Hi Geoff,
you gracefully neglect the fact that the new Voodoo2 boards also support
DirectX (and are much faster than all the competitors even under D3D). Plus,
they'll also support OpenGL - drivers are already being written.
3dFX have shown that they are extremely capable in both hard- and software
development. They have always been a few steps ahead of the competition, and
they haven't lost that advantage yet. The stock market development you
mention is nothing but a normal adjustment. When 3dFX released their first
Voodoo chipset, they didn't have any competition worth mentioning - only
several much slower and much less capable boards were available. Not even
Rendition was on a level with 3dFX. Now, the situation has changed, and the
stock market reflects this. But 3dFX are still technology leaders - there's
no point in arguing this - and 3dFX is the most supported standard when it
comes to genuine support from games producers.
Yes, there will be new boards in the future, but 3dFX won't sleep either.
And with their SLI feature, even the V2 will be competitive for a long time
even if they _didn't_ release new chipsets - but of course they will. I
don't think any other board within the next 8 months will be able to beat an
SLI-V2 in the higher resolutions.
I think your analysis of the situation is wrong. 3dFX is ahead of the
competition. The only difference being that now there _is_ some competition.
But 3dFX has a considerable headstart. So, ATM, there is absolutely no
indication that 3dFX is in trouble. IMO, that's just wishful thinking by
some...
Achim