3dfx Oral History Panel with Ross Smith, Scott Sellers, Gary Tarolli, and Gordon Campbell

Moderated by Shayne Hodge on July 29, 2013, in Mountain View, California, X6887.2013
© Computer History Museum
3dfx was a pioneering consumer computer graphics company best known for its Voodoo Graphics accelerators for PCs. Their graphics products also found their way into popular arcade games such as San Francisco Rush and NFL Blitz. 3dfx's cards and their Glide API were arguably the most popular and important products of their era. Despite their early dominance in the computer graphics industry, 3dfx went from industry leader to bankruptcy in just a few years' span. In this oral history, the four original co-founders discuss the history of 3dfx, lessons learned, and anecdotes from their careers in technology.
* Note: Transcripts represent what was said in the interview. However, to enhance meaning or add clarification, interviewees have the opportunity to modify this text afterward. This may result in discrepancies between the transcript and the video. Please refer to the transcript for further information - www.computerhistory.org/collec....
Visit computerhistory.org/collections/oralhistories/ for more information about the Computer History Museum's Oral History Collection.

[@3dfxhistory]

"3dfx - Gone, but never forgotten" Thank you for the amazing time :-)

[@RandomlyDrumming]

Being a computer nerd (now an IT pro) and a HUGE 3Dfx fan, these guys are, basically, my "childhood heroes". :) Big respect from Serbia!

[@Ferrislilly]

I still remember playing Unreal and Tomb Raider for the first time going from software to hardware on my new Voodoo. It was mind blowing.

[@barryschalkwijk9388]

i know right? Goddamn that powerbump. I had the original monster voodoo card. Less powerfull than voodoo2, But i was the first and coolest for a year haha.

[@OpenGL4ever]

In the software rendering days I was used to the frame rate often not being significantly better than 23 fps. And this 23 fps was bought with the most expensive x86 CPU on the market. In my case it was a Pentium 2 266 MHz when it was brand new. And then a little later Voodoo 2 came along and suddenly it was 60 fps. Incredible.

[@StathiPapadopoulos]

I still have my box of 3dfx cards, all the way up to the 5500. Such great memories.

[@wookiesforvever4526]

I remember convincing my boss at the Norwegian simulator developer Autosim to buy a 3DFX SLI card back in 1996. All the other engineers did not believe their specs but I had a gut feeling that this start-up would enable us to make some of our 3D simulators using PCs rather than SGIs which were very pricey back then.

[@Shiunbird]

And you could play during your free time. =)

[@Traumglanz]

@@Shiunbird That you could do on the SGIs as well, unlike GLIDE those SGIs supported Open GL Rendering ^_^

[@Shiunbird]

@@Traumglanz Were there many games ported at the time?

[@OpenGL4ever]

@@Traumglanz No, you couldn't and if you did, your game selection was very limited. The early SGIs didn't have x86 CPUs. SGI only started using Pentium II and III CPUs around 1999.

[@edahmed7]

Wish these guys could save 3dfx like Steve saved apple. I know they could have. Still a 3dfxgamer at heart 😊

[@zybch]

Have you looked at what apple has become. The most consumer hostile corporation on the face of the planet profiting off slave labour. Steve should have told them to f-off.

[@RandomlyDrumming]

TIMESTAMPS: 0:00:50 - Gary Tarolli bio 0:03:40 - Scott Sellers bio 0:05:20 - Ross Smith bio 0:09:21 - Gordon Campbell bio 0:15:30 - High-end 3D graphics of the time vs the state of PC graphics market 0:18:42 - "We had no idea what we're doing" :) 0:20:00 - Pelucid, MIPS workstation projects, value-oriented... 0:22:24 - Emergence of 3D in video games, arcades... 0:23:55 - What's next? The fall of Media Vision... 0:27:50 - PlayStation and Reality Engine 0:35:00 - Simulator & demos, arcade... 0:43:28 - "Does it look good enough?" 0:45:46 - The main idea behind doing real-time 3D cheaply 0:46:26 - Competition, NVIDIA, Quads instead of triangles... 0:50:53, 0:53:22 - Architecture, "The life of a Triangle" 01:00:10 - The moment of truth. 01:08:52 - Glide API 01:12:13 - Fighting game demo, "no apologies" approach to making hardware 01:17:43 - Why the PCI bus 01:21:00 - Software-to-hardware transtition (Doom, Quake, John Carmack...) 01:26:50 - Orchid Righteous - first Voodoo Graphics 01:31:55 - Company culture 01:35:06 - Exciting and creative times 01:38:50 - Voodoo 1 had SLI and 4xSLI Quantum3D! :D 01:41:51 - Entering board business 01:46:42 - IPO 01:48:31 - Bankruptcy... 01:53:02 - Costly perks? True or false? Bad decisions... 01:54:52 - What came after; The origin of SLI 01:58:14 - Revolution in graphics, changing industry 02:01:44 - GPU? 02:03:52 - Steve Jobs, Realtime vs CGI graphics 02:08:31 - Why game history matters & customers 02:11:25 - 3Dfx enthusiasts in 2010's 02:13:19 - What are you doing now? 02:23:02 - Most surprised with what during 3dfx years 02:24:18 - Things you would do differently? - Ross Smith 02:26:11 - Sega Dreamcast design deal 02:27:29 - Things you would do differently? - Gary Tarolli 02:28:57 - Advice for future entrepreneurs :)

[@cromulence]

Thank you!

[@RandomlyDrumming]

@@cromulence You're welcome.🍻

[@OpenGL4ever]

Thank you!

[@UnknownS0und]

Awesome, simply awesome video. Thanks Computer History Museum! Thanks Ross, Gary Scott and Gordon for making my computer gaming years through the 90s such an exciting and fun time. Quake I, II, III Arena, Unreal

[@djm1ch0l4s9]

Also the best 3dfx games were KingPin, NoOneLivesForever, DevilInside, RedLine, Motorhead, Nfs3, WheelOfTime, Interstate76, DeusEx, ..

[@Ness_No_Mess_and_R41DER]

I had one of the first ones that switched from 2D to 3D which was the Orchid Righteous 3dfx 4mb it blew me away back in the day :)

[@m9078jk3]

+R41DER 74 I just obtained a original relay based Orchid Righteous card on eBay. I like the neat click sound of the relay.Now I have 7 Voodoo 1 cards but I just had to have that original Orchid Righteous even though I don't have the original box for it

[@retromuel]

Yeah I had one of those back in the day. The Anubis fight demo made my jaw hit the floor as a 12-year-old. I don't think I've witnessed as big a jump in real time graphics since. Awesome stuff. I've still got one now!

[@MBDB666]

Just purchased a Voodoo 5500 AGP 64MB card for my retro Pre -2000 gaming PC. My god the quality on Glide is so damn pretty!

[@djm1ch0l4s9]

Me have a retro-pc too ! A PentiumII@Voodoo3@Win98se.. that's the shit !

[@OpenGL4ever]

The reason is quite simple. The first DirectX games were only rendered in 16 bit color depth. When it comes to color gradients, which are common in texture filtering, the video cards of the competition had ugly dithering effects. However, the Voodoo cards all had a 22-bit postfilter, which significantly improved the image quality. Unfortunately you can't see this in screenshots because screenshots only capture the 16 bit image.

[@m9078jk3]

Thanks so much for hosting this awesome interview.I always wanted to see the people whom were behind this amazing 3D graphics company and listened intently about the detailed history. I purchased a 3DFX Voodoo 3 2000 PCI graphics card back in 1999.I couldn't afford very much for a PC back then it was only a meager $399 eMachines etower 300K PC but that graphics card turned it into a decent budget gaming machine.I lucked out on my choice as the Glide based gaming titles looked so much better than many of the the Direct X based titles at that time.I did wisely upgrade the power supply though and I put a CPU cooler on that graphics card at the time to cool it better (my only complaint about it).I also say thank you very much for creating such amazing hardware and software.

[@OpenGL4ever]

The first Voodoo chips were initially 16-bit chips, as were the other consumer 3D-capable chips at the time, but the Voodoo cards all had a downstream 22-bit postfilter that was missing at the competition. This allowed for finer color gradients and that's why the Glide games generally all looked better. In addition, the Glide API was much more sophisticated than the first versions of DirectX. This only changed from around DirectX 7.

[@hitman4567]

Really wished 3Dfx was still around today, I grew up playing on 3Dfx and nothing compared at the time. Shame they are gone

[@TurboMMaster]

+hitman4567 Me too, I would love to see what modern 3dfx cards would look like. Retrocomputing alternate history anyone :) ?

[@Ferrislilly]

Me too. They were what got me into computers.

[@willywonka9768]

I still have never purchased a new nVidia card because of the deal they struck with 3dfx to fuck all their customers.. this all happened when windows XP was about to come out and they wouldn't even provide simple compatible drivers.. so the last software office that was part of 3dfx (believe in the UK somewhere) stuck it out and gave us a fix before receiving their cease and desist orders from nVidia.. 3dfx will always have a special place in my heart :)

[@armorgeddon]

+willy wonka I'm the same, I had bought a Voodoo5 mid-2000 and Nvidia never did anything to support the 3dfx-cards in terms of drivers. I'm still angry at them. Since then me and my friends, who were running Voodoo3s, never purchased a product containing anything from Nvidia except some ultra-low-end cards which are the best in terms of picture quality for HTPCs running Linux. With the driver release from the UK office do you mean x3dfx or what? Because to my knowledge there were never Windows XP-drivers badged 3dfx exept the crude one Microsoft did to at least make 2D possible.

[@willywonka9768]

well, that was the community that rallied together ... and I'm pretty sure they produced a lot of repackages with minor tweaks/changes... but it was my understanding that there was at least one rogue developer who pushed out a final driver for the community to play with before receiving a cease and dismiss order.. maybe I'm wrong :p

[@OpenGL4ever]

That was one of the reasons why I stayed with Windows Millennium for a relatively long time.

[@Szederp]

Nvidia and Ati may have won the financial battle but it is the name 3dfx which will be passed down by generations as "THE CARD".

[@OlviMasta77]

True that!

[@ClaytonMacleod]

Damn straight. I still say nobody is doing antialiasing properly since the Voodoo5. I'm annoyed in every single gaming session by polygon popping and other stuff that the v5 did a better job of trying to eliminate.

[@zeepster]

Still got my Voodoo2 in the original box.

[@Szederp]

zeepster Still have my collection of 45 voodoo cards :D

[@zeepster]

+Szederp wow that's impressive!

[@jarrod-smith]

Just stumbled on this, 8 years later. What a hoot. Nothing but good memories about 3dfx, other than the fact that I rode the stock to zero like a doofus. At that time their tech was unrivaled and I was blinded by that, totally oblivious to the horrible business decision to make their customers into competitors overnight. As I recall, Gary would occasionally pop his head into one of the 3dfx usenet groups and I had the pleasure of chatting with him there a couple times. Legend.

[@djmips]

You got kind of screwed with that clever transaction to sell the 'assets' to Nvidia and then go bankrupt with the husk left over.

[@AmrikSadhra]

Kind of disappointed that there wasn't a conversation on Rampage/Mosaic technology, the GigaPixel acquisition or Voodoo 6000, but this was a GREAT video. Thanks a lot.

[@OpenGL4ever]

They could also have said a few words about the 22 bit post filter. The competition didn't have that and rendered with 16 bit dithering. Otherwise, it was a great interview.

[@MrHarney]

3DFX was an amazing brand such a shame really that they withered away

[@ubbgn]

My first 3D gpu was a Diamond Voodoo 4MB. Great card for that era, cost me about 120€ at the time in 96/97. Games ran so much smother and better quality graphics, was like nigh and day!

[@JerichoWalls]

That's soooooo huge!! Thank you for uploading this!

[@mirceadimian4048]

Indeed.

[@wittonleung8732]

The most important step from 2D to 3D for PC games, thank you , 3Dfx!

[@HiAdrian]

Really interesting and through interview, thanks for having done this!

[@jolesco]

Thanks for giving us 3dfx, I still have my old Voodoo3 3500TV in its original box

[@djmips]

Thanks for doing this Ross, Scott, Gary, and Gordon. This was a fantastic and very honest retrospective of 3dfx and I found some answers that I was always curious about. You really were a dream team and what a fantastic run you had!

[@throumbas]

3dfx are my heroes

[@matel855]

Great memories...I enjoyed video..thanks

[@randydavid3496]

Respect & salutations from Malaysia, Ross, Scott, Gary and Gordon. Surprised when Malaysia was mentioned at 2:23:00! I was 17 in 1999 and got a Banshee 16mb PCI card early that year. Creative Labs if I recall, and it came bundled with the game Incoming.

[@xtreamerpt7775]

Years ahead of all the consoles in that time. I miss those old days. Thank you very much for all the hours i spent gaming in front of my old desktop

[@yellowblanka6058]

Well until the DC/PS2 rolled around anyway, but yeah, they were years ahead of PS1/N64.

[@Svyatpro]

Awesome interview!

[@samihamouri]

ross , scott , gary .. respect from saudi arabia

[@enleeten]

Such an amazing interview!

[@liamiangaming7931]

I really wish 3dfx didn't go bankrupt, I would really like a 3 way gpu battle, not have one eventually Winning, but just because having 3 different graphics companies would be cool. Also still having glide would be awesome.

[@raineyjayy]

I was sporting a 3dfx shirt the other day walking to work (Bellevue) and someone FINALLY said something "heyy! 3dfx!!" It was cool. Considering I'm an engineer, work with other engineers, no one usually does.

[@stasoline]

Great video, really enjoyed it.

[@Wsmith247]

Man i miss 3dfx, i wish i could have done this interview, id ask much different questions.

[@stevefriedl3983]

I love all the history here. @CHM peeps: please consider putting the names on the title in the same order they sit, which is Gary Tarolli, Scott Sellers, Ross Smith, and Gordon Campbell

[@Ferrislilly]

Man these guys were behind so many memories.

[@sgtjarhead99]

I still have my 12mb Creative Labs Voodoo2 SLI setup in my retro gaming box. Great memories.

[@barryschalkwijk9388]

Godspeed 3DFX. l will never forget you. I see and feel your pain. You were the first but ultimately not the best. You had gold in your hands but did not manage to capitalize. But nothing will beat QuakeGL, Unreal and Crock, legend of the motherhugging Gobbos. Please feel some solace in starting it all. You made so many people so happy. I still recall booting up Quake for the first time with your card installed and i know there's hundreds of thousands who feel ike me.. That's magic my dudes.

[@laumpolumpio]

The PC Master Race owes all to these guys.

[@Ferrislilly]

Truth

[@ClassicTrialsChannel]

My first 3d card was the orchid righteous 3dfx 4mb card. It was mind blowing too see one running in your bedroom pc. After that awakening whenever you went to the pc game store you looked at the box for the 3Dfx logo first. The store near me started having a 3Dfx only shelf to make it easier

[@ruxandy]

You guys were so lucky. I was pretty poor at the time (although I did have a PC, which was a very big deal in itself), so was stuck with my ATI Rage card for a very long time. But, man... I still remember seeing GLQuake running on a Diamond Monster Voodoo 1 at my (rich) friend's place and being just blown away by it. Then, 1 - 2 years later, he actually upgraded to the Voodoo 2 and for the first time I saw how Unreal was supposed to run and look... and, again, my mind was blown. Fast forward 25 years, now I'm in a position where I could easily afford to buy two RTX 3090s each month, but now I don't care too much about games anymore. Funny how life works, huh? 🙂

[@zeepster]

Just looking at them all sitting there in the first shot. I couldn't help thinking that from Left to Right the passion for the product declines and the love for money rises. :P I'm probably wrong.

[@Ferrislilly]

That's probably by design just by their job titles. You gotta do what you gotta do when it comes to your job. Thankfully at that time it all came together to bring PC gaming to the masses.

[@molloyvader]

These guys are so damn intelligent, it's crazy how many right moves it took.

[@ozzuneoj]

Does the 3D presentation mentioned at 1:04:00 still exist? That would be an amazing thing to be able to see, especially in real-time.

[@arjunraj3977]

I always wonder how awesome it could've had been if 3DFX was still here being competitive against AMD and NVIDIA cards..

[@djmips]

Forgot to talk about your amazing launch parties in San Francisco!

[@bayviewguesthouse7126]

I remember playing unreal with 3dfx card is like having Ray tracing turned on back in 1998!

[@drummerdovas756]

It was much more extreme than that. It meant going from playing in a 5x10cm window in software mode to full screen 640x480, with good enough fps and that special 3dfx blur.

[@insomniacgr1]

As Drummer Dovas said, it was much more dramatic than that. RT is barely visible at times, playing the Glide version of the game with a 3Dfx card was outrageously better than software back in the day!

[@themobster7284]

If u compare that BS of a EARLY beta RT, to Glide, u must be blind AF, or mad !!! ...

[@shad0wzrealm]

I really miss the great days of 3DFX.

[@OpenGL4ever]

What is that "crush" software he is talking about at 14:00? I searched for it, but didn't found anything that could fit to what he said.

[@QuaaludeCharlie]

Thank you :) QC

[@akaria03]

I still have my 5500 AGP-still had better AA/AF that I've ever seen. Today I'd love to see a 3DFX card today standards-it would kick arse..... These are the guys who invented the 1st Graphic cards.......=)

[@Yapostadodat]

Without these guys and John Carmack, no Glquake which was the killer app for the 3dfx chip.

[@deanlillie7140]

glquake is derived from a port originally made for Rendition cards. Carmack coded it in OpenGL since it was the only API that had anything close to cross-platform support at the time, though in order for it to work on 3dfx cards 3dfx themselves made a opengl->glide wrapper (minigl).

[@Yapostadodat]

I remember this part now, you are right. There was a whole argument about what was better. I remember the Verite was better looking but 3dfx got a better frame rate so they went with 3dfx and minigl.

[@deanlillie7140]

The interesting thing (and what they curiously double talked around) was that Carmack and id /didn't/ go with minigl. They went with OpenGL which at the time 3dfx didn't support. 3dfx created the wrapper independently of id and Carmack. Carmack was an advisor for 3dfx, but from what I remember he was pretty frustrated by their decisions particularly regarding how they used glide. Ultimately, I guess he was right.

[@Yapostadodat]

Well OpenGL WAS for Silicon Graphic Workstations, and it's kind of hard to build a gaming killer app for a $20,000 machine. It's kind of a specialized market :).

[@deanlillie7140]

Sure, though it's also part of why 3dfx failed (though there are multiple causes). They didn't anticipate just how quickly the rest of the market would catch up and overtake them and their deliberate avoidance of OpenGL compatibility (no CAD!) hurt their reputation in the professional segment as Nvidia and ATI began releasing hardware that started cannibalising SGI sales at the low end. 3dfx didn't plot a path to remedy that, their silicon was simply meant for games and by the time the Voodoo 3 came out that was severely limiting their market. Looking back, it's remarkable how quickly it all happened.

[@djmips]

1:53:47 wow telling it like it is. Exactly right. No filter. Amazingly plain spoken Gordon.

[@RayR]

The lack of a top performing 2d/3d solution was a killer. They missed the mark on that. The nail in the coffin was the lack of geometry chip on board with their later products. They were king of the mountain. They had it all and then lost it all. Regardless they put it all out there and that takes courage. Great interview.

[@JackBandicootsBunker]

+HBOMB1111111111 Which ironically was being under development during the Rampage project. It was also down to mismanagement by Greg Ballard. I would attribute most issues to him (although sleeping in their laurels with Banshee, Rush and Voodoo2 are downsides to consider, and Ballard wasn't around at that time IIRC)

[@pegcity4eva]

Should have released with the Banshee

[@majidaldo]

Should have more views

[@djmips]

@45:48 Ross Smith - preach! Good summarization of what Gary and Scott were explaining. I was working at an IHV at this time and as a former game dev I saw first hand this stubborn attempt to adhere to a quality standard that gamers wouldn't care about. Fir example, I had been in meetings with Rendition pleading with them to sacrifice color bit depth for fill rate but they were just not going to do it!

[@TechnicalTrap]

Legends.

[@Corristo89]

3dfx really got 3D gaming going, although their first cards had a seperate 3D and 2D processor. While most PC games ran in software mode, having a 3dfx card AND a game which supported Glide (a derivative of OpenGL) was a really cool way to impress your friends. Too bad 3dfx made a series of bad decisions in the late 90s and early 2000s, like manufacturing in Mexico instead of Asia and pissing off a number of their partners.

[@kaltblut]

Corristo89 their cards did not have a 2d processor at first (1st and 2nd gen).

[@armorgeddon]

+kaltblut Well, some had! That was called Voodoo Rush and based on the Voodoo Graphics (now more known as Voodoo 1) look it up for the specs etc..

[@kaltblut]

armorgeddon true, but the monster 2 didn't

[@djmips]

MiniGL was the subset of OpenGL. Glide had some similarities.

[@andreiiulianmoraru1515]

I remember! Because of Games i digged into PC's. Playing Counter Strike i had to change from Settings menu From Software render to something similar glide or OpenGL and the gameplay changed. But i never knew till i bought my first video board GeForce 2 to play games that the reason back then why i couldn't play games was the lack of the Voodoo board i didn't knew that it is a separate board attached to PCI slot, but when a pc started and saw something like voodoo it can play 3d games. 3DFX accelerator

[@viniciusferrao]

Do you guys have the audio transcripts?

[@djmips]

They probably do but also you can (now in present time) show the auto generated transcript in the KZbin application. There are also apps that will let you download this transcript.

[@pcgamingeconomico3057]

I still have my voodoo 5 and voodoo 3

[@MartinGP_3dfxlegacy]

Are there subtutiles for the video?

[@djmips]

Now there is. Auto generated English.

[@pezcore2142]

big up to the ireland 3dfx office (former STB homies) for leaking drivers for the community until they received a Cease and Desist after the shutdown.. those guys were the real heroes

[@IvanBoskovic808]

Greetings from Serbia !

[@OpenGL4ever]

26:14 He is talking about Star Wars Rebel Assault here.

[@justingoretoy1628]

Would have been interesting to see what would have happened if the Dreamcast went with 3DFX afterall.

[@unr3alGaming]

If they met production goals, which is what Sega was worried about I think they'd still be around today. I'd they didn't, the company would once again be defunct.

[@Wil3vlbc9gvk604]

That is awesome! Nvidia should create some 3DFX content/special card.

[@townie3057]

What about MOSAIC and RAMPAGE? What about Voodoo 4 and 5? I really wanted to hear those stories. Anyone have anything from that era I can read or watch?

[@djmips]

They almost got there but got deflected... The interviewer lost his train of thought and didn't really know much about 3dfx or graphics cards. Nevertheless the group patiently guided the history and really did cover a lot of great details.

[@AeroFix94]

is that Scotts face on the Voodoo5 box? ;)

[@liamiangaming7931]

Maybe.

[@murnelbabineaux105]

I had a 3dfx Voodoo card in 1996

[@EvoPortal]

Lets gets things straight here. 3dfx went under not entirely because of the STB acquisition but mostly because they simple didn't have a competing product anymore. The Geforce 2 mopped the floor with the voodoo 5500. Even the voodoo 6000 with 4 GPUs was significantly slower than the single GPU Geforce 3. Even the Rampage chip would not have been able to beat the geforce 3 from what I understand. RIP 3dfx.

[@Quaker763]

I have reason to believe a 6000 and the rampage would have decimated any card nVidia released for the next few years, unless you've heard differently. I do agree though, they really just couldn't compete anymore.

[@EvoPortal]

Quaker763 and you would be wrong.... The Voodoo 6000 was benchmarked against the Geforece 3 and the Geforce 3 mopped the floor with it in EVERY test by a significant amount. Not only that but the voodoo 6000 had no direct X 8 support which was a huge milestone in graphics yet 3DFX didnt support it because of Glide, which by then was obsolete. There are plenty of benchmarks online. Further more, the Rampage chip STILL didnt support Direct X 8 and needed an additional chip (I think called Sage) soldered to the card for DX8 calculations. By the time Rampage (which was slower than even the geforce 3) would have been released the Geforce 4 series were out. If you have an amazing product you dont just pull the plug on a company. The specs don't lie, Rampage was not some kind of miracle chip. It would have been an embarrassment to release it against any Geforce 4 or even an old geforce 3.

[@matel855]

EvoPortal How can You compare gf4 with rampage, when gf4 was released in early 2002, gf3 in early 2001, 3dfx bankruptcy in dec2000 and rampage was planned for early 2001

[@TurboMMaster]

I think you are both absolutely right and couldn't beign more wrong:) It is hard to deny, that Voodoo 3, 4 and 5 were initaly unstepactacular if comapred to their main counterparts. However, the main reason was that 3dfx didn't relased their top products fast enough. Remember that Voodoo 4 was designed to be a direct rival to Riva TNT 2, Voodoo 5500 was designed to fight with Geforce 256. Voodoo 5 6000 supposed to be relased in fall 2000, Geforce 3 in spring 2001. Thanks to Avenger Chip (Voodoo 3) there was some kind of unique "generation gap" between 3dfx and Nvidia/ATI/Matrox. And that was because Greg Ballard wasn't the right man for graphic card industry. STB acquisition consumed most of 3dfx profits, and force the company to spend all their remaining money on production of the boards. No doubt they had no enough mansource and oney to relased their flagships in time. The best thing they could do in 1998 is to relased stronger Voodoo Banshee with 32-bit color support (mostly for marketing reason), skip "Avenger"(V3) and go straight to "Napalm"(V4), leaving production of card for othar companies. Without this "generation gap" they should have beign able to keep leadership. P.S: Rampage supposed to be a powerhouse in 2000, Rampage in SLI could beat any other chip till 2003 in term of raw perfomance.

[@Ferrislilly]

Transform and lighting killed 3dfx

[@mercuriete]

It is was a feature, because you knew was time to have fun! 1:15:15

[@harmankardon7763]

These veterans of the industry have aged pretty well. I don't get why can't they get together and found a successor to 3dfx. I'm sure they have a shitload more of experience and know-how now. Time to look for investors.

[@symol30872]

Would be near impossible to start a new GPU business in the current climate, nVidia and AMD's brand name is too strong in the market that I doubt gamers would look at other options

[@yellowblanka6058]

They've been out of the GPU market for so long I don't think it would work out well. It would be like a boxer who has been retired for 20 years and has a beer belly trying to take on a hungry young contender. There's also the fact that all their IP/patents/much of their staff was absorbed into Nvidia.

[@OpenGL4ever]

Getting started would be far too expensive. For that you would need billions of dollars in capital. Intel tried it, they put a lot of money into it and to this day they don't have any dedicated gamer graphics cards. Entry would only be possible again at the earliest when all relevant patents have expired. But that will take at least 25 years, because the two big ones are currently inventing new technologies and getting patents for them. But these technologies would also be needed.

[@rubensepulvedacheca8066]

nos abeis dejados abandonados a los usuarios

[@ds-il7ik]

Hey Gary, if you ever want to sell that awesome shirt...

[@0371998]

What if They had known the bankruptcy of 3dfx? Their destruction has suprised them and their optimistic view. Do the last Serie of graphic card sold would has Been more futurist if They had known that their end was in 2000 ? A mix between the rampage and VSA_100. What was really possible for them ? They have waited to give more ?

[@jamescarter8311]

Did anyone else experience problems with their Voodoo cards? I had a Diamond Monster 3D, which failed not long after I bought it. Later purchased the new 12mb Creative Labs Voodoo 2 board, which also eventually began crashing in games and finally stopped initializing altogether. I had upgraded from a Cyrix 686 setup to a Pentium 233mmx during the time I owned the Monster 3D. Same P233 with Voodoo 2.

[@OpenGL4ever]

The Voodoo 2 lacked fans and the fact that the first ATX power supplies blew air into the computer instead of out of the computer didn't make it any better. It therefore became quite warm in the computer. The problem can be solved quite easily by making a holder for an 80 mm fan out of a piece of sheet metal. The holder can then be screwed onto the slot covers so that the fan is parallel to the mainboard and blows over the Voodoo 2 card.

[@jamescarter8311]

@@OpenGL4ever I never really considered a cooling issue as neither board seemed to get very hot, but who knows. Even my Voodoo 3 3000 only had a simple heat sink. It may have also had something to do with the 2D card since it stayed the same between rigs. The Voodoo 1 board was first installed alongside a 686 and started giving problems after a short time. Then I upgraded to a Pentium 233. It worked again for a short time then stopped working. Then I got the Voodoo 2 and it worked for a short time with similar issues. It would just crash so often in games that I stopped using it. I've never heard of any else experiencing the issues. I still have the cards to this day but have never tried to put them in a new retro build.

[@rubensepulvedacheca8066]

pienso que ellos dejaron tirados a millones de usuarios yo compre la targeta y duro 4 meses ellos deben algo a los usuarios de 3dfx como lo creadores y darnos soporte a todos se pude montar el equippo pero esa tecnologia duro poko asi k nos deben algo a los usuarios.

[@OpenGL4ever]

1:42:30 and 1:54:00 Exactly, buying STP was probably their biggest error. The market might look very different today if they had remained a pure chip developer. In addition, 3DFX was better than NVidia, because they were more open about their chip. Thus open source drivers for Linux could evolve and were available very early. They could also do 3D. The only thing missing was SLI for the Voodoo 5 5500 cards, I don't know if that was improved at some point. NVidia stayed proprietary with closed binary drivers. We all know, what Linus Torvalds said about NVidia.

[@djm1ch0l4s9]

I burned two Voodoo3 recently and now no voodoo cards left so I was forced to put an AtiRadeon9250 in my retro-pc-PentiumII :(

[@m9078jk3]

Did you run them without any cooling fans? I had noticed back in 1999 that the Voodoo 3's ran very hot and that the heat sinks on the graphics chips could burn my fingers to the touch when running so I mounted cooling fans on them and that's why they still work to this day. You could occasionally find Voodoo 3's on eBay but this time put a decent cooler on them.

[@djm1ch0l4s9]

@@m9078jk3 Yes they ran very HOT! Also they were very picky and fragile during weather-storms ! They broke during electric current black-outs :(

[@m9078jk3]

@@djm1ch0l4s9 Well definitely invest in good surge protectors.They are not perfect but help a lot. There was a spy clock camera/video player that I had that burned out when it was basically the only thing I had not on a surge protector. Yeah next time you get a Voodoo 3 like at eBay definitely put a good cooling fan on it. Sadly I had to sell a lot of 3Dfx cards because of expenses but still have a few around.Have a good day.

[@pegcity4eva]

I miss my Banshee

[@evilqtip7098]

Still got all your Cards in my Closet with Tom Cruise.. Best cards ever loved them graphic wise.. just awesome for their day.. But I am a ATI Fan now My 5970 has never left my Heart. I still run it today.

[@sup2320]

The dude on the far right is like the bill belichick of 3dfx

[@djmips]

Too bad he left and was replaced by the Rod Marinelli of 3dfx.

[@sandeepkark]

My first graphic card was Nvidia fx5200 🤣

[@MrMilli]

Too bad they didn't tell more about Rampage.

[@djmips]

They may have been unsure about how much they should talk about that considering Nvidia owns that IP. It's probably OK to talk about today but 10 years ago when this was filmed they may have still had misgivings considering Gary was still working for Nvidia.

[@hamidgghader]

Gods of mathematics

[@heckingmoan2556]

not the 3DFX I'm looking for >: c

[@nayr87]

was scott sellers the drummer in nofx briefly? nofx 3dfx tooo much coincidence

[@MasterChief-sl9ro]

Windows 95 was nothing but DOS with a GUI on top of it...The real issue was the BUS wars..And PCI won out...

[@joec.2768]

BIOS loads a small bootloader off of disk, bootloader starts DOS, DOS auto starts windows.exe. Each successive stage takes over from the previous. No you are not correct. Windows has a driver hardware abstraction layer and an extended memory manager and multitasking, to name a few. When Windows is running, DOS is unloaded. Command Line terminal windows can mimic DOS but it's most definitely a Windows exe multitasking program. "Exit to DOS" is a magic trick for simpletons. It reloads DOS.

[@WizzRacing]

@@joec.2768 listen up.. All they did was change the .ini file directory. Then replaced it with the Registry file for long file names… It still used does to execute the command line instructions. And there was no way to get around it. Why screwing with the registry would corrupt the whole file system. And used winstart.bat files. To run TSR programs. And all drivers was handled by the System.ini files. Why them crappy .ini files persisted to this day. As Microsoft would have to build a whole new OS to get away from them. Why the registry still exist…Just type in Regedit.. Have a nice day…

[@OpenGL4ever]

@@WizzRacing If Windows 95 is a GUI for DOS, than Linux is an extension for grub. You have basically no clue what an OS is all about. joec.2768 is right. Win9x does have its own 32 Bit drivers to access the hardware. It doesn't need the slow switch to 16 bit Real Mode, to access DOS interrupts and 16 bit BIOS functions. Such switches are avoided as much as possible to increase performance on the 32 Bit side called Protected Mode, Win9x is running in. DOS can be seen as a bootloader For Win9x, not more.

[@WizzRacing]

@@OpenGL4ever It ran 32 bit from a DOS Command line under the GUI.. So Get a clue. As very little 32 bit programs even existed. As it was all controlled by the Application layer. Not the Machine Hardware. Why it would crash. Once the Application layer was broken..Something they tried to fix with windows NT. And it still crashed. So go back and learn how things worked and why.. Have a nice day..

[@OpenGL4ever]

@@WizzRacing DOS is a 16 real mode operating system. This especially applies to the DOS kernel. Win9x doesn't need much from DOS, thus Win9x can be seen as an operating system. I studied computer science and you still don't know much about operating systems.

[@papagiovanni9921]

Goodfellas

[@andrewomahony9260]

Remember when Nintendo partnered with SGI and came up with the crammed down and badly designed Nintendo 64 that they said could never be matched by PC's? Yeah, 3dfx didn't care about that :D

[@akaria03]

If 3DFX licensed their cards to other companies they would've probably been still in business.If there is someone else invented Vid-cards before-where's the proof?

[@graphicsRat]

Great company sadly destroyed by one disastrous management decision.

[@yellowblanka6058]

"This phone has about the performance of a Voodoo 2...do you think?" Haha, they really have been out of the graphics business for a LONG time, lol.

[@Archimedes75009]

He said 'in software' but still yes, he is wrong.

[@liamiangaming7931]

Idk, I play half life on my phone and it lags. But other better looking games don't.

[@djmips]

that iPhone 5 probably had 50 million polygon/s (at least) and close to 100 gigapixels/s MAX fill rate... The Voodoo2 erhm was more like 3 million polygons/s and a 1 gigapixel/s MAX fill rate. So 16 times slower on polygons and 100 times slower on fill rate. Nevertheless a phone often has really bad drivers standing between the hardware and the game and it can get throttled on perf for battery reasons.

[@banemihajlovic6638]

1:54:13

[@Zenas521]

Nvidia makes nice cards, but 3DFX is legendary.

[@lukewardner4814]

3dfx voodoo rush

[@yellowblanka6058]

had nothing on the 3DFX Banshee.

[@si4632]

@@yellowblanka6058 which had nothing on the voodoo 2

[@yellowblanka6058]

@@si4632 In games that didn't use multi-texturing it tended to beat the Voodoo 2 due to a higher clock speed etc.

[@si4632]

@@yellowblanka6058 a few old and shit games yeah but it was inferior really

[@yellowblanka6058]

si - it tended to slightly edge out the Voodoo 2 in games that didn't make extensive use of multi-texturing, which was quite a few, and not just "old and shit" games. There were exceptions like Unreal etc., but overall it was a powerful little card and held its own.

[@0371998]

For How much of $ NVDIA will sell all the properties and brands They have bought through 3dfx ! They want to keep eternaly 3dfx in their zoo ? How much is the cost of their 3dfx properties if a rich person want it in 2021 or 2030 ?

[@djm1ch0l4s9]

For sake of truth my AtiRadeon 9250 boosted QuakeIII framerate compared to Voodoo3: 52fps > 38fps (!)

[@ruxandy]

I agree that my reply comes "a bit" late, but... hey, guess what, my GTX 1080Ti boosts the framerate by at least 3 orders of magnitude compared to your Radeon 9250. So what's your point? :) The Radeon 9250 came out in 2004, that's 5 years after the Voodoo 3 was launched and 4 years after 3dfx had filed for bankruptcy. When the Voodoo 3 came out, even though it was a bit underwhelming (especially when compared to what Voodoo 2 used to be before it), it was still a very solid competitor for the nVidia TNT2 line-up (and it actually came on top in many games, if I remember correctly).

[@djm1ch0l4s9]

@@ruxandy The point is, my friend, that 3dfxVoodoos cards though people still love them (me too) were over-evaluated with washed-out graphics and not so fast ! In retrospective 3dfx only good point was to come out first compared to others brand :)

[@djmips]

@@djm1ch0l4s9 That still doesn't make sense. Everything has a point in time. You can't compress time like that.

[@joaogrrr]

Wow, these guys really hate the Playstation. lol

[@djmips]

Well it did kind of suck. Trust me when you develop for it trying to compensate for the non perspective correct triangles is really a pain. But I love it anyway!

[@szyszka8303]

Interesting and sad strory. SGI pricing and marketing always sucked! 3dfx turnd his back on Diamond and others - ppl that build the sucess of this company(nop it wasnt the enginers!). When thay wokeup it was already to late!

[@djmips]

They probably had to though. I think Scott and Gary explained it in so many words. Gary, who has worked inside Nvidia and knows their secret sauce - explaining that you just can't miss a delivery in the GPU market. Nvidia was putting out chips that worked first 'turn' like clockwork and 3dfx was slipping their schedules. Nvidia was just destined to win unfortunately. 3dfx wasn't set up to scale. They hit their moment in time and they would have had to started chasing where the market went much earlier. Unsaid, Nvidia had superior tech for simulating their chip design - not just the algorithmic design - but the actual silicon design. As the chips got more and more complicated, Nvidia was ahead. And like they mentioned - at the point where they decided to go into boards - Scott said the alternative wasn't great either. So Nvidia was already going to win. The only alternative was what Ross mentioned about getting into console design and maybe even transitioning to mobile GPU. They could have slid that way and survived longer.