3. Image quality and advanced texturing techniques
3dfx graphics cards revolutionized texture mapping and filtering techniques. Voodoo series cards had Bilinear Filtering, perspective correction and Anti-Aliasing capabilities, which eliminated irregular edges and improved the clarity of textures in 3D games.
4. Introducing Multi-Texturing and SLI technology
The Multi-Texturing feature made it possible to add several layers of texture to a surface and made the graphics of the games more realistic and accurate.
With the release of the Voodoo 2 card in 1998, 3dfx introduced the first version of SLI (Scan-Line Interleave) technology. This technology doubled the rendering power by using two graphics cards that worked in parallel and improved the frame rate and higher resolution. Later, Nvidia reintroduced this concept with the same name.
5. Setting standards for game graphics
In the 1990s, Voodoo graphics cards became synonymous with advanced graphics performance in computer games. Many games were optimized specifically for 3dfx hardware, and the brand became the gold standard among gamers for delivering superior visuals and smooth gameplay.
6. Universalization of 3D graphics
Before 3dfx, high quality 3D graphics were mostly limited to workstations and expensive hardware. Voodoo graphics cards brought this advanced technology to PC gamers at an affordable cost and enabled the rapid growth of 3D gaming in the late 1990s.
7. Paving the way for modern GPUs
3dfx’s focus on dedicated GPUs, optimized processing lines, and hardware-based graphics accelerators laid the foundation for the modern graphics card industry. Companies such as Nvidia and ATI continued and developed many of the 3dfx innovations.
3dfx’s stay at the top was very short-lived. After the release of Voodoo graphics card and several successor models such as Voodoo 3, Voodoo Banshee and Voodoo 4, the company was overtaken by two strong competitors: Nvidia’s GeForce and ATI’s Radeon. A series of bad strategic decisions caused 3dfx to lose market share and eventually go bankrupt in late 2000.
Pride, the starting point of 3dfx’s failure
The founders of 3dfx company may never have thought that their company would have such a bright destiny but such a short life. In the late 1990s, a series of unfortunate events led to a serious crisis. In short, the decline of 3dfx was caused by several factors, but the most important ones were excessive pride, short-termism, ignoring the needs of customers, infatuation with their technology, and betting everything on one card. There are many reasons for the fall of this short-lived empire, which we will discuss here.
The first reason: failure to enter new markets
The first major failure in the history of 3dfx occurred in 1997. This failure was caused by the failed collaboration with SEGA to develop the Dreamcast game console, which was designed to compete with Sony’s PlayStation 2. In the first quarter of 1997, Sega proposed to 3dfx to develop a graphics chip for the Dreamcast console, while simultaneously working on another chip called Katana, which was being made in Japan with NEC and VideoLogic technologies.
Probably one of the reasons for choosing NEC was the company’s successful experience in supplying chips for the Nintendo 64 console and its high ability to manage mass production.
On July 22, 1997, Sega unilaterally announced that it had terminated its contract with 3dfx and had chosen NEC’s PowerVR chip for its console. Sega assured that the decision was not due to poor performance of the 3dfx chip, but did not provide specific reasons. Additionally, Sega was reluctant to share the technologies used in the development process.
As a result, 3dfx sued Sega for breach of contract, accusing the company of making a bad faith deal to acquire 3dfx’s technologies. Finally, the case was settled through mediation.
The second reason: overconfidence in market development
Another reason for the failure of 3dfx was self-confidence and excessive desire to set new market standards. 1998 is considered one of the most important years in the history of the graphics card industry, as ATI released the Rage 128 chip and Nvidia released the Riva TNT chip. 3dfx’s rivalry with Nvidia was much more heated, going so far as to sue Nvidia for patent infringement of its Multi Texturing technology. These cases and mutual complaints of both parties were not resolved until the end of 3dfx’s activity.
3dfx engineers designed products regardless of market needs; The mistake that Cyrax made
In late 1998, 3dfx introduced two new products named Voodoo 3 and Voodoo Banshee. These cards were built on proven technology that combined an improved 2D core with a faster version of Voodoo 2.
However, the Voodoo Banshee card had poorer performance in games that supported Multi Texturing due to the lack of a Texture Unit. Although this card had significant improvements in 2D processing, it failed to achieve great commercial success and by January 1999 only about one million units had been sold.
