Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

3Dfx History: The GPU’s Great Turning Point?

posted by Fnord666 on Monday February 19 2018, @03:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the history-repeats-itself dept.

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

Today's startup companies seem to have a certain arc to them—they get some seed funding, they launch, they draw some interest for their good idea, they keep growing, and maybe they become a part of the fabric of our lives ... or a part of the fabric of a significantly larger company. Strangely, 3Dfx didn't so much draw interest as blow the lid off of a trend that redefined how we think of video games. Its graphics processing units were just the right technology for their time. And, for that reason, the company was everywhere for a few years ... until it wasn't. So, what happened—why did 3Dfx turn into a cautionary tale? Today's Tedium sifts through all the polygons and the shaded textures. — Ernie @ Tedium

Source: https://tedium.co/2018/02/14/3dfx-history-failure/

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
3Dfx History: The GPU’s Great Turning Point? | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 16 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 2) by crafoo on Monday February 19 2018, @05:08PM (2 children)

    by crafoo (6639) on Monday February 19 2018, @05:08PM (#640150)

    PC innovation has slowed because the hardware and firmware is closed off; proprietary.

    The PC exploded because the standard was open and the hardware was documented. Without this it would have been a complete flop.

    Graphics hardware will continue to crawl along as long as the graphics systems are closed, proprietary systems. The current market incumbents will use their position in the market to choke the air out of any upstart innovators. Enjoy.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  
    Total Score:   2  

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 19 2018, @05:19PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 19 2018, @05:19PM (#640155)

    Not really, having multiple standards caused it's own share of headaches. Most games would have one API that was really supported and anything else would be either missing features or not as smooth. It's still a bit of a problem, but it's typically nowhere near as bad as it used to be. 3DFX had a pretty massive advantage when they started because the price of RAM dropped significantly and they became a standard of sorts. So, most, if not all, popular games would include glide and make use of the advanced features even if they didn't support the various other APIs for other manufacturers chips.

    Accelerator APIs are mature enough now that there's not a whole lot that is missing that would improve gameplay other than more powerful hardware.

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 20 2018, @12:06AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 20 2018, @12:06AM (#640355) Journal

      Accelerator APIs are mature enough now that there's not a whole lot that is missing that would improve gameplay other than more powerful hardware.

      Mmm... Yes and no.
      3d api's standards: DirectX, OpenGL/GLES [wikipedia.org], Vulkan [wikipedia.org], Metal [wikipedia.org] and that's only on PC and major mobiles (haven't look on consoles).

      Yes, they may be mature, but for game developers it is not different from what web developers had to put up with during early browser wars era.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford