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Graphics Software

3DFX Not Quitting Video Card Business 39

Posted by Hemos from the i'm-not-dead-yet dept.
CitizenC writes "According to this GameCenter.Com story, at the Comdex trade show in Las Vegas on Wednesday, Wolford told Gamecenter that the Voodoo5 6000 has not been cancelled, that 3dfx will not start selling current chipset technology to third parties such as Creative Labs and ELSA, that Voodoo products, including current graphics and TV cards, will continue to be manufactured, and that the company isn't going belly-up any time soon."
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3DFX Not Quitting Video Card Business More

3DFX Not Quitting Video Card Business

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  • "Wrong, slashdot. The voodoo5 6000 will not be sold to gamers at all. Never. It's a higher end card now."

    Would you care to back that up, like with some facts? Maybe even a rumour or something, like "My best friend's neighbour's aunt's second cousin on her mother's side said that the CEO of 3Dfx was telling her that they just couldn't keep up with Nvidea."

    Is this Tom Pabst writing under an alias? Kinda sounds like his style, sound absolutely certain of something negative with regards to 3Dfx, just don't back it up with facts or anything pertinent like that.
  • >right now, the only fact we have is that 3dfx is selling it's facility in Juarez, Mexico.

    Good! I was sick of hearing from all these "K-Elite Juarez D00DZ" anyway.

  • V5-6000 no by 3dfx (Score:3)

    by Steve Gibson ( 30331 ) on Saturday November 25, 2000 @07:43AM (#602444) Homepage
    The article is a bit misleading, Several people got confirmation from Bubba after that article came out on cnet with word that 3dfx will not be bringing the V5-6000 to retail. Here's the story I posted about it a while ago with a quote from the same Bubba Wolford:

    3dfx not bringing V5-6000 to retail [shugashack.com]


    -Steve Gibson
  • Remember how the major videocard manufacturers got burned when Creative Labs and Diamond Multimedia (now S3) when 3dfx decided to go into board making and cutted off their chipset supply from other board makers. I doubt the major board makers will pick up their chips any time soon should 3dfx decide to go back to strictly making chips.

    Only way 3dfx can get back into the picture is by going back to their roots. I don't mean back to selling chipsets but rather building a new kickass chipset that outperforms everyone elses, like the way the original Voodoo shook up the market.
  • He showed that one man and a web page really can expose a sex offender for what he is, even if he's the president
    Bill and Monica were consenting adults who were denied their right to privacy by the right-wing conspiracy in concert with their lapdog, the mainstream media. I really don't see how Bill Clinton's sex life is anyone else's business but Bill's and Hillary's. As long the country is at peace and the economy is strong then Bill can have wild sex orgies with hookers for all I care...

    Republicans keep insisting that they are not tax-and-spenders, yet it wasn't the "tax-and-spend" Democrats who spent 70+ million dollars of tax money on an bogus "investigation" that did not come up with anything substantive on the President and First Lady...
    Ya know, prior to blindly following the left-wing herd
    is not any different than blindly following the right-wing herd yelling "Ditto!".

    Idiot...
    --
    You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
  • ...what game?

    Sounds like Grand Prix Legends [papy.com]. Although Papyrus recently released a Direct3D patch, it seems to work best in Glide.

  • ...what game?
  • Getting WAY off topic now, but the karma lost would be worth it.

    Bill and Monica were consenting adults...

    I don't recall anyone saying otherwise. What was at question was the collection of evidence to support the allegation of sexual harrasment. By falsifying testimony as to this man's conduct with female subordinates he not only broke the law, but denied the plaintiff a fair day in court.

    ... who were denied their right to privacy by the right-wing conspiracy

    A right-wing conspiracy caused this man to sexually harass co-workers? As usual, Clinton's only real enemy is the truth.

    Republicans keep insisting that they are not tax-and-spenders, yet it wasn't the "tax-and-spend" Democrats who spent 70+ million dollars of tax money on an bogus "investigation" that did not come up with anything substantive on the President and First Lady...

    Hmmm, I seem to recall something like 20 some odd convictions surrounding this investigation. I also seem to recall a greater sum of money being spent on that whole Iran/Contra thing. How many convictions came out of that one?

    Struggling to bring this back into context, the point here is that one man and a single web site took on the President of the United States, and for his own part won! This marks a huge turning point for the US political system. Prior to the Internet, such a thing simply wasn't possible.

    The guy is still reporting news not found on main stream sites. Literally you can hear questions at press conferences by "real journalists" that came directly from the Drudge Report. Note, at this moment Matt has posted transcripts from the Broward canvassing board, a few names of military personel that didn't get their vote counted, and the full text of a Lerberman speech talking about how wrong it is to protest. CNN doesn't have any of this stuff.

    One man, one site really can make a difference, no matter how bent out of shape our socialist friends here may get. In it's own way, Slashdot is also making a difference in the kinds of stories it covers, and the forums in which those stories are hashed out.
  • 3DFX came in to speak to us about what the Voodoo 3 was going to be like a while back, in one of those "talk with the developers to get them to support our cards" meetings. This was before anything had been announced, and we were all eager to see what cool new revolutionary features they were going to put on this card.

    We were, needless to say, disappointed. It was going to be faster, and have more memory. Woo woo.

    When asked about why the board didn't seem that impressive, they started talking about ATI being their major competitor, not NVidia as we had thought, and got really enthusiastic about using their brand name to get OEM deals. They were repositioning themselves to be consumer cards, not high-end gamer cards. They were pretty much willing to GIVE that market to NVidia.

    I left that meeting pretty much writing them off as a serious innovator.

    And that's part of why they suck now.
  • Give the man a prize.
  • ... that 3dfx uses stories like this for spin control in the stock market?
  • How are we to be sure this isn't some old report from like a year ago that /. decided to post again and is no longer rellevent? hmmmm?

    Just a joke. But it's too bad because competition would drive board prices across the...'board' down. Good for all of us. In this case, however, nothing will be different and I will still be using my TNT for quite a while.

  • Producing their own cards to support their chipsets cuts out an extra chain in the link, but then I'm sure it also reduces the level of choice and variation.

  • Re:3DFX (Score:4)

    by Dr. Merkwürdigliebe ( 90125 ) on Saturday November 25, 2000 @06:26AM (#602455)
    It's perhaps more tragic than Netscape's downfall. In 1995 it was generally assumed 3D-cards would be the next big thing in graphics. nVidia was one of the first with their NV1 chip. Then others followed, all with their own API, since Direct3D did not yet exist in usable form. There were so-so chips such as S3's Virge and excellent add-on cards with Rendition's Verite or the PowerVR.

    But one company simply outclassed 'm all. The Voodoo 1 was somewhat expensive, but in a league of its own. With its excellent API (Glide) and John Carmack's GLQuake port it conquered the market.

    I don't think they lost it because they didn't innovate, they lost it because their innovations (high fill-rate, FSAA) weren't what the market wanted. This is how nVidia after their desastrous NV1 and NV2 chips came back with the NV3 and especially the NV4 (TNT).

    High fill-rate was secondary to 32-bit color and sound OpenGL support. 3dfx realised this too late and it's been downhill ever since.

  • Simply put, nothing's gonna change. 3DFX will keep making their awesome cards, the VooDoo line of cards will continue into a long and prosperous life, and there won't be any 3rd party items based on the 3DFX chipsets because they're not being sold.

    There, I resummarized the summary. Anyone disagree with what I said? Then why are we discussing this on Slashdot?

  • I realize that Slashdot is not a traditional journalism site, and it doesn't have the resources to go out and verify every single story submitted to it.

    But still, it's a disquieting thing when a story like this comes out, saying "Hey, looks like those rumors weren't true!" about something which we had been told was fact and not rumor.

    It's so easy; just a "May Be" or "Rumored To" in the headline. And not using it makes one wonder whether someone's going the way of Harry Knowles and Matt Drudge* and enjoying their role as purveyor of information so much that they lose the intelligent selectivity that made people choose them as an information source in the first place.

    * (ok, Drudge was sludge from Day One. Drudge has always been a sleazy little rumor-monger wet-dreaming that his ability to regurgitate steaming clumps of fact and fiction faster puts him in the company of real journalists. The point is, I don't want to see Slashdot go that way, do you?

  • 3DFX (Score:2)

    by Xenex ( 97062 )
    I'm I the only person that sees 3DFX as just like Netscape. Once the only thing out there, top of their field, loved by all. Now tumbling down.

    Oh, except 3DFX didn't die so quick....
    But then, 3DFX wasn't competing against an (alledged illegal) monopoly...

    Why does 3DFX suck now? Was it because they forgot to innovate? I don't care HOW fast it makes it, just chucking several technically old chips onto one board is hardly innovation.

    Do the people at 3DFX have anything new coming at all beyond piling old tech onto one huge card?

    (And: external power?! To an internal component of your PC?!? What happens if your 3DFX video card accidentally gets unpluged, but the rest of your box doesn't. That's always midly interested me...)

    It's 2am. Mistakes can be blamed on that....

  • the register has this too (Score:3)

    by fluxrad ( 125130 ) on Saturday November 25, 2000 @07:45AM (#602459)
    you might check the register [theregister.co.uk]

    they have a very interesting article about this as well. apparently the plant that they're getting rid of is not necessarily going to be completely outsourced. at the worst, it appears that 3dfx would pick a single company to manufacture the boards for them.

    right now, the only fact we have is that 3dfx is selling it's facility in Juarez, Mexico. - who's to say what that will lead to.


    FluX
    After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
  • Anyone else get the feeling their first announcement was just to get some attention? They're acting like a bunch of kids who need to be paid attention to to have any fun, be it negative or otherwise...
    ---
  • But then again, I'm a nVidia fan, *shrug*

    Are you? I'm a Whoever's sitting at the top of the tree fan; which used to 3DFX, is now nVidia, and may change to ATI depending on the generation.

  • As has been the case all along.

    • They're selling off the STB fab in Mexico.
    • They're concentrating on building chips and spec'ing out reference boards
    • They're OUTSOURCING their board fab to 3rd parties so THEY don't have to expend time, money, and effort that is better spent in R&D on managing a stupid fab.

    Anyone who didn't understand this as of what, a WEEK ago(?), must be positively bucking for a Darwin Award.


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!

  • This dosent really surprise me, but of course, it's kinda sad to see 3dFX faltering. Maybe if they did do third parties someone could afford their overpriced, underpowered chipsets.

    But then again, I'm a nVidia fan, *shrug*

  • New motto? (Score:3)

    by Jeff DeMaagd ( 2015 ) on Saturday November 25, 2000 @06:41AM (#602464) Homepage Journal
    Slashdot: Rumors for Nerds. Stuff that Matters

    or:

    Slashdot: Rumors for Nerds. Stuff that Might Matter if it Pans Out (TM)

    or because nerd is something of an epithet to some people:

    Slashdot: Rumors for Geeks. Stuff that Doesn't Matter for Most Other People (TM)
  • I am glad to hear this bit of news. Frankly my interpretation of the first bit of news about them leaving the market was somewhat skeptical. based on the way I interpreted it, they were still in the market, just shifting their focus away from 3d and into more diverse markets such as TV cards, etc. Up intil very recently I had been a long standing fan of 3dfx cards, I finally got a Matrox G400 and I really love it. I still think that my voodoo3 was better at 3d stuff than the matrox is, but neither of them really have a patch on the GeForce from what I have seen.


    mov ax, 13h
    int 10h
  • From Anandtech's article [anandtech.com] on the future of video card manufaturers, 3dfx is basically going to license Quantum3D to manufacture the cards, nullifying the entire purchase of STB, which started the whole process of 3Dfx (with a capital D back then) creating their own cards... Nothing will change, 'scept 3dfx will be able to focus more on creating the chipsets (which'll be a GOOD thing, since their latest ones have been pretty shoddy).
  • Hmmmmm I don't think Slashdot misreported anything about 3DFX (except for maybe the cancellation of the 6000 thing). We've heard a lot of bits and pieces about what's going on with 3DFX lately, and I think the community is just drawing logical conclusions from them. Can you provide a link to a Slashdot article that reports something about the 3DFX situation that is blatantly wrong?
  • You are absolutly right. I've been more forgiving then many RE slashdots "same story" or "lame story" posting, but this one should just be pulled.
  • I think that 3dFX should sell off it's plants and go back to being just a chip designer that leases it's tech to anyone that wants to use it. There are a couple of good reasons for doing so:

    1. so much of their resources are being funneled into production and sucked away from design. Put it all into design and a new marketing/sales department to sell it to every PCB manufactur they can.

    2. By selling the chips to many manufacturers, 3dfx can saturate the market with their chips all that much faster. Think about it: there are more chips on more different boards, how can this be bad for 3dfx?

    nVidia does it, why can't 3dfx?

    Rami
    --
  • Wrong, slashdot. The voodoo5 6000 will not be sold to gamers at all. Never. It's a higher end card now.

    I still say 3dfx blew it.
    -----------------------------
    1,2,3,4 Moderation has to Go!
  • 3DFX are behind (in the marketplace) because they chose the wrong technology to focus their attention on (ie. the TBuffer). In the area in which they chose to aim at, they are the leaders in their field.

    That's not to say the TBuffer isn't a brilliant piece of technology, but that it's the right technology at the wrong time.
  • yeah, well, your mother smells of elderberries. wA! :)

  • uhm.. (Score:1)

    by liahim ( 68450 )
    Not yet, that is..

  • 3dfx may not be abandoning the market. . . but: (Score:3)

    by kfg ( 145172 ) on Saturday November 25, 2000 @06:19AM (#602474)
    If they don't get their act together, and fast, the market is surely going to abandon them.

    Marketing is a two way deal between the supplier and the consumer.

    Now, the fact of the matter is that I have a brand new V4 in my box, but I have special reasons. The only game I spend any real time in is an old glide optimized, 16 bit color, hard coded to a limit of 36 fps old timer.

    The entire VooDoo line is now an obvious kludge. The V5 6000 is kludge taken to the max. I wouldn't go near one of these things with a ten foot video bus. Obviously I didn't even go near the V5 5500.

    I hope their engineers are burning some serious midnight oil or they are, very simply, and f*cked company, no matter what their " intentions " are.
  • It's my impression that the statements from 3dfx turned a 180. Originally it was pretty much decided that they were going to stop making video cards, then they changed their statements around some, then they changed them again to say 'No, none of it was true. Made ya look!' Frankly, I don't think rumors like this just come out of nowhere, it may not be the truth, but most rumors have a slight grain of truth to them, and it's interesting to think about what the problem may be. Obviously 3dfx has been losing money for some time now, do these rumors signal a possible state of confusion amongst 3dfx employees? If I owned 3dfx stock, do I consider selling and investing in something that seems to have some sort of potential to go somewhere other than down? Of course this is all speculation, and shouldn't be treated as anything but just that, but it's still interesting, and for anyone who, like me, finds the timeline of the 3d-card business to be interesting, it IS stuff that matters, truth or speculation.
  • http://cnnfn.cnn.com/2000/11/14/technology/3dfx/

    According to that url, and a spokesperson for 3dfx, it seems like they were.

    ---

  • Well, although 3dfx hasn't been the best with their latest stuff, at least we know who to point the finger at. I've heard many stories of the hell that people went through with 3rd party Voodoo 2s, often these were the fault of the card manufacturers rather than the chipset.

  • Anybody else find it interesting that this (several days later and through a third party) is how a large, well known company would choose to denounce a significant rumor?

    Next week we'll be reading about how the story about the story about 3dfx quitting the video card business being false is false (but that will be stuffed away in the bottom of a SlashBack article where it is less likely to be read...)

  • Post a wrong subject line that will incite a frenzy of comments, watch the banner clicks pile up, more money for taco. 12 hours later a small "oops it should have been xxxxxxxxx" is posted after 99% of the readers have already seen it.
  • Oh boy, I guess I'll be the first to bite at this one.

    Drudge has always been a sleazy little rumor-monger wet-dreaming that his ability to regurgitate steaming clumps of fact and fiction faster puts him in the company of real journalists.

    Since you've apparently got all those "fact" things straight, I'm sure you'd be happy to step away from the propoganda podium and clue to the rest of us in to all the "fiction" that Matt Drudge puts up on his site.

    Yes, I am aware of the single lawsuit against him still pending from Blumenthal about a story that was retracted in less than 24 hours after it's posting, and before Sid got to complaining about it. Unlike "traditional" left-leaning media, Matt put the retraction of the story right on the front page. Do I need to list here just how many law suits for libel are pending against the LA Times, NY Times, and other major papers across the US?

    My reasoning for defending Matt has a lot to do with the fact that he really lead the way for citizen journalists to get news up on the web, without the backing of a large corporate office. He showed that one man and a web page really can expose a sex offender for what he is, even if he's the president, and even if "real journalists" at Newsweek sat on the story for over 3 weeks.

    So yes, I happen to like the fact that Slashdot takes on the stories that others ignore. I happen to like the fact that Slashdot provides us the links to where the stories originated as to leave us the audience to research things further, rather than blindly accept what is being fed to us.

    Ya know, prior to blindly following the left-wing herd, perhaps you should read the site that you have spent time on to ridicule as baseless in fact or substance. Judging from your post, you're not doing much here but parroting what you've already been told.

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