The news that NVIDIA will produce a new nuclear bomb next month has recently become so popular on the Internet that players have to start weighing their own pockets in secret.
The current PC GPU market is dominated by Nvidia: according to Steam's hardware and software survey report in June this year, 74.32% of Steam users use NVIDIA GPUs.
In the minds of players, NVIDIA has even become a kind of faith, and related paragraphs and memes abound on the Internet.
But before Nvidia became a myth, players worshipped another cult called Voodoo.
At its peak, Voodoo is said to have captured 85 percent of the 3D accelerator card market share, something that even Nvidia didn't do.
Launched by tech startup 3dfx, Voodoo quickly captured the market in just a few years and quickly disappeared from people's sight, like fireworks, short and gorgeous. What is the story of this?
<h1>1995: The first year of PC 3D</h1>
In the mid-1990s, when there was no concept of a GPU, graphics cards only had 2D capabilities, and 3D relied entirely on the CPU. But in 1995, things changed.
That year, Microsoft acquired a startup called RenderMorphics, which later developed Direct3D based on the company's technology, which evolved into the de facto standard for PC games.
Also in the same year, Nvidia launched its first display chip, the NV1, and ported the 3D games VR Warrior and Iron Dragon on Sega Saturn to a PC.
However, at that time, Nvidia was not famous at all, and the performance of the NV1 was also lackluster, so it did not succeed in the market.
By 1996, Direct3D was integrated by Microsoft into the operating system Windows 95 OSR2, and Quake, which revolutionized 3D graphics, was also introduced.
This year, the first batch of graphics cards with 3D functions appeared on the market, and at that time, the viRGE that was more seen in China included S3, this graphics card has excellent 2D effects, but the 3D functions are unbearable.
Trident (Tedding Multimedia) 9685, S3's old rival, with TV output function, priced at $170, 3D function is not as good as S3 ViRGE.
ATI's 3D Rage II, support DirectX, due to the high cost of memory at that time, this graphics card only has a mere 2MB of video memory on board, and the highest support is 640x480x16-bit true color, and the video memory has become the biggest shortcoming of its performance, and there are also problems with perspective/geometric transformation.
And when 3dfx's Voodoo appeared, these graphics cards were all blasted into slag.
<h1>3dfx was born</h1>
3dfx was founded in 1994 by three former SGI employees, Scott Sellers, Ross Smith and Gary Tarolli.
Speaking of SGI, it was a big player in computer graphics at the time: they developed the OpenGL graphics interface, the CG footage of Jurassic Park and the current Final Fantasy: Souls In The Soul movie were rendered using SGI workstations, and the Nintendo N64 console, which had not yet been launched, also used their graphics chips.
3dfx was founded somewhat by chance: the trio worked for a branch of SGI that was acquired by a company called Media Vision (not the Japanese game developer who developed Valkyrie 4), whose main business was boards and 3D graphics.
In 1994, Media Vision executives were suddenly exposed to fraud and tax evasion, so the three left the company, got a start-up fund from venture capitalist Gordie Campbell, and founded 3DFX.
From left to right, 3dfx founders Gary Taroli, Scott Schillers, Ross Smith and its early investor Gordon Campbell:
In 1995, 3dfx welcomed its first employee, Brian Hook, who had been with the company for only a year but developed the interface program Glide, which contributed greatly to Voodoo's subsequent siege.
The so-called interface program, simply put, is some predefined functions that developers can call to implement various program functions and special effects.
Since Glade was designed for Voodoo without worrying too much about compatibility issues, it was far more efficient in its early stages than other interface programs of the time (OpenGL and Direct3D).
Later, after leaving 3dfx, Hook moved to companies such as NVIDIA, Trident and SGI, and finally came to id Software, where he was responsible for the graphics programming of Quake 2 and Quake 3. And that time was the peak of 3dfx products.
Hooke's departure also left a foreshadowing for 3dfx Glide's later defeat in the Direct3D competition with Microsoft, which we will talk about later.
<h1>1996 E3: Debut</h1>
What is not known is that 3dfx's early products were not designed for PC games, but the hot arcade market at that time.
In the mid-1990s, Sega's 3D arcade games "Vr Racing", "VR Warrior" and "Sleepwalking in America" were all the rage in the United States, and Schillers was an arcade enthusiast who keenly grasped this business opportunity and decided to enter the market as well.
By the way, the CG designer of VR Racing and VR Warrior was Sega's newcomer at the time, named Minoru Yue, and Sleepwalking America was the first game he led the development of, and everyone knows what happened later.
At E3 in 1996, the first game with 3dfx technology was unveiled in the Home Run Derby arcade frame launched by ICE.
This arcade game chooses the favorite baseball sport of the American people, with a Built-in Voodoo chip on the arcade substrate and a baseball bat as a control device.
The gameplay is much like a later somatosensory game: the player stands in a designated area in front of the arcade screen, swings the bat at the right time when the 3D baseball on the screen flies over.
An infrared sensor next to the arcade screen senses the player's time of hitting the ball to determine the direction, angle, and speed of the ball.
However, 3dfx's ambitions are clearly not limited to this, but in the broader PC market. Also at E3 in 1996, Eidos exhibited Tomb Raider running in Glide mode, and the stunning Laura impressed almost all players as soon as she appeared.
But Voodoo really appeared on the market at the end of 1996.
<h1>Late 1996: Voodoo debuts</h1>
In 1996, something happened in the PC world that made 3D functionality popular on PCs, and this thing was the memory crash.
At the beginning of 1996, the price of memory on the market was $30/MB, and by the end of the year, the price had dropped to $5.25/MB, almost 1/6 of the price at the beginning of the year.
Voodoo, which went public at the end of the year, caught up with this wave of dividends, making it possible to carry more than 4MB of video memory at the beginning, which was twice that of other mainstream graphics cards on the market at that time.
The price of the first Voodoo card is 299 US dollars, about 2000 yuan, which is similar to the current price of 1060 yuan, which shows that at the beginning, Voodoo was aimed at the mid-to-high-end market.
Unlike other graphics cards, Voodoo is a pure 3D accelerator card that does not have 2D display capabilities and must work with other 2D graphics cards.
As for the reason for this, some people say that 3dfx at that time was to avoid competition with large companies such as S3 and ATI on the market; others said that it was because 3dfx, as a start-up, lacked personnel funds and technical capabilities, so it decided to focus its products on the field of 3D technology.
And Voodoo is designed specifically for 3D games, supporting special effects such as hardware atomization, specular highlights, dynamic mapping and anti-aliasing, making it come with an aura from birth.
Voodoo supported all the major 3D interface programs of the time, including Glade, Direct3D, and OpenGL. Glide is its dedicated 3D API that not only performs well, but is also extremely easy to use.
Before D3D was widely accepted, 3dfx used this interface program to defeat various competitors and gain the favor of game manufacturers.
So when Voodoo was published, more than 50 game companies announced support, including EA, Sierra, id Software, and Eidos.
The most famous games include Quake:
And later Thor's Hammer 2:
Other well-known games that support Glide include Need for Speed 2 Special Edition and Diablo 2.
<h1>1998: Reaching the pinnacle</h1>
However, what really made 3dfx enter the public players' vision was Voodoo 2, which was released by 3dfx in early 1998, and the initial price was also $299.
Compared to its predecessor, Voodoo 2 adds a second texture unit that can draw two textures simultaneously in a single channel and is equipped with 8-12MB of video memory, making this card faster than other graphics cards in some polygonal 3D game scenes that use multiple textures.
For high-end gamers, Voodoo 2 also offers a connection called SLI, which connects two Voodoo 2s, each responsible for half of the scan line on the screen.
This technology increased the maximum screen resolution supported by Voodoo to 1024x768x16, more than 6 years before similar technologies from Nvidia and ATI later.
It is estimated that during that time, 3dfx's market share in the 3D accelerator card market reached 80-85%, and the Voodoo series became the standard for players.
<h1>turning point</h1>
In early 1997, 3dfx began to enter the game console industry, participating in the development of Sega's next-generation console Dreamcast.
At that time, there were two competing teams within Sega: one was the Japanese team, code-named "Big Knife", using NEC's GPU solution; the other was the American team, code-named "Black Belt", using 3dfx's GPU solution.
However, only half a year later, Sega suddenly unilaterally announced the termination of cooperation with 3dfx and chose the big knife scheme using NEC PowerVR chips.
Sega's decision caught 3dfx off guard, and 3dfx took Sega to court, accusing it of trading in bad faith in order to gain access to technology.
A year later, the two sides reached an out-of-court settlement in which Sega compensated 3dfx for $10.5 million.
The reasons for Sega's termination of its partnership with 3dfx are still widely debated, and some analysts believe that Sega chose NEC mainly based on the following three reasons:
First, neC has a successful precedent for providing processors for the Nintendo N64;
Secondly, unlike 3dfx, NEC has its own factory, which can be guaranteed in terms of production capacity;
Third, NEC and Sega are both Japanese companies, and the communication cost is much smaller than 3dfx.
But there was another important reason: at that time, 3dfx was preparing to go public, and according to the regulations, the company had to file an investor file with the SEC, which must truthfully explain the company's business and the risks it had.
At the time, Sega was facing competition with Sony and Nintendo, so the matter of working with 3dfx was certainly secret, and both sides had confidentiality agreements.
It is reasonable to say that this matter could have adopted a circumventive approach and chose not to disclose the matter in the investor documents, but somehow 3dfx is still fully disclosed.
This naturally made sega executives very angry, so they immediately terminated their cooperation with 3dfx. In this way, 3dfx is self-inflicted.
As for which reason is the main cause? Unless the parties take the initiative to explain, outsiders have no way of knowing.
But given that the two sides have reached some kind of tacit understanding outside the courtroom, we may never know the truth.
<h1>1999-2000: Rapid decline</h1>
The breakdown of the collaboration with Sega seems to have sent a signal that in the field of games that 3dfx excels at, it is not as strong as the outside world thinks.
1997 seems to have been a turning point for 3dfx: in early 1998, 3dfx began developing the next generation of its product, Rampage, which was planned to take 2 years to develop, but it did not launch until the company finally collapsed.
At the end of 1998, 3dfx spent $141 million to acquire the German graphics card manufacturer STB, from a graphics chip manufacturer to a graphics card manufacturer, and from Voodoo 4, stopped providing chips to third-party manufacturers, this acquisition, so that the alliance, innovation and many other manufacturers to turn to the camp of competitors.
In the second half of 1999, when Nvidia launched the GeForce 256 graphics card, 3dfx also experienced the despair of the product being completely crushed by competitors.
The GeForce 256 supports hardware T&L (geometry transformation and light source processing), and all performance indicators are better than Voodoo 3, making 3dfx a failure.
Everyone knows that a tech company can't stand on the top of the tide forever. But no one expected this day to come so quickly.
At the end of the year, then-CEO Greg Ballard left the company.
When the 3dfx-Sega partnership broke down, Ballard had said that the update iteration cycle of a graphics card was only 14 months, and if it did not launch a new product within 14 months, it would be caught up by the opponent. Now 3dfx has caught up, but they will take a few months to regain the lead.
Ballard reneged on his word, and he must take responsibility for it.
What happened next was the last straw that overwhelmed 3dfx: On March 28, 2000, 3dfx acquired a company called Gigapixel for $186 million to acquire technology and help the company's products get to market faster.
According to the second fiscal quarter of that year, due to fierce competition in the market, 3dfx's sales revenue fell from $104 million in the previous fiscal quarter to $67 million, and it lost $100.5 million due to the acquisition of Gigapixel.
<h1>2000: Finally closed</h1>
On December 15, 2000, 3dfx announced its third fiscal quarter earnings, which showed that the company's sales revenue continued to decline to $39.2 million.
Successor CEO Alex Leupp admitted that 3dfx is in big trouble in the retail market, with weak demand for its flagship Voodoo 3 and 5, channel pressure and banks no longer issuing loans.
On the same day, 3dfx announced its closure and published an open letter to users on its official website. The letter reads like this.
To our valued users:
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your support of 3dfx over the years, we have been proud of our loyal users and fans over the years, which is also the most difficult place for us to give up.
Despite our best efforts, we finally have to admit that we can't hold on any longer. As a result, we have entered into an agreement with Nvidia to provide an optimal solution for our creditors, investors, employees and users.
Under the agreement, Nvidia will acquire an interest in technology, company, brand, and other assets from 3dfx. In addition, 3dfx's Board of Directors has recommended that our shareholders vote to approve the dissolution of the company in the coming months.
Until then, however, 3dfx's products will still be sold on offline and online channels, and we will continue to provide technical support to our users. For specific information, please refer to the company press release issued by 3dfx on December 15, 2000.
While we firmly believe that this agreement is in the best interests of all parties involved, we remain deeply sorry. Once again, we would like to express our sincerest gratitude to everyone who has helped 3dfx revolutionize PC 3D graphics and gaming.
Scott Schillers 3dfx Founder and CTO
Eventually, 3dfx was acquired by Nvidia for $70 million in cash and 1 million shares, and the company went bankrupt and closed in 2002. Since then, there has been no Voodoo cult in the world.
Due to the sudden news of 3dfx's announcement of the collapse, their latest product Voodoo 5 6000 has not been listed in time, and only 50 engineering samples have flowed into the market, becoming a sought after object for hardware enthusiasts around the world.
It is really prosperous and bold, and its death is also sudden.
<h1>Success or failure</h1>
After the collapse of 3dfx, some media re-analysis believes that the reason why 3dfx can set off a storm in the PC graphics card market in just 2-3 years is mainly based on the following four reasons; and the rapid decline of 3dfx is also related to these reasons.
1. Get game developers to accept Glide: According to 3dfx co-founder Ross Smith, most games were developed in DOS systems when the company first started.
Creating your own Glide interface program and making it acceptable to game developers is a high-risk thing, because usually everyone adopts the interface program that Microsoft integrates into the operating system.
But without its own interface program, it would not be possible to build the best hardware, so this strategy was successful in the early days of the company.
But Direct3D is constantly innovating, with each update, its features are more powerful, and it supports more 3D special effects, while Glide has been stagnant after the departure of its creator Hooke.
In early 1999, 3dfx issued a statement saying that in Microsoft's next operating system, Windows 2000, Voodoo 2 would only support Glade and OpenGL, not Direct3D.
You know, Direct3D is integrated into the operating system by Microsoft, and this statement has made many game manufacturers side with Microsoft.
The announcement also caused a lot of players to resent, not supporting Dirct3D means having to choose between Voodoo 2 and Windows 2000, which has led them to choose products from other graphics card competitors.
2, win the favor of "Quake" and Carmack: When the Voodoo acceleration card was just listed, one was not famous, and the second price was also high, and the reason why it was accepted by players was because of the game "Quake".
Id Software's FPS games have always been known for being demanding on PC hardware, and compared to other graphics cards, Voodoo provided high graphics quality while guaranteeing the frame rate of Quake, which left a very deep impression on the players at the time and also achieved its reputation.
According to Scott Schillers, co-founder of 3dfx, this is all thanks to the company's correct strategy: before Voodoo was launched, they took the initiative to find Carmack, and 3dfx's ability in graphic rendering successfully impressed Carmack, making him add support for Glide in "Quake".
Carmack also has a deep affection for 3dfx personally, and at the end of 2000, when he heard 3dfx declare bankruptcy, he said: "I really feel sad to see 3dfx fall from a market-leading technology startup to such a situation."
I think that the situation in which the personal computer display chip market (3dfx, NVIDIA, ATI) was divided into three worlds, competing with each other and making progress together was the one thing that made me happiest.
And now that 3dfx is going bankrupt, the market has become boring, which makes me feel unhappy. “
3, the initial focus only on 3D: 3dfx's initial products only focused on the high-end 3D field, so that its performance in 3D is better than other companies.
Beginning in the second half of 1997, 3dfx began to enter the 2D field, but their 2D road was not smooth: in August 1997, the Voodoo Rush graphics card with 2D features was launched, which was equipped with 2D chips from other manufacturers.
However, due to design and compatibility reasons, this graphics card has many problems, so it has not won the favor of consumers in the market, and it hastily ended up selling for a year.
After summing up the lessons of Voodoo Rush's failure, in late 1998, 3dfx introduced Voodoo Banshee, this time integrating all the features into a single chip.
Banshee castrated a textured unit relative to Voodoo 2, facing the mainstream market, and the price was cheaper than the previous product, and its sales eventually exceeded 1 million pieces.
Starting with Voodoo Banshee, 3dfx finally integrated 2D and 3D features together, but it was from that time that Nvidia's series of graphics cards began to catch up and eventually beat 3dfx.
4, cooperation with large graphics card manufacturers such as innovation: Schillers revealed that the reason why players buy Voodoo is because they cooperate with large companies such as innovation and Dimeng to authorize these companies to launch graphics cards that use their chips, which has successfully opened the market.
However, at the end of 1998, 3dfx acquired STB and stopped working with third-party vendors, which pushed partners into hostile camps, and finally made 3dfx pay a heavy price.
<h1>Write at the end</h1>
After acquiring 3dfx, Nvidia gained access to their technology, which led to better graphics cards, constantly updated and iterated, and continues to this day.
On the day of 3dfx's collapse, the media interviewed Hooke, the father of Glide, and his words basically explain why 3dfx lost to NVIDIA in the competition, so we also take this passage as the end of this article.
"3dfx's downfall is due to management chaos. They have good technology, but they can't do it engineering, turning it into a final product.
They are always stuck on the old architecture, passively extending the life cycle of the Voodoo architecture; after the "rage" and the next generation of products can not be launched on schedule, they simply can not compete with NVIDIA. ”