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

posted by Fnord666 on Monday February 19 2018, @03:22PM   
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/

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Original Submission

• Re:soylent sux slashdot rules (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 20 2018, @12:06AM

  by c0lo (156) 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

  Parent

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