3DFX is truly dead :(

Full news here : http://simracingmag.gameloft.com Eric

But, isn't that a good thing? I mean.. wasn't it an old technology compared to Open GL.. and now D3D..? Hopefully, it means we'll have some sort of standards.. but.. who knows :) James "Eric Cote" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]... > Full news here : http://simracingmag.gameloft.com > > Eric >

On Sat, 16 Dec 2000 02:17:09 GMT, "James Pickard" <[email hidden]> wrote: >But, isn't that a good thing? I mean.. wasn't it an old technology compared >to Open GL.. and now D3D..? > >Hopefully, it means we'll have some sort of standards.. but.. who knows >:) > no, it isn't a good thing at all.. :-( now there is only nvidia, and this is called "monopoly".. so maybe we are going to pay more money for next video cards. let's hope ATI won't die like 3dfx... geps Driving per gli appassionati di Grand Prix Legends http://www.multiplayer.it/driving

You sound like the voodoo card can only run Glide games. :-) -- Email me at [email hidden] "James Pickard" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:FgA_5.19804$[email hidden]... > But, isn't that a good thing? I mean.. wasn't it an old technology compared > to Open GL.. and now D3D..? > > Hopefully, it means we'll have some sort of standards.. but.. who knows > :) > > James > > > > "Eric Cote" <[email hidden]> wrote in message > news:[email hidden]... > > Full news here : http://simracingmag.gameloft.com > > > > Eric > > > >

He was talking about the company not Glide. Open GL was a standard long before DirectX became an evil glint in Gates eyes so I dont think that means much. As far as competition goes its bad as you can see what effect amd has had on the price of processors, especially considering athlons are not only now cheaper than PIII cpu's but better. What I also find sad (considering I was one of the first to buy a voodoo one when it came out) is that a company can go from creating a completely new product and market in 1994 to going bust in 2000. Basically we owe everything accelerated to the piorneers at 3dfx that recognised how there was a market place for gaming dedicated hardware and gamers were willing to part with over 300 dollars to get it! If it wasnt for 3dfx we probably would still be in software mode!! So no its very bad! James Pickard <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:FgA_5.19804$[email hidden]... > But, isn't that a good thing? I mean.. wasn't it an old technologycompared

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> to Open GL.. and now D3D..? > > Hopefully, it means we'll have some sort of standards.. but.. who knows > :) > > James > > > > "Eric Cote" <[email hidden]> wrote in message > news:[email hidden]... > > Full news here : http://simracingmag.gameloft.com > > > > Eric > > > >

No, it's NOT good... 3Dfx was the first to brought us true 3D gaming, I remember when I first saw Laura Croft dating Monster3D, it almost brought tears to my eyes :) Back then I'd only buy games with Glide label, it's sad indeed to see them go... We are now left with... 1) Nvidia 2) ATI 3) Videologic <-- if they can get their acts together... 4) S3 5) Perhaps another stupid attempt by Intel... Oh well... a sad way to end '00 with... James Pickard wrote:

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> > But, isn't that a good thing? I mean.. wasn't it an old technology compared > to Open GL.. and now D3D..? > > Hopefully, it means we'll have some sort of standards.. but.. who knows > :) > > James > > "Eric Cote" <[email hidden]> wrote in message > news:[email hidden]... > > Full news here : http://simracingmag.gameloft.com > > > > Eric > >

Well guys, consider this other factor too... competition between manufactrurers is not only good to keep price down, but also it forces the engineers and gurus to push the envellop further to give us newer technology all the time. Right now with DX8 in the portrait , NVidia have already started working on there NV20, 3DFX was doing the same, but now that's scratch... ATI have not came with any solution to take full effect of DX8... so we're left with a single company having full control... An analogy to this is Intel at one point being alone when AMD were having a hard time with there K6-2 CPU's... Intel were all alone and they were simply not pushing very much... Only when AMD started to make Athlons, then Intel had no choice to respond to the threat. Also, Creative Labs killed Aureal in the sound card manufacturing, so they are all alone. So that makes 2 : graphics and sound cards being monopolized by 1 company. The only positive notes to this is the fact that standards are easier to apply now. But with DX8, standards were already there, compared to let's say DX5 when there was so many makers of video boards and the poor sim developpers had to make patch over patch just to make there games work with these different cards. As I said, not being pushed by another strong company will then slow down what's coming in as new technology. Worst is the timing of this, DX8 is right there and now we're facing this. Eric. Eric James Pickard wrote:

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> But, isn't that a good thing? I mean.. wasn't it an old technology compared > to Open GL.. and now D3D..? > > Hopefully, it means we'll have some sort of standards.. but.. who knows > :) > > James > > "Eric Cote" <[email hidden]> wrote in message > news:[email hidden]... > > Full news here : http://simracingmag.gameloft.com > > > > Eric > >

One more Papyrus chose company was dead, like Rendition or Aureal. It's mystery...? Y.Minami

On Sat, 16 Dec 2000 02:17:09 GMT, "James Pickard" <[email hidden]> wrote: >But, isn't that a good thing? No, not good at all, could not be worse actually. One has to wonder just how bad their management and PR must've been. All the time 3dfx had superior hardware at a competitive price and they had truly awesome technology in the pipeline. To see them go is a big loss for the consumer. nVidia hardware is *still* nowhere as good as 3dfx was, the only hope we have is that they incorporate as much 3dfx tech as possible. sometimes capitalism is just plain stupid, cheers, Karl

On Sat, 16 Dec 2000 17:32:12 +0100, Alexander Marx <[email hidden]> thus spoke: >nVidia hardware is *still* nowhere as good as 3dfx was, I've been buying 3DFX hardware since day one and have a V5 in my computer right now. But, I did own a Geforce2 for a short while and the only reason I took it back was because I wanted Glide support for older games and 3DFX had more stable drivers at the time. But, I don't see Nvidia hardware as inferior. 3DFX have a better FSAA implementation, but Nvidia has T&L and a faster chipset. So how is 3DFX hardware so much better?

Hello Eric Cote <[email hidden]>! Sat, 16 Dec 2000 08:35:56 -0500 you wrote: >Also, Creative Labs killed Aureal in the sound card manufacturing, so they are >all alone. So that makes 2 : graphics and sound cards being monopolized by 1 >company. Just ordered Terratec Xfire-1024 soundcard for replace my Vortex2(won't work under w2k), Terratec because it don't use Creative chip but Crystal. Maybe they would be little hope in soundcard market if people would by cards made by other makers than Creative. AFAIK Terratec uses Sensaura made EAX and A3D so you have same extensions than in Creative cards. -- Tuomas Paasiala | Multitasking in Windows? | - Use UAE Helsinki FINLAND | Remove _NO-SPAM_ for reply

On Sat, 16 Dec 2000 17:44:04 GMT, [email hidden] (Amp) wrote: >I've been buying 3DFX hardware since day one and have a V5 in my >computer right now. But, I did own a Geforce2 for a short while and >the only reason I took it back was because I wanted Glide support for >older games and 3DFX had more stable drivers at the time. When it comes to Gfx hardware I consider the one "best" that supports the games I play best. I don't care about theroretical performance numbers or features. I also owned a Geforce2 for a (very) short while and while it ran 2 or so games I own in fact better, the other 25 were worse than with a Voodoo 3 (!). "Faster" doesn't always equal "better" - the geforce may have a superior hardware design and it may have better theoretical performance, but who cares if this doesn't enhance your gaming experience at all ? Fact is that 3dfx produced the superior solution for simulation fans. Therefore they were IMO better than nVidia. The worst card I ever owned was a nVidia Riva128zx, closely followed by an original geforce256. Those cards were a waste of money because they never received decent support in games, and by the time they did they were outdated. They only promised, never delivered. And they were damn expensive for that if you ask me. > But, I don't see Nvidia hardware as inferior. 3DFX have a better FSAA >implementation, but Nvidia has T&L and a faster chipset. So how is >3DFX hardware so much better? you said it already. FSAA, Glide support, stable drivers - what else do you want ? T&L support never did improve any game I care about, but 3dfx FSAA and Glide support do. That's why I hope that nvidia didn't buy 3dfx to get rid of competition, but to integrate these features into their hardware.

I was really looking forward to buying the 6000 and now all hope is lost :( <ramble> I've used many nVidia cards (still use one on my work computer for OpenGL in Cad) but switched mostly to 3dfx eventually because of their stability and I was tired of spending all my time tweaking (imagine, me, tired of tweaking) the graphics in games instead of playing them. For the computers I built and sold, at least 98% of my callbacks happened when a customer installed a new game and it wouldn't work (or work well) with the nVidia drivers or when they upgraded drivers and older games wouldn't work. After I switched exclusively to 3dfx, I had no callbacks at all. At that time, each release of new nVidia drivers (and they seemed to come every week) was the one touted as being the driver that solved all problems. This is still going on today; same story, different driver versions. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed many things about the nVidia boards and the initial decision to an exclusive switch did not come easy. If I was only dealing with a few games, the drivers might not have been such an issue. But when you're dealing with customers who play Red Baron, Lego Island, Q3, MM1, UT and Carmen SanDiego on the same computer, it's frustrating. I hope nobody replies to this saying the new nVidia drivers are perfectly stable in all their games. For every person who has no problems, there is another who does. I've been on Guillemot's site forum (and others). I know there are still issues. I know it's hard to lose a few frames per second in Q3 (which is the one game where the nVidia's really exceed), but getting every fps we can out of a game is not the most important thing to any of us. Let's face it, we don't run our desktops without wallpaper even though we know it gives a slight performance hit. All this about the drivers being said, I also realize the pleasure one can get from an nVidia card that's running good in a game. <end ramble> So what's left? For me, it's a choice of not selling any more computers, going back to old days of nVidia driver problems, or switching to Radeons. When the Radeon was introduced, I had the use of one for about a week. I must say the colors, 2D and 3D, were the best I've ever seen. Also, the card ran cool. Very cool. The performance was very good across the board. In most cases, substantially faster than my 5500. In 16 bit color, it was as fast as or faster than my 5500 or any nVidia I've used across a broad range of games, and in 32 bit color it didn't slow down. And that's where the card really shines, high resolutions and 32 bit color. Some textures in some games (like water) were just awesome. Of course, nothing is perfect. FSAA wasn't great. In some games the texture colors seemed different than what I was used to. Also, in GP3 for example, there were some strange graphics glitches. These may have all been cured with new drivers, but at the time it would have been hard to recommend a card, no matter how great the display, knowing it had problems with some popular games. And I didn't have a personal track record with ATI's drivers, so I didn't know how often they updated or if new drivers (fixing the problems) would cause a performance hit as many of the nVidia drivers once did. Who knows, maybe, amongst all the drawbacks of losing a major player in the video card industry, just maybe - nVidia will actually take the time to release new cards with software that actually works well; and not leave us anxiously checking their web site every day for updated drivers. Not likely, but who knows? I like tweaking, but I distain continuous maintenance. -- Slot www.slottweak.com Tweaks & Reviews

GTX_SlotCar wrote: > > I was really looking forward to buying the 6000 and now all hope is lost :( > > <ramble> Sniff, that brought tears to my eyes, thx Slot :-) Beers and cheers (uncle) Goy http://www.theuspits.com http://www.teammirage.com "Mountain climbing, auto racing and bullfighting are the only true sports...all others are games." --Ernest Hemingway--

"geps" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]... > On Sat, 16 Dec 2000 02:17:09 GMT, "James Pickard" > <[email hidden]> wrote: > > >But, isn't that a good thing? I mean.. wasn't it an old technologycompared

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> >to Open GL.. and now D3D..? > > > >Hopefully, it means we'll have some sort of standards.. but.. who knows > >:) > > > > no, it isn't a good thing at all.. :-( > > now there is only nvidia, and this is called "monopoly".. so maybe we > are going to pay more money for next video cards. > > let's hope ATI won't die like 3dfx... > > > > geps > > Driving > per gli appassionati di Grand Prix Legends > http://www.multiplayer.it/driving

ATI is a bigger share of the OEM market then Nvidia and going by the radeon could give Nvidia a run for there money in the future. That's where 3dfx went wrong the money is in OEM not retail. Alex

Is it an X file? Rock on ATI...lol. jj Yoshi Minami <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:91g0au$qg3$[email hidden]...

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> One more Papyrus chose company was dead, like Rendition or Aureal. > It's mystery...? > > > Y.Minami > > >

On Sat, 16 Dec 2000 19:44:28 +0100, Alexander Marx <[email hidden]> thus spoke: >When it comes to Gfx hardware I consider the one "best" that supports >the games I play best. Ah..so now it's just an opinion. Big difference between opinion and facts. You say a V3 is faster than a Geforce2? Maybe in a couple of Glide enabled sims, but I expect any game that uses D3D and is video card dependent as opposed to cpu dependent will perform much better on a Geforce2.

"James Pickard" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:FgA_5.19804$[email hidden]... > But, isn't that a good thing? I mean.. wasn't it an old technologycompared

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> to Open GL.. and now D3D..? > > Hopefully, it means we'll have some sort of standards.. but.. who knows > :) > > James >

Press release: Nvidia.... As you all know we recently agreed to purchase the stock of our rival 3d company 3dfx. The purchase of 3dfx now allows us to concentrate on improving our chips without worring what the other guy is doing. Therefore we first need to clear the air somewhat. Due to the competitive nature of our business, we have been forced in the past to fudge our upcomming product specs. So now we'd like to more accurately depict the next upcomming part, the NV15 1/2.(codenamed NV20) We are pleased to announce that the new card does indeed produce a significant increase from our old version.....uhhhh 7 to be exact. and we are also pleased to report to our shareholders that each new Nvidia product will easily warrant a 15% price increase. dave henrie

This may seem like a small trivial thing, but I mostly race the TPTCC touring car patch from the pits. Many of the OLD ICR2 road courses and the NEW GPL converted tracks either work in glide or software...While 'some' tracks can be made to work with d3d, the bulk of them are glide or no 3d. For me that makes the choice simple. Until such time as the Papy family of tracks is more friendly to D3d, or a clearly superior & cost effective new package comes along, I'll stick with a 3dfx card. dave henrie "Amp" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

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> On Sat, 16 Dec 2000 19:44:28 +0100, Alexander Marx <[email hidden]> > thus spoke: > > > >When it comes to Gfx hardware I consider the one "best" that supports > >the games I play best. > > Ah..so now it's just an opinion. Big difference between opinion and > facts. You say a V3 is faster than a Geforce2? Maybe in a couple of > Glide enabled sims, but I expect any game that uses D3D and is video > card dependent as opposed to cpu dependent will perform much better on > a Geforce2.

[email hidden] (Alexander Marx) wrote: > sometimes capitalism is just plain stupid, Capitalism, like democracy, is best viewed from a distance. Look too closely at the details and it often looks very ugly :-> Andrew McP

"Andrew MacPherson" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]... > [email hidden] (Alexander Marx) wrote: > > > sometimes capitalism is just plain stupid, > > Capitalism, like democracy, is best viewed from a distance. Look too > closely at the details and it often looks very ugly :-> I thought that was sausage making. :-)

On Sun, 17 Dec 2000 07:08:47 GMT, "Dave Henrie" <[email hidden]> thus spoke:

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> This may seem like a small trivial thing, but I mostly race the TPTCC >touring car patch from the pits. Many of the OLD ICR2 road courses and the >NEW GPL converted tracks either work in glide or software...While 'some' >tracks can be made to work with d3d, the bulk of them are glide or no 3d. >For me that makes the choice simple. Until such time as the Papy family of >tracks is more >friendly to D3d, or a clearly superior & cost effective new package comes >along, I'll stick with a 3dfx card.

Well, me too. Like I've said already, I've been using 3DFX since day one. Only 3DFX card I didn't buy was Banshee and Rush. I used to troll this group pushing you guys to buy 3DFX when most of you were using Rendition (different user name). I'm talking objectively about the hardware performance here, nothing more.

Alexander Marx wrote: > > sometimes capitalism is just plain stupid, Amen to that. Worst of all, we'll lose backwards compatibility to all our old Glide games. :-( -- Chuck Kandler Linux, because life's too short for a buggy OS. Registered Linux User #180746 http://counter.li.org

I couldn't disagree more. nVidia had 24-bit and 32-bit colour support, 32-bit texture support, and large texture support in the TNT1, whereas it's taken 3dfx until the V4/5 to get these features into a product. nVidia also produced the first Hardware TnL card, and produced AGP 2x and 4x cards well before 3dfx. I've owned a V3, V5 and a GF2 and the GF2 is the fastest card in D3D and OpenGL. Just about the only thing the V5 does better is FSAA. 3dfx used SLI to avoid having to develop new technology. The VSA-100 chip was an evolution of a V3. Still, the loss of competition is a bad thing, and having owned Voodoo cards from VG to V5, it's also a sad developement. "Alexander Marx" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

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> On Sat, 16 Dec 2000 02:17:09 GMT, "James Pickard" > <[email hidden]> wrote: > > >But, isn't that a good thing? > > No, not good at all, could not be worse actually. One has to wonder > just how bad their management and PR must've been. All the time 3dfx > had superior hardware at a competitive price and they had truly > awesome technology in the pipeline. To see them go is a big loss for > the consumer. nVidia hardware is *still* nowhere as good as 3dfx was, > the only hope we have is that they incorporate as much 3dfx tech as > possible. > > sometimes capitalism is just plain stupid, > > cheers, > Karl

Uncle Fester wrote:

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> > Alexander Marx wrote: > > > > sometimes capitalism is just plain stupid, > > Amen to that. Worst of all, we'll lose backwards compatibility to all > our old Glide games. :-(

Which is why I still have an old V2 SLI setup collecting dust on my shelf, knew it could come in handy one day....:-) Beers and cheers (uncle) Goy "Team Mirage" http://members.prestige.net/bttw/teammirage/ "The Pits" http://www.theuspits.com/ * Spam is for losers who can't get business any other way * "Spamkiller" http://www.spamkiller.com

Goy Larsen <[email hidden]> writes:

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> Uncle Fester wrote: > > > > Alexander Marx wrote: > > > > > > sometimes capitalism is just plain stupid, > > > > Amen to that. Worst of all, we'll lose backwards compatibility to all > > our old Glide games. :-( > > Which is why I still have an old V2 SLI setup collecting dust on my > shelf, knew it could come in handy one day....:-)

Yeah, I have both a Creative V2 and a V3 that I was about to sell to part finace my new V5, but maybe not, since it is a great bit of history. Maybe I should stuff the V2 up on the wall, historic art :) -- Olav K. Malmin remove .spam when replying

"Olav K. Malmin" wrote: > > Yeah, I have both a Creative V2 and a V3 that I was about to sell to > part finace my new V5, but maybe not, since it is a great bit of > history. Maybe I should stuff the V2 up on the wall, historic art :) I'd hang on to the V2 at least, I kept mine because I I had a feeling it was just a matter of time before 3Dfx themselves would drop Glide support in their new cards, I didn't expect it to end up like this however Beers and cheers (uncle) Goy "Team Mirage" http://members.prestige.net/bttw/teammirage/ "The Pits" http://www.theuspits.com/ * Spam is for losers who can't get business any other way * "Spamkiller" http://www.spamkiller.com

That's true, the next 3dfx product range would not have supported Glide, so the API was on it's last legs anyway. "Goy Larsen" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

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> > I'd hang on to the V2 at least, I kept mine because I I had a feeling it > was just a matter of time before 3Dfx themselves would drop Glide > support in their new cards, I didn't expect it to end up like this > however > > > Beers and cheers > (uncle) Goy

geps <[email hidden]> wrote: >now there is only nvidia, and this is called "monopoly".. so maybe we >are going to pay more money for next video cards. Only problem with this theory is that 3DFX wasn't putting any downward-price pressure on nVidia at ALL. NVidia simply realised that the market for affordable graphics cards is larger than die-hard gamers willing to spend big bucks for a card. 3DFX never understood this simple fact. Joe McGinn _____________________ Radical Entertainment

Microsoft supported DIRECT 3D. It didn't support Glide. That was the key. NVIDIA and others then went on the D 3d bandwagon. "Joe62" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

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> geps <[email hidden]> wrote: > > >now there is only nvidia, and this is called "monopoly".. so maybe we > >are going to pay more money for next video cards. > > Only problem with this theory is that 3DFX wasn't putting any > downward-price pressure on nVidia at ALL. NVidia simply realised that > the market for affordable graphics cards is larger than die-hard > gamers willing to spend big bucks for a card. 3DFX never understood > this simple fact. > > Joe McGinn > _____________________ > Radical Entertainment