In the late 1990s,
there was one name that ruled supreme in 3D gaming:
3dfx.
If you had a 3D-accelerated PC game circa 1997,
it was pretty much a given that it supported 3dfx's Voodoo chipset.
Their brand of graphics was in everything new and exciting
from top-notch arcade games to an upcoming game console from Sega
and was the first dedicated graphics card for many a '90s PC gamer.
But just a few short years later,
their carcass was being picked clean by rival chip manufacturers
and PC gaming was moving on to the next big thing.
What happened?
This is "LGR Tech Tales,"
where we'll be taking a look at noteworthy stories of technological inspiration,
failure and everything in between.
This episode tells the tale of 3dfx, Glide, and the Voodoo graphics card.
The story of 3dfx begins at Silicon Graphics, Inc., or SGI,
the company behind hugely powerful and hugely expensive workstation computers.
These machines were capable of producing amazing computer visuals
and were used to generate graphics for a variety of mainstream movies and video games.
But they only catered to the high-end workstation market
and wanting to expand, SGI decided to dive into more affordable 2D graphics cards for other computers.
A spin-off of SGI was formed, called Pellucid,
that did exactly that.
Soon after, Mediavision purchased Pellucid,
but had no intentions of doing anything but maintaining the status quo,
since their focus was sound cards, not video cards.
So in 1994, Gary Tarolli, Scott Sellers, Ross Smith and others
from SGI and Pellucid left the company to start their own computer graphics business
which they called 3dfx Interactive,
accomplished by partnering with venture capitalist service Techfarm, Inc.
Gordon Campbell was the president of Techfarm
and he had invaluable expertise in the semiconductor industry.
So combined with the SGI guys' expertise with polygonal mathematics and the graphics industry,
3dfx had a mighty headstart.
They began by developing graphics hardware for JAMMA-based arcade systems
initially used in games like ICE's "Home Run Derby"
and later in Atari's "San Francisco Rush"
and Midway's "Hydro Thunder."
This actually spun off into its own company before long, known as Quantum3D,
while 3dfx aimed their sights where Pellucid left off before:
personal computer games.
In 1996, games like "Quake" were dominating the sales charts with already impressive 3D visuals.
But if you wanted these to look sharper or faster,
you more than likely had to swap out your entire CPU.
While there were a few 3D-oriented cards on the market
that off-loaded these cycles onto a GPU,
also known as a 3D accelerator,
they were either hugely expensive or barely any games took advantage of them.
So, in October of 1996, 3dfx bolted onto the field with something they called "Voodoo Graphics,"
an accelerator card that did 3D only
and worked in tandem with your old 2D card
to produce impressive 3D visuals while keeping your existing setup intact.
To be clear, 3dfx didn't manufacture anything.
They only developed the chipset, the API and some reference boards,
and then sold the manufacturing rights to other companies like Diamond and STB.
This was key because it allowed them to focus on developing incredible graphics
while third-parties took care of all the headaches of retail.
Another key to 3dfx's success was the Voodoo's proprietary application programming interface, or API,
known as Glide.
Other companies like Rendition, PowerVR, and Nvidia were using their own API's,
but the way 3dfx handled this by not hiding the low-level hardware details behind an abstraction layer
had a distinct advantage over the competition.
There's a lot of technical stuff behind what made Glide so awesome,
but the end result was simple:
stunning 3D graphics that were much faster than the competition
for a competitive price.
And seeing as this was before Direct3D had become mainstream,
if you had a solid API and the marketing to back it up,
you had game developers' attention.
And, man, did 3dfx get the attention
with hundreds of games supporting Glide right out of the box,
and the APIs from other companies constantly falling by the wayside.
3dfx was at the top of their game heading into 1998,
having released increasingly powerful Voodoo graphics card iterations
and raking in the money from a massive initial public stock offering
while becoming infamous for supposedly spending fifty grand a month on office lunches.
They were even in talks with Sega,
over including 3D graphics chips in their new console
which would become the Dreamcast.
However, several things happened over the course of the next year or so that changed everything.
First, the Dreamcast deal fell flat.
When 3dfx announced their IPO, they released details of their contract with Sega
a contract which was supposed to be completely under wraps.
Obviously, Sega was ticked off
and soon announced they were going with NEC's PowerVR tech instead,
and terminated the contract with 3dfx.
The next change came from their newly appointed CEO,
with 3dfx beginning to manufacture and distribute their own cards,
as well as combining 2D and 3D capabilities into a single board.
This meant that the companies that previously made their money licensing and selling 3dfx chipsets
now had to look elsewhere,
and many of them headed to competing brands like Nvidia.
And finally, not only was 3dfx making a bold move by cutting out the middleman
but they were betting the farm on two huge development projects
code-named "Rampage" and "Napalm."
Rampage was supposed to be the next quantum leap in 3D graphics
and although it was set to take two years to develop,
they claimed it would still put them years ahead of their competition,
namely Nvidia and their recently released GeForce 256.
Well, Rampage never happened,
millions were lost and Nvidia retained the advantage.
As for Napalm,
well, this eventually resulted in the Voodoo 4 and 5
but these ended up being 3dfx's final products.
Due to multiple delays and bad funding,
by the time these cards came out,
there were already products from Nvidia and ATI that were faster and cheaper.
Combine this with the rise of OpenGL and Direct3D that made the Glide API all but obsolete
and the GPU market moving from being upgrade-oriented to supplying cards to OEMs
and it was too little, too late.
Shortly after the Voodoo 4 launched in late 2000,
the company was looking towards a buyout.
After talking to several interested parties,
3dfx opted into an acquisition by their biggest rival, Nvidia,
who then retired the 3dfx name immediately.
Other than a few brand names like 3dfx's SLI technology for connecting multiple video cards together,
all that remains of the once-great 3dfx is their legacy from a blip in time.
And it is a legacy that should not be forgotten
because the competition that 3dfx ignited was key to the development of 3D graphics as we know it today.
And if you enjoyed this episode of "Tech Tales," and would perhaps like to see more, then let me know in the comments.
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