset and suddenly 2D graphics cards weren't really a thing any more.
- eecc 8y ago
  I had a Riva 128, what a piece of crap it was... I used to assemble gaming boxes for friends and delaying delivery a day or two to take a ride on the Dual Voodoo setups. Edit: well, according to Wikipedia it was somewhat competitive although drivers and support for rendering stacks was erratic for a while. I guess that’s what soured me up, and I was probably too n00b to have a clue
  - taneq 8y ago
    Huh... We had a Diamond Viper V330 or something and it was rock solid. Worked fine on everything I threw at it, seemed comparable with a Voodoo 2 in terms of speed/quality. Maybe it was the card vendor rather than the chipset?
kayamon 8y ago
There were many reasons why nvidia won, but a higher bit-depth wasn't one of them.
matwood 8y ago
> When I first saw 3dfx graphics, I knew it was the dawn of a new era. I came to write the exact same thing. It was gaming pre-Voodoo 1 and post. The difference was so striking - like going from SD TV to HD. Most hardware I've purchased has been evolutionary. It's not often I bought something and verbally said 'holy shit' like I did with the Voodoo 1 card.
rasz 8y ago
It wasnt 32bit color that made Nvidia emerge the winner. It was relentless push forward and an army of EEs working around the clock. On all accounts Nvidias first product should of been their last, supporting wrong paradigm, wrong specs, total fail. Yet somehow VCs allowed them a second try. After that it was just a straight dog race. Riva 128 (April 1997) to TNT (June 15, 1998) took 14 months, TNT2 (March 15, 1999) 8 month, GF256 (October 11, 1999) 7 months, GF2 (April 26, 2000) 6 months, | 3dfx dies here |, GF3 (February 27, 2001) 9 months, GF4 (February 6, 2002) 12 months, FX (March 2003) 13 months, etc ... Just think about it, 6 months between GPU generations, Nvidia had an army working 24/7 while 3dfx had couple ASIC people, 3dfx was murdered in their sleep.

taneq 8y ago

32-bit colour is still just 24-bit colour with 8 bits of stencil or whatever (or at least was back when 3dfx was relevant). The only company I know of that was doing higher bit depths was Matrox who had 10-bit colour iirc. I remember back in the day "serious gamers would never use a combined 2D/3D card". Then nVidia came out with their Riva chipset and suddenly 2D graphics cards weren't really a thing any more.

eecc 8y ago
I had a Riva 128, what a piece of crap it was... I used to assemble gaming boxes for friends and delaying delivery a day or two to take a ride on the Dual Voodoo setups. Edit: well, according to Wikipedia it was somewhat competitive although drivers and support for rendering stacks was erratic for a while. I guess that’s what soured me up, and I was probably too n00b to have a clue
- taneq 8y ago
  Huh... We had a Diamond Viper V330 or something and it was rock solid. Worked fine on everything I threw at it, seemed comparable with a Voodoo 2 in terms of speed/quality. Maybe it was the card vendor rather than the chipset?

kayamon 8y ago

There were many reasons why nvidia won, but a higher bit-depth wasn't one of them.

matwood 8y ago

> When I first saw 3dfx graphics, I knew it was the dawn of a new era. I came to write the exact same thing. It was gaming pre-Voodoo 1 and post. The difference was so striking - like going from SD TV to HD. Most hardware I've purchased has been evolutionary. It's not often I bought something and verbally said 'holy shit' like I did with the Voodoo 1 card.

rasz 8y ago

It wasnt 32bit color that made Nvidia emerge the winner. It was relentless push forward and an army of EEs working around the clock. On all accounts Nvidias first product should of been their last, supporting wrong paradigm, wrong specs, total fail. Yet somehow VCs allowed them a second try. After that it was just a straight dog race. Riva 128 (April 1997) to TNT (June 15, 1998) took 14 months, TNT2 (March 15, 1999) 8 month, GF256 (October 11, 1999) 7 months, GF2 (April 26, 2000) 6 months, | 3dfx dies here |, GF3 (February 27, 2001) 9 months, GF4 (February 6, 2002) 12 months, FX (March 2003) 13 months, etc ... Just think about it, 6 months between GPU generations, Nvidia had an army working 24/7 while 3dfx had couple ASIC people, 3dfx was murdered in their sleep.