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3dfx
3dfx Interactive, Inc. was an American computer hardware company headquartered in San Jose, California, founded in 1994, that specialized in the manufacturing of 3D graphics processing units, and later, video cards. It was a pioneer in the field from the mid 1990s to 2000.
The company's original product was the Voodoo Graphics, an add-in card that implemented hardware acceleration of 3D graphics. The hardware accelerated only 3D rendering, relying on the PC's current video card for 2D support. Despite this limitation, the Voodoo Graphics product and its follow-up, Voodoo2, were popular. It became standard for 3D games to offer support for the company's Glide API.
Renewed interest in 3D gaming led to the success of the company's products and by the second half of the 1990s products combining a 2D output with 3D performance were appearing. This was accelerated by the introduction of Microsoft's Direct3D, which provided a single high-performance API that could be implemented on these cards, seriously eroding the value of Glide. While 3dfx continued to offer high-performance options, the value proposition was no longer compelling.
In the late 1990s 3dfx had an infringement lawsuit which combined with lower sales in the latter years led Nvidia to acquire 3dfx for their engineers, which they acquired around one hundred of. Most of the company's assets were acquired by Nvidia Corporation on December 15, 2000, mostly for intellectual property rights. The acquisition was accounted for as a purchase by Nvidia and was completed by the first quarter of their fiscal year of 2002. 3dfx ceased supporting their products on February 15, 2001, and filed for bankruptcy on October 15, 2002.
The company was founded on August 24, 1994, as 3D/fx, Inc. Ross Smith, Gary Tarolli and Scott Sellers, all former employees of Silicon Graphics Inc. They were soon joined by Gordie Campbell of TechFarm. 3dfx released its first product, the Voodoo Graphics 3D chip, to manufacturing on November 6, 1995. The chip is a VGA 3D accelerator that features rendering methods such as point-sampled texture mapping, Z- and double buffering, Gouraud shading, subpixel correction, alpha compositing, and anti-aliasing. Alongside the chip came 3dfx's Glide API, designed to take full advantage of the Voodoo Graphics' features. The company stated that Glide's creation was because it found that no existing APIs at the time could fully utilize the chip's capabilities. DirectX 3.0 was deemed to be lacking, and OpenGL was regarded as suitable only for CAD/CAM workstations. The first graphics card to use the chip was Orchid Technology's Righteous 3D, released on October 7, 1996. The company manufactured only the chips and some reference boards, and initially did not sell any product to consumers; rather, it acted as an OEM supplier for graphics card companies, which designed, manufactured, marketed, and sold their own graphics cards including the Voodoo chipset.
3dfx gained initial fame in the arcade market. The first arcade machine that 3dfx Voodoo Graphics hardware was used in was a 1996 baseball game featuring a bat controller with motion sensing technology called ICE Home Run Derby. Later that year it was featured in more popular titles, such as Atari's San Francisco Rush and Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey. 3dfx also developed MiniGL after id Software's John Carmack released a 1997 version of Quake that used the OpenGL API. The MiniGL translated OpenGL commands into Glide, and gave 3dfx the advantage as the sole consumer chip company to deliver a functional graphics library driver until 1998.
Towards the end of 1995, the cost of DRAM dropped significantly and 3dfx was able to enter the consumer PC hardware market with aggressive pricing compared to the few previous 3D graphics solutions for computers. Prior to affordable 3D hardware, games such as Doom and Quake had compelled video game players to move from their 80386s to 80486s, and then to the Pentium.
By the end of 1997, the Voodoo Graphics was by far the most widely adopted 3D accelerator among both consumers and software developers. The Voodoo's primary competition was from PowerVR and Rendition. PowerVR produced a similar 3D-only add-on card with capable 3D support, although it was not comparable to Voodoo Graphics in either image quality or performance. 3dfx saw intense competition in the market from cards that offered the combination of 2D and 3D acceleration. While these cards, such as the Nvidia NV1, Matrox Mystique, S3 ViRGE, Vérité V1000, and ATI 3D Rage, offered inferior 3D acceleration in terms of image quality, performance, or both, their lower cost and simplicity often appealed to OEM system builders.
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3dfx
3dfx Interactive, Inc. was an American computer hardware company headquartered in San Jose, California, founded in 1994, that specialized in the manufacturing of 3D graphics processing units, and later, video cards. It was a pioneer in the field from the mid 1990s to 2000.
The company's original product was the Voodoo Graphics, an add-in card that implemented hardware acceleration of 3D graphics. The hardware accelerated only 3D rendering, relying on the PC's current video card for 2D support. Despite this limitation, the Voodoo Graphics product and its follow-up, Voodoo2, were popular. It became standard for 3D games to offer support for the company's Glide API.
Renewed interest in 3D gaming led to the success of the company's products and by the second half of the 1990s products combining a 2D output with 3D performance were appearing. This was accelerated by the introduction of Microsoft's Direct3D, which provided a single high-performance API that could be implemented on these cards, seriously eroding the value of Glide. While 3dfx continued to offer high-performance options, the value proposition was no longer compelling.
In the late 1990s 3dfx had an infringement lawsuit which combined with lower sales in the latter years led Nvidia to acquire 3dfx for their engineers, which they acquired around one hundred of. Most of the company's assets were acquired by Nvidia Corporation on December 15, 2000, mostly for intellectual property rights. The acquisition was accounted for as a purchase by Nvidia and was completed by the first quarter of their fiscal year of 2002. 3dfx ceased supporting their products on February 15, 2001, and filed for bankruptcy on October 15, 2002.
The company was founded on August 24, 1994, as 3D/fx, Inc. Ross Smith, Gary Tarolli and Scott Sellers, all former employees of Silicon Graphics Inc. They were soon joined by Gordie Campbell of TechFarm. 3dfx released its first product, the Voodoo Graphics 3D chip, to manufacturing on November 6, 1995. The chip is a VGA 3D accelerator that features rendering methods such as point-sampled texture mapping, Z- and double buffering, Gouraud shading, subpixel correction, alpha compositing, and anti-aliasing. Alongside the chip came 3dfx's Glide API, designed to take full advantage of the Voodoo Graphics' features. The company stated that Glide's creation was because it found that no existing APIs at the time could fully utilize the chip's capabilities. DirectX 3.0 was deemed to be lacking, and OpenGL was regarded as suitable only for CAD/CAM workstations. The first graphics card to use the chip was Orchid Technology's Righteous 3D, released on October 7, 1996. The company manufactured only the chips and some reference boards, and initially did not sell any product to consumers; rather, it acted as an OEM supplier for graphics card companies, which designed, manufactured, marketed, and sold their own graphics cards including the Voodoo chipset.
3dfx gained initial fame in the arcade market. The first arcade machine that 3dfx Voodoo Graphics hardware was used in was a 1996 baseball game featuring a bat controller with motion sensing technology called ICE Home Run Derby. Later that year it was featured in more popular titles, such as Atari's San Francisco Rush and Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey. 3dfx also developed MiniGL after id Software's John Carmack released a 1997 version of Quake that used the OpenGL API. The MiniGL translated OpenGL commands into Glide, and gave 3dfx the advantage as the sole consumer chip company to deliver a functional graphics library driver until 1998.
Towards the end of 1995, the cost of DRAM dropped significantly and 3dfx was able to enter the consumer PC hardware market with aggressive pricing compared to the few previous 3D graphics solutions for computers. Prior to affordable 3D hardware, games such as Doom and Quake had compelled video game players to move from their 80386s to 80486s, and then to the Pentium.
By the end of 1997, the Voodoo Graphics was by far the most widely adopted 3D accelerator among both consumers and software developers. The Voodoo's primary competition was from PowerVR and Rendition. PowerVR produced a similar 3D-only add-on card with capable 3D support, although it was not comparable to Voodoo Graphics in either image quality or performance. 3dfx saw intense competition in the market from cards that offered the combination of 2D and 3D acceleration. While these cards, such as the Nvidia NV1, Matrox Mystique, S3 ViRGE, Vérité V1000, and ATI 3D Rage, offered inferior 3D acceleration in terms of image quality, performance, or both, their lower cost and simplicity often appealed to OEM system builders.