leileilol wrote on 2022-09-24, 02:48:
Especially ironic about the Rendition comment is that they had the *least* 3d dedicated hardware of the bunch (and bungled up the DOS VGA at that).
3dfx's blunder starts at the Rush. There's all intents to make a proper video card but that wasn't until the Banshee, then STB merged, vendors were cut off and there begins the snowball...
nVidia then had a Microsoft edge. (not the browser) Their influence on DirectX 7+, feature proposals, etc. set them apart from the other emerging 32bpp cards. At the end of the day, hwtnl + cubemaps > embm > 3dfx's blast processing
Anyway i still think Rendition was promicing company, with promicing product, sadly they did die fast. Maybe Verrite 4 4400 or Verrite 5 5500 was going to be alot better..
I like the Rush tho is big and interesting card containing 2D chip from another brand, and the rest from 3Dfx, but the execution was dumb, they needed to ensure that there is no bottleneck. I still like that card tho is interesting. Saw somewhere that the Rampage project was delayed because the Banshee, lmao, it should have been released in 1999, and Avenger in 1998 i think something liek that.. Guess these baboons from 3Dfx was too busy with corporate parties, cutting the middle men the board partners, and spending alot of money for the STB Systems... With all that BS going on is no wonder they did die as they did. After all if u have competition in the face of the big M$ and the nVIDIA (that did learn after the release of NV1 and the original TNT, nvidia got the ide what to fix, and how to make betetr cards and evolve into making one of the best video cards for games0, you cant just ignore the competition, and straight go cut ur partners that made u what u are, by selling Voodoo and Voodoo II cards, cutting them down, and then spending most of the money the company have into some shitty STB Systems company, and expect to last.. Making everyone their enemy and their greed is their downfall.. After Voodoo II the things did go bad for them, delaying the Rampage chip was dumb idea too, also the Voodoo 5 5500 was weaker with its dual chips vs the single chip of the GEforce 256, they was just OUTdated at that time. If they did have better managment, they could make great innovations after Voodoo and Voodoo II, and be ahead of everyone all the time, but that is what nVIDIA did instead, they upgraded every new generation cards, when they saw how NV1 was not what they intended to be, and the TNT was not much better too, that is when they released the TNT II, and made a difference catching to the Voodoo III, and then they step up in their game with GF256 and it was bloodbath for 3Dfx.. These days after Ryzen and specially ZEN 3, if Intel was not as rich and influential as they are, they was going to have the similar fate of 3Dfx. But Intel is mega corporation, and they can bleed for some years, and wont be enough to take them down. 3Dfx went over their heads thinking they are Intel of the Videocards, and things went fast to shit, since they may be very promising, but the greed, the stupidity in the management, and thinking the competition will wait you, did rip off 3Dfx`s head...
I wonder tho, as 20 years did pass, why the former founders of 3Dfx Interactive dont try to make a come back, and start making videocards again, i think if this time they are not as greedy and dumb, they have the potential to grow big.. After all these 20 years have passed the patents nVIDIA did buy, they can buy them back..
Is also interesting how there was plenty of video chip manufacturers in the 90s, but for some reason only 3Dfx was any good, then nVIDIA, ATi to some degree, but the Rage series was crap mostly, and Rendition was very good too. Rest did suck hard ass like MatroX very well build cards with quality in mind, but their 3D was horrible, best cards they had was MatroX Mistique, MatroX G400 Max and Parhelia the last attempt from them, and then they abandoned the market.. Trident did suck balls, SiS as well, and their child the XGI Volari was failure as well (i still want that sweet Volari V8 Duo tho), S3 was bad too, maybe only the Savage series was good (aside from Savage 2000, that is garbage), and the Metal API, rest sucked ass too. The early Number 9 did have their own chips made in the company, but they was not very good i think. Cirrus logic had chips too, and they sucked hard as well.
Another brand i think was good that was PowerVR and the Kyro Series, they had that Tile API and did work very well, but they abandoned the computer industry, these days they make only CPUs for smartphones 🤣, sad tho..
Mah systems retro, old, newer (Radical stuff)
W3680 4.5/ GA-x58 UD7/ R9 280x
K7 2.6/ NF7-S/ HD3850
IBM x2 P3 933/ GA-6VXD7/ Voodoo V 5.5K
Cmq P2 450/ GA-BX2000/ V2 SLI
IBM PC365
Cmq DeskPRO 486/33
IBM PS/2 Model 56
SPS IntelleXT 8088