3Dfx was bought and why?

[jdulmage 0]

Ok, so Nvidia bought 3Dfx, just curious has to when both chipsets are gonna be combined and IF even.

 

I mean, seeing a GeForce 4 or something like a Voodoo GeForce video card with 3Dfx and Nvidia chips on it would be nice.

 

The combo is powerful, but will it ever happen?

[EddiE314 0]

yea, its kind of interesting to see what will happen, i do know one thing, there will be lots of driver support.

[DosFreak 2]

NV20 was already done when the buyout of 3dfx was announced. NV25 or whatever is next was probably already designed. NV30 would be the possibilit but since that tech is well in advanced of anything that 3dfx had (heck even the Geforce was more than the V5 could recon with) I HIGHLY doubt that ANY 3dfx tech will be in any Nvidia card. The only thing 3dfx will be the quality of the workmanship from the 3dfx engineers now working at Nvidia.

 

*Let's just hope they don't slap 4 Geforce 2

s on one card and call it good. ;(

[JoosMan 0]

Well what I read in an interview with some nVidia guy is that if any 3dfx stuff ends up in an nVidia card it will be at least a year from now. there are a few things they are thinking of implementing but i forget what they were....so it is possible....and nVidia does have the rights to use the voodoo name so maybe there will be a Voodoo Geforce 720,0000,000

[EddiE314 0]

i'd rather them release an nVidia Voodoo card, not a mix of the nvidia and voodoo cards, but separate cards.

[tylau 0]

I dont really care what it is suppose to be called and from what ever frigginh company it is, if only they could put in support for Glide in future chipset release. Many games and apps out there still use it and it would be a hugh wasting of legacy should no future support of Glide can be realised.

 

Technically speaking, I dont think 3Dfx nor nVidia is up to somthing, one simplt puts into expensive low efficency hardware with unbelieable legacy burden, and the other is just going the non-civilised way of jacking MHZ and render pipelines/memory clockspeeds. Save the Ge3. They could just do better from our customers' standpoint; try looking at Kryo II chipset and its price/hardware/heat/power/costs, you would know..

[Brian Frank 0]

Jdulmage, I agree that nVidia should use 3dfx's technology. I really think that would be one stellar card put out--providing its not exorbantly expensive like the GF3.

nVidia has the raw muscle that 3dfx cards dont; 3dfx cards have much better picture quality that nVidias card dont. And if these would combine, and both weaknesses on either side were ironed out, that would be an awesome combo. Id really like to see it happen, but not if nVidia tes the market. ATI has some serious driver issues to work out, and fast. nVidia's and 3dfx's drivers are much better than what ATI has put out concerning Win2k or Win9x.

The only thing ATI has going for them is the stellar DVD playback. Picture quality is pretty good too, but I still think 3dfx cards excelled in that area.

[PsychoSword 0]

I like the Kyro II card and am interested in anything that has good speed and doesn't cause lockups on crappy VIA chipset motherboards. I'll probably buy a Kyro II when they are available.

[tylau 0]

Kudo, even the XBA from the so-far-so-hyped bitBoy uses resources and bandwidth in a more wised and environmental friendly manner. That called technology progress and advancement, pure silicon jacking is another but not in a designwise of sense.

[jdulmage 0]

hehe, cause i've seen things run better with a 3Dfx based card and i've seen things run better with an Nvidia card, you'd think that putting them both together would stop this problem and everything would be fast with a choice of software, Direct3D, and Glide.

[EddiE314 0]

nVidia is a hell of a company, and i'm sure whatever they do will work out

....they're the next microsoft, i want to see nVidia dominate the market and become a monopoly. DOJ vs. NVidia

[jdulmage 0]

monopoly = when you start to become as powerful as the government and they get jealous of your success

 

hehe

[Brian Frank 0]

Uhh...I dont mean to be an @ss about this Via thing, but I havent had problems. Ive heard about Via's problems in the past, but I think SiS and ALi put out some pretty sorry chipsets in comparison with Via. And Via is really the only choice for AMD cpu owners now, cause AMD doesnt have the greatest chipsets, and Intel, of course, wont make chipsets to support AMD.

I really wish there would be a price war on video cards like the one between Intel and AMD.

[PsychoSword 0]

I Have had many VIA chipsets, each one having compatibility and other issues. They release patches and fixes that never really work. For years now their excuse has been that they are new. They have never followed Intel's AGP spec in any of their "AGP" chipsets to date. That's why their are Geforce and Matrox video card lockups. Their northbridge chip in their KX & KT-133 chipsets are not true ATA/66 controllers, they actually operate at about ATA/33 speed even though they are advertised as ATA/66. I will never own one again that's a promise. VIA = Garbage.

[clutch 1]

I have had only one Via board (this AOpen AX34), and it will probably be my last as well. Most of my issues have been with USB devices (my UPS wouldn't work, and my SanDisk flash reader gets disabled when the system goes to standby), but I did have an issue with a GeForce Ultra where it just wouldn't install properly at all.

 

[moronic comment]

Woohoo! Number 600!

[/moronic comment]

 

------------------

Regards,

 

clutch

[EddiE314 0]

i got an abit vh6, uses the 686a southbridge, i believe that is what causes studdering in some games, other than that i have had no real problems with it like lockups, i guess i'm lucky.

[Brian Frank 0]

All I know is both my rigs run boards using a Via chipset (KT133 and Apollo Pro 133A) and no problems.

AMD needs to get on the ball with chipsets, because if Via really comes out with a chipset that hurts AMD's chips, Intel could stomp on AMD quite easily.

SiS and ALi are what I would consider to produce bad chipsets for my purposes. Ive see the ALi Magik chipset--absolutly worthless.

Ive only really gotten into the computer world it the past 2 years, so I dont know a whole lot about what greivences people have against what company.

The first board I had was an SiS chipset and ran a Cyrix MII 300 which really ran at 233MHz. Thats the only computer I didnt put together myself. Saw it assembled and just figured I could do that myself. Just follow directions. *I still screw up with the floppy cable though.* Every freakin' time!

Really, really off topic here.

[lexluthor 0]

the business dope on the 3dfx/nvidia thing is this.

nvidia bought the rights to the 3dfx chip technology (dont know if they will use it at all... thats a secret). this is doing 2 things for them.

they get royalties from other companies (diamond to name 1)to use the 3dfx name, and it eliminates 1 major competitor.

 

last i heard, very few 3dfx engineers are working at nvidia and they will not directly support 3dfx cards.

depending on what they paid for it , sounds like a good business move

[Ronin 0]

The purchase of Nvidia was just an asset purchase. 3DFX is still a co of some sort. They may not have the doors open, but I know this much. My 3DFX stock is still in the toliet and I have not had anything sent to me saying my stock will be tranferred to Nvidia. As far as royalties go since Nvidia does not own the name they won't get any.