The 3Dfx/ STB Deal

I think 3Dfx is making a mistake, especially with the weakness of Voodoo3 in comparison to the Rage128 and TNT. Limitting the Voodoo 3 to what would look like a "been there, done that" chipset isn't too business friendly.

STB is not, and never has been, a large player in the market and breaking through with STB will be tough especially facing their former allies Creative and Diamond. Creative and Diamond are very large companies with powerful marketing abilities. Without Diamond's and Creative's push 3Dfx would still be obscure to the majority of the gaming public as it was with the original Voodoo chipset and the Rush. Voodoo2 made 3D accelerators the near requirement for gaming today.

Creative and Diamond were and still are large 3Dfx stock holders. Much of the capital required for the development of Voodoo 2 was provided by these 2 companies. Without their support and if Voodoo 3 doesn't do well in the market all 3Dfx is left with is an outdated line of accelerator chipsets and a board manufacturer. That would 3Dfx without the capital required to build a fabled Voodoo 4 or Voodoo Banshee 2.

But with 3Dfx keeping their technology in the past by not supporting high resolutions and 32 bit texturing they won't be able to compete with ATI and nVidia. The 3Dfx technology isn't as significant as it was in the past.

I don't understand 3Dfx's decision to limit the amount of memory on the Voodoo 3 card to 16 meg and not to support AGP. There was originally supposed to be an AGP version of the Voodoo 2 but to my knowledge that is vaporware (Please prove me otherwise).

A saving grace for 3Dfx may be the Glide API. Glide is used by many developers because of its ease of use and good visual effects. It is still much simpler than programming for Direct3D or even for OpenGL (both of which are getting easier to program and more robust). Many new games like Diablo II are utilizing Glide instructions and that may make it necessary for more gamers to have a Voodoo chipset of some kind. This may give 3Dfx a buffer to get with the technological times, but they might not heed the public's and expert's warnings.

Yet less and less games being produced are Glide specific, most have support for Direct3D and OpenGL or Glide. And now with Microsoft's agreement with SGI (Silicon Graphics Inc.) to join Direct3D and OpenGL it would look as if Glide's days are numbered.

If they continue on their current course they could be known as one of the greatest flashes in the pan of technology ever. If 3Dfx gets their act together they could be a major player for the next decade. 3Dfx its in your court, decide what you want to do. Put the effort in and produce a kick ass chipset again, or continue resting on your laurels and fade quickly and quietly into the past.

The Clair

Dec 23, 1998