This article was originally published in 2003 in three separate articles. The article was written by Joel Hruska, who was a contributing writer to Sudhian at the time.  The information has now been combined into one long article - resource if you will - on anything and everything you ever wanted to know about the greatest video card that never was. 

A Fallen Titan’s Final Glory, Part I:  Setting the Stage

The decline and collapse of 3dfx in the waning months of 2000 was an untimely end for the company that had virtually invented and popularized the consumer-level 3D accelerator.  Once considered a virtually-unassailable market giant, 3dfx’s fa硤e of invulnerability hid major stress points that, through a mixture of external competition and internal mistakes, ultimately fractured and brought the company down.  The collapse was so dramatic it caught the entire market by surprise; while 3dfx did appear to be in trouble, not many people thought the situation was as bad as the events of December 2000 showed them to be. 

The Voodoo5 6000 (for those six of you who don’t know) was 3dfx’s last major product, and, though it was never released, it was the last to be manufactured in any kind of volume.  From its inception it was an attention-grabber, though its mammoth physical design and external power source would attract as much criticism as praise throughout its short and unofficial lifetime.  Based on the VSA (Voodoo Scaling Architecture) 100, the V5 6K was the ultimate over-the-top product; a 128 meg card when 32 meg was standard and 64 extravagant, a 4 chip architecture when other cards used only one (two at the most) and, inevitably, a (proposed) price tag that could choke a donkey.

It’s not possible to discuss the V5 6000 (and the entire VSA-100 product series) without also discussing the market conditions and historical events (can events from seven years ago BE historical?) that led to the ultimate demise of 3dfx.  Pay attention?there will be a quiz later.

The Dawning of a New Era:  1996-1997

Prior to 1996 and the introduction of the 3dfx Voodoo architecture, the world of computer gaming was a vastly different place.  Although primitive 3D environments were used in some games, even the fastest modern processors were unable to render these environments in high resolutions (for the time) while maintaining acceptable frame rates.  Even Quake, which was id’s first 3D game that allowed for jumping, climbing, and point-of-view rotation, couldn’t be run in a basic 640x480 resolution without looking like a slideshow.

This was a situation that benefited CPU giant Intel immensely.  With game performance dependent on processor performance, Intel could count on a steady crop of gamers buying or upgrading CPU’s, especially as games continued to demand more and more power in order to run smoothly.  Computers that’d whizzed by on Doom only a few years earlier choked on Quake; locking gamers into an upgrade cycle that distinctly benefited Santa Clara?until 3dfx introduced the original Voodoo architecture and torpedoed Intel’s carefully laid plans.

The original MMX instruction set (which boosted multimedia and video performance) was partially designed to increase game performance (and further boost sales).  By providing CPU’s with support for instruction sets that would increase 3D and multimedia performance Intel was both distancing itself from competitors like Cyrix, IDT, and AMD by offering features these companies did not possess, and introducing a feature set for which it could charge additional premiums.  MMX might’ve been only the first in a long line of instruction sets designed to boost 3D performance (and Intel profits)?if 3dfx hadn’t come along.

The Voodoo wasn’t the first 3D accelerator on the market, but it was the first 3D card on the market worth using.  The S3 Virge, in fact, performed so badly that it earned itself the nickname 3D "Decelerator" while Rendition’s Verite technology offered competitive video performance to a bowl of lukewarm tapioca?some of the time.  The Voodoo, in contrast, was fast, powerful, packed a whopping 4 meg of RAM on board, and was offered as an add-on card to a user’s primary video adapter.  Since many users invested in high-end 2D video cards at that time, releasing the Voodoo as a 3D add-in card actually made a great deal of sense, and didn’t force 3dfx to incur additional expenses by building a capable 2D engine or force users to choose between top-of-the-line 2D and gaming 3D performance.

For readers wondering just how much of a performance difference an original Voodoo could make we’ve included numbers gleaned from older sites where data is still available on GLQuake vs. ordinary Quake performance.  A Pentium 200 MMX system averaging a frame rate of 41 fps in Timedemo1 in Quake 1 (run in 320x200) rockets to 70 fps in GLQuake when a Voodoo card is used, for a whopping 70% boost in performance.  In 512x384 (probably the highest marginally playable resolution for this time period) we see Quake running at 21.2 fps on the Pentium 200 in software mode.  When we introduce the Voodoo we see performance jump no less then 300%, topping out an amazing 62 fps. 

Given these kind of results it’s easy to see why Voodoo cards sold hand over fist?and why Intel would have reason to be less than happy about these developments.  Although CPU power would continue to be an important factor in 3D performance, the emergence of the Voodoo knocked it firmly into second place when it came to determining just how fast a system would run in a given game. 

1996 and 1997 saw the mass adoption of the Voodoo, the introduction of 3dfx’s proprietary 3D API Glide (which came very close to dominating the market) and the establishment of 3dfx as *the* premiere 3D accelerator.  Most of 3dfx’s competitors (Matrox, ATI, S3, and Rendition) hadn’t really fielded seriously competitive products.  NVIDIA’s RIVA128 came on the scene in the fall of 1997 and became a popular low-cost option for OEMs, though it failed to make much of a dent in the higher-cost video market.

In February of 1998 NVIDIA launched the RIVA 128ZX, an upgraded version of the original with an 8 meg frame buffer.  The card took two slot spaces to install, was exceptionally loud, and offered only mediocre performance compared to its?.whoops.  Wrong card.  The RIVA 128ZX didn’t have many improvements beyond a larger frame buffer, but NVIDIA did have a full OpenGL ICD ready to go at launch.

3dfx did attempt to go after the 2D / 3D market (which would’ve put them in more-direct competition with NVIDIA), but their product of choice was the ill-fated Voodoo Rush.  Based on an out-sourced 2D design coupled with 3dfx Voodoo technology the card was plagued with compatibility problems and ultimately failed to have much market impact. 

Conspiracy Theories, cont.

Microsoft:  Any Monopoly We Don't Own is Bad:  When the Voodoo launched back in 1996, OpenGL was the only game in town.  3dfx's proprietary Glide became extremely popular after the launch of the Voodoo, and for several years thereafter there were games that still ran best under Glide than under any other video mode.  3dfx was smart enough to realize that whoever controlled the language controlled the industry, and Glide came very close to capturing the market.  3dfx's mindshare was so ubiquitous that several magazines and publications referred to "3dfx accelerators" instead of "3D accelerators."

Microsoft's infant and competing D3D standard had an uphill climb against Glide / OGL, and it's possible that Redmond deliberately torpedoed 3dfx's D3D driver development by refusing to provide the necessary information.  MS has a history of dominating any industry it enters, and 3dfx's Glide was a threat to the supremacy of their own Direct3D technology.   Solution?  Assist in killing off the threat, and ensure that the language ceases to exist as a modern development option.

Supporting (Circumstantial) Evidence:  3dfx cards were never very strong in D3D, and even in the last sets of drivers available we've been told that the OGL / Glide support is in much better shape.  Its possible Microsoft deliberately stymied 3dfx developments in this area.

Counterpoint:  There's no proof (that we're aware of) that 3dfx's problems in D3D weren't the company's own fault.  The only "evidence" we possess (at the moment) that Microsoft would've attacked 3dfx is that the company has a history of seeking monopolistic control in every industry it enters. 

NVIDIA:  Chief Architect of 3dfx's Downfall?:

NVIDIA has picked up most of the blame for the demise of 3dfx (from those inclined to assert it).  Many allege the company collaborated unfairly with MadOnion in the development of the 3DMark benchmark suite and that NVIDIA's lawsuits against 3dfx were a deliberate attempt to sabotage the company. 

Supporting (Circumstantial) Evidence:  The two companies were strong rivals and often seen as the two head-to-head competitors in the graphics industry.  NVIDIA's lawsuit against 3dfx in late summer of 2000 was based on some very vague patent assertions and came at a time many felt was chosen to do the most damage to 3dfx possible?namely when the company was already struggling.  Like MS, NVIDIA is highly competitive, and the allegations that NVIDIA might've attempted to cheat / attack 3dfx take on new light considering the benchmark problems currently stalking NVIDIA cards.  Some people (including certain ex-3dfx staff) have accused NVIDIA of being behind a sabotage effort that saw an entire line of Voodoo5 6000's fitted with improper power chips--with the cards promptly self-destruction at power-up.  Estimates I've heard for how many cards were destroyed like this range from hundreds to thousands, but it was apparently a cause of major delay to that card's introduction.

Counterpoint:  Although NVIDIA and 3dfx were rivals there's no shortage of internal factors to choose from when attempting to understand the fall of 3dfx?claiming that NVIDIA was the cause behind it all is specious at best.  In addition, NVIDIA was much smaller then than now, and didn't wield the power necessary to push the market so thoroughly against its rival.

NVIDIA's principle role in the downfall of 3dfx seems to have been picking up the pieces of the once-proud company.  Deliberately blaming NVIDIA for competing would be akin to blaming someone for breathing.  Companies compete, and competition alone is not grounds for charging a company with sabotage.  While its true that NVIDIA pulled some dirty tricks, there's no real evidence we've yet seen that suggests they can (or should) be considered a principle player behind 3dfx's collapse.

This concludes our discussion of conspiracy theories, which we've included here without affirming or denying them.  We would caution against putting too much faith in any of the above, however, as the evidence "proving" them is much scantier than the evidence of internal trouble at 3dfx.

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• Setting the Stage (1 of 21)
• The Golden Era (2 of 21)
• The Throne Trembles (3 of 21)
• The Storm Breaks (4 of 21)
• A Titan Falls (5 of 21)
• The Voodoo 5 6000 (6 of 21)
• Our Card (7 of 21)
• Test Bed and Drivers (8 of 21)
• Benchmarking Methodology (9 of 21)
• 3dMark 2000 (10 of 21)
• 3dMark 2001 (11 of 21)
• Evolva (12 of 21)
• Expendable (13 of 21)
• D3D Performance (14 of 21)
• Quake 3 (15 of 21)
• Jedi Knight & Serious Sam (16 of 21)
• Analyzing the Numbers (17 of 21)
• Rampage = MIA (18 of 21)
• Did Banshee kill 3dfx? (19 of 21)
• Conspiracy Theories, cont. (20 of 21)
• The lasting impact of 3dfx (21 of 21)