3dfx employee interviews 1997 vintage (PART ONE)

[TheLonelyGamer24]

wish they still sold these. i would have bought one long ago, love old games

[ThePirateMD]

i heard the company went bankrupt because there was some pretty lavish spending going on...

[SonicAnimator1]

I hate nvidia now :(

[NordicRuneProject]

@SonicAnimator1 3dfx' problem, not Nvidia's. Their cards began to be outdated since the Voodoo 3, and with that generation they began their downfall. Voodoo 2 was 3dfx' peak, but priorizing speed over absolutely EVERYTHING apparently isn't a good idea.

Nvidia just did it way better than that. That's Natural Selection for you.

[SonicAnimator1]

@NordicRuneProject 3dfx was the best when it was still in business

[NordicRuneProject]

@SonicAnimator1 No. The more I read and think about it, the more I believe they were a mediocre company that just were lucky to take profit of the news that were the 3D cards in Voodoo 1' times. Facts like not knowing how to properly mix speed and image quality (bad chip designs), bad economy management (overpaid diets for employers, etc) and bad business tactics (buying STB and making competitors from what they were your source of income) proofs that.

And nothing of that was Nvidia's fault.

[SonicAnimator1]

@NordicRuneProject Dude, nVIDIA just bought all 3dfx assets and wanted them to bankrupt. 3dfx was nVidia rival in 90's

[NordicRuneProject]

@SonicAnimator1 And? 3dfx went to bankrupt themselves, due to what I said in the previous post. And anyway, every company has to face competition in this life. And yes, Nvidia bought 3dfx tech, but they also gave a job to a lot of ex-3dfx employees. Would you have preferred that tech to go to waste, and the employers to the street?

Just stop criminalizing a company for the mistakes of another.

[SonicAnimator1]

@NordicRuneProject I don't care about criminalizing. nvidia just ripped of 3dfx and that's all i can say.

[NordicRuneProject]

@SonicAnimator1 Yeah, good to see you know how to keep things into perspective. I bet your friends love to have (civil) discussions with you.

Your problem, not mine.

[SonicAnimator1]

@NordicRuneProject I dont have any problems, you have 

[NordicRuneProject]

@SonicAnimator1 Yeah, I tend to have them with idiots. I'm in treatment for that.

[gsdonovan]

@SonicAnimator1 Actually there is some truth there- If you look at what was going on in the 99-00 timeframe 3dfx was on the verge of winning a lawsuit against NV for a large patent infringment. NV just buried 3dfx under lawyers and 3dfx threw in the towel. 3dfx *did* get sloppy, no doubt about it which gave NV the opening they needed. Those who argue about "speed vs image quality" clearly were not gamers during this period. Pre-TNT NV product output looked like total ass, TNT was dirt slow.

[kapteinsnute]

Remember the first time I played Quake with miniGL on a voodoo 3Dfx card, damn that was awesome

[3dfxvoodoo1]

3dfx FTW



[RichGroter]

Bottom line, if it weren't for Folks like ( ID Software and 3dfx ) We would not be enjoying so many ridiculously advanced gaming technologies today. They created a wildly competitively atmosphere in gaming. God only knows what 3Dfx would be doing in 2011... 3Dfx Voodoo 25 25000? Silly but- I sure wish.

[Quaker763]

those dogs.., they've been in the room of the gods...

[basbas63]

if 3dfx was stiill with us we played crysis at max settings when it came out... instead of medium

[Svperstarr]

I remember buying my Monster 3D an overclocking it from 50 to 57 mhz. RIP 3dfx

[Cdammen]

I love the red "Damn." passing by, the intro is radical!

[SasquatchTestes]

I remember all the 3Dfx arcade games looking like shit next to those Sega units.

[artamanqq]

Some of the core engineers were hired by Nvidia, but most were let go by Nvidia and went bankrupt when 3DFX went down. The lay offs occurred when the 3DFX team went to work on the GeForce FX 5xxx, which got destroyed by ATi's 9700 and 9800 series cards.

[Willd86]

everlasting cards like diamonds

[Willd86]

everlasting cards like diamonds

[Kaitou1988]

I would love to write german subtitles :)

[obiwankenobi28]

Dutch Subtitles would of been optional as well , Das haben sie gut gesagd ;)

[WackoX1337]

@obiwankenobi28

''Das haben sie gut gesagd'' isn't Dutch, it's German.

[ThisIs2009]

1997 is hardly vintage???

[gsdonovan]

3dfx has been closed since 1999, what were you expecting?

[xxl606]

do you know how fast computers evolve?

[ThisIs2009]

very fast, but 1997 isn't considered vintage.

[obiwankenobi28]

wrong there were closed since December 15, 2000 ;) Rofl.

[bottle2lip]

@ThisIs2009

it is in terms of pc gaming tech

[gamewizard]

@ThisIs2009

Ummm..yes it is

[Lemaoproductions]

@ThisIs2009

in 10 years you will think that the the intell i7 is vintage :)

[Cabroni2]

What is the name of these music? are Hot :P

Voodoo foreve!

[Moxey711]

new generation graphics here.

[Max22imum]

These where the days before the indians came and fucked the language as well as the industry..

These days will never return :~(

[xismxist]

nvidia should name their next coming series as "voodoo" ;)

[MPTuners]

@xismxist they dont even supported Voodoos after 3Dfx closure...

[gamewizard]

@MPTuners

They didn't have to. They didn't buy the company, they bought the assets. If they had bought the company, they would have acquired the liabilities that went with it which would have made the deal worthless because 3dfx owed more than the company was worth. The actual company lasted until a few months shy of 2010 negotiating and settling with the creditors.

[KhalidNbg]

@xismxist Rather not! That would be a punch in the face of every voodoo-fan ! Remember: Though 3dfx made terrible management-decisions, nvidia were the ones who swallowed them... In a rather NON-friendly way...

[gamewizard]

@KhalidNbg

3dfx had no choice. If they hadn't sold off their assets to nVidia then their creditors would have forced them into bankruptcy and ripped them to shreds. The last creditor didn't agree to a settlement until 2009, that tells you how vicious the bankruptcy was.

[ttolmbrftttwtbopat]

@xismxist absolutely the "voodoo banshee 2 hd series"

[TheLonelyGamer24]

@xismxist or we can all time travel in my new nostalgictraveler 3000 machine

[LordStickMax]

I beleave most of guys from 3dfx were hired by nvidia.

[godscuttingyoudown]

then fired a year later

[krazyliljoo]

then hired by ATI

[gerodinis]

After they got SLI first.

[rsroth1976]

I wonder what happened to these people. I was so sad when the 3Dfx brand died.  Perhaps some of them moved to Nvidia?

[gsdonovan]

Nvidia snapped up a large number of engineers, some went to ATI too.

[blarson12]

@rsroth1976 Well Nvidia bought out 3DFX so i wouldn't dought it.

[Justfilloutthe111111]

I feel old...

:)

[oldpueblo]

I still proudly wear my 3dfx shirt. :)

[BFG3dfx]

Nice thanks for putting this up Gary

[Timbervanduijvenbode]

Absolutely fantastic, thank you very much Gary for uploading this!!