3dfx sells out to nvidia

[Tiger]

Not sure if this is a good thing, because now there is not much competition now. Competition is a good thing in my humble opinion.

-john

[Steve Clark]

...but consistent standards are much, much better.

[Terence]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Steve Clark:

...but consistent standards are much, much better.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If you say so, Comrade Clark. May I point out, in the interests of argumentative hyperbole, that the cars in the Soviet Union were uniformly bad, as were their computers and television sets.

(just kidding. It took CM to get me to buy a 3d card, and the MAIN REASON I couldn't figure out which one to buy before then was this exact standards problem.I figured buying a card might exclude me from other differently coded card requiring games, later on)

[This message has been edited by Terence (edited 12-15-2000).]

[Guest Pillar]

What did Nvidia buy the stock at?

[David Aitken]

Just a note on standards vs. competition. Competing companies must either adhere to standards, or produce a product which is so much better than the competition that it creates a new standard. Otherwise they will go out of business. I hope no-one would, after consideration, claim that allowing monopolies is a good idea purely for the sake of standards.

Of course, universal standards make our lives easier. I would not deny that there are enough things to worry about without having to accept further nuisances because it's supposedly better for society. But it is. Nothing is ever concrete, which is a pain, but it illustrates that we are forever advancing and making progress. A world where everything was simple and straightforward and as we expected would be a very primitive world.

David

New map!

[Commissar]

3dfx's move to make their own cards and screw over the other dependent card manufacturers spelled doom for that company. They lost serious market share as a result and allowed Nvidia to grow (the other card manufacturers didn't seem to have much other choice but to go with Nvidia for their cards). Greed is good but not when it comes at a heavy price tag in marketshare. Oh well. Cheer up, Glide is now open source (although people stopped caring about that API a long time ago). But seriously, it's a bloody shame to see this company disintegrate. The Voodoo 2 card was one awesome piece of hardware when it first came out. Too bad they couldn't keep that going.

[Maximus]

I don't know about monopolies and all that stuff, but I'm not one to say I told you so, but......

[Guest AbnAirCav]

FWIW, I agree with Tiger, competition (especially with pricing) was a good thing. As for standards, DirectX and OpenGL are the standards that have already prevailed over Glide. How will the demise of 3dfx improve these standards?

Now I wonder what card will force the price of the NV20 down? ATI? I doubt it ...

[GriffinCheng+]

What? We just heard Atomic is history and now 3dfx?

I am not sure if nVidia will become the M$ of 3d accelerator, but sure it has the biggest market share and the rest (Intel, ATi, NEC, etc) are pretty lag behind in both technology and market share to me (sorry but I don't have the exact figures)

I have to agree that competition is a good thing for customer.

I think 3dfx is partly to blame, 1. 3dfx bought STB in 1997, irrc, and pissed off all major video card players like Herecules and Creative Labs psuhing them into nVidia camp. 2. Their Voodoo5 6000 took too long to develope but still technically inferior (from certain pov) to GeForce 2 GTS.

Griffin.

------------------

"When you find your PBEM opportents too hard to beat, there is always the AI."

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[Guest sitzkrieg]

Makes me glad I upgraded to a 64MB Geforce2 GTS instead of a Voodoo5.

[JunoReactor]

Before criticizing NVIDIA as a monopolistic corporate giant remember that they were the first to market with a 3d accelerator.. Cant remember the name, it was a sound card and 3d accelerator at the same time.. had a few bundled games.. of course, it never sold. With only limited performance and a obscure API, it got no support.

Then came 3dfx, with their voodooo.... It was a bit sad to hear that they sold out, but the company lost my respect when they did not make any arthitectural changes to their core voodooo chip until the recent voodoo 4-5... Whereas NVIDIA, the once underdogs, kept coming back with something newer and faster very frequently indeed since their Riva128.

[2B]

Here's an article on the buy out: http://www.ga-source.com/all/news/bits/11+15+2000/16:26:21.shtml

[Subvet]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JunoReactor:

Before criticizing NVIDIA as a monopolistic corporate giant remember that they were the first to market with a 3d accelerator.. Cant remember the name, it was a sound card and 3d accelerator at the same time.. had a few bundled games.. of course, it never sold. With only limited performance and a obscure API, it got no support.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I had a computer that used that card. In fact I still have the card in my desk drawer. It was made by Diamond and used the first 3D chip on a video card made for the home pc. The name of the card is the "Diamond Edge 3d." The support was HORRIBLE for this card. It cost a fortune too. The sound only worked in Windows, so you still had to buy a sound card for DOS games (remember this is back when there were a lot of DOS games still being made). I was so disappointed with this card that I didn't buy anything else from either Diamond or Nvidia until the TNT came out. Anyone want to buy my Diamond Edge 3D card?