NVidia On 3dfx Buyout

what a damn sad story. Ever since im into computers i was a huge fan of 3dfx, since the vodoo enhanced the "curves" of miss croft in tomb raider 1. To see them go now will be a huge loss for every gamer out there, with Nvidia holding a monopole (who cares bout ATI????).I don't see any advantage in it, just 1 gamer left in the market, shit. But it was forseeable, ever since the 1st generation of 2d/3d graphics cards. Choose between TNT(1) and Banshee, no way round the first one. Ever since they were way behind the nvidia folks, but i hoped the new vodoo 5-5500 would be a hit an get them outta trouble.
My sincere condoleances
Game over for 3dfx

Heres my Drivers for my GeForce 2 GTS, are there any new Drivers out or just these ones?
http://www.geocities.com/l337macgyver/drivers00.jpg

The silver lining in this situation is that NVIDIA will be making some very smooth video cards. They now hold a great foundation of patents and have tons of talented engineers building on them. The product cycle will slow, however these products will be much more refined when they are released.

This is a double edged sword. We will see a very segmented approach with products aimed at each and every one of us. One for the OEM, one for the mobile market, a workstation card, and two for retail- economy & enthusiast. Without strong competition NVIDIA will squeeze every penny of profit it's different consumers will bear.

We as consumers need to be very optimistic for what ATI brings to the table. If they play their cards right they will be the AMD to the Intel of recent yestreday. Everything is cyclical and history repeats itself. Intel was top of their game for years and we loved them, but there was a price for this was refinement. Now AMD has come to our rescue, and we all use more power for less money regardless of if it is an intel or AMD system. But are these systems less stable? Of course they are. We are in the rush it out the door fix it later cycle.

I am sad to see 3dfx go. What they brought to market was good, anyone who ever used voodoo knows this. Now they will live on in NVIDIA. So in a way what was great about the two companys will augment each other. The game has just changed and one player has been crowned KING.

Yeah, that's what I meant. :-) I owned the original Voodoo when it came out, but that's the only chipset of theirs I've ever bought.

IMO, more proof that 3dfx sucks.

I wonder if Nvidia's drivers will keep getting 'leaked' now.

-Ze BFF d00d

How some of you peeps can justify paying over $250 (or even $350!) just to say you've got the latest and greatest hardware is beyond me. I guess I'm not "hardcore gamer" enough to understand. :-(

My GeForce2 MX was dirt cheap, and I love it.

Damn it prices are already ski high... they ahve been ski high since the Geforce

Now my friends. It's time for Microsoft to purchase Nvidia.

Jesus, 3dfx must have had some really retarded management to rack up a total net loss for 2000 of $291.5 million.

As for talk of nVidia dropping T&L and embracing SLI solutions - garbage. NVidia CANNOT drop T&L now because they are no longer the only manufacturers doing it. ATI could steal a base on them by really making good use of the tech and nVidia wouldn't want to be left behind.

They will perhaps utilise SLI for thier top end business solutions but nothing else. Manufacturing cards with several chips as opposed to one is still stupidly expensive - they will be quite happy to slow down development and not force themselves into a position whereby single chip solutions cannot achieve the speeds they require.

I would also be surprised if we saw much of a price increase, you will more likely see the cheaper nVidia cards becoming more cheaper, and the very top cards like the GTS PRO/Ultra perhaps becoming slightly dearer. Afterall, as has already rightly been said, the average computer user doesn't even know what vid card they have, never mind how to upgrade it.

Just chill people, prices aren't going sky-high just yet.

BH

Oh GOD I just thought of something. Now that 3dfx is going to the shitter. 3DR is going to change the DNF engine to the Quake III arena engine now. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! :)

jesus christ, what is it with this knee-jerk reaction that video cards are instantly going to cost $800 now that 3dfx is gone? the market doesn't work like that. fucking relax.

"How many times do you think gamers buy a new card per year?"

I'm betting the average is close to one per year. I've had my TNT2 Ultra for over a year now, although I hope to upgrade soon.
Ever seen web polls here or on FS? What are most people running (keep in mind these are gaming sites)? Voodoo 3 and TNT2 cards, with a healtyh chunk of first generation Geforce cards. If people upgraded much more than every year, the numbers would show mostly Geforce cards, with a healthy chunk of Voodoo 5, Geforce 2, and Radeon cards.

"How many times do you think the vast majority of computer users buy a new video card?"

Never! Only when they buy a new computer and it comes with a new card. Usually that is some crappy integrated chipset. The vast majority of computer users do little upgrading. Maybe they'll take their machine back into Best Buy and get another 64 mb RAM so Excel is faster, but I doubt many buy a new video card.
Anyone who thinks otherwise has a seriously warped sense of scope in the industry.

"Name the last game/program which forced you to buy a new video card?"

I bought my Voodoo 2 when my Voodoo 1 was too slow for Half-life multiplayer. I got my TNT2 Ultra for no particular game, but just to have everything faster, improve 2D, add 32bit, etc.

My predictions:

1. The release schedule will slip from every six monts to every 9-12 months or so. This will be the "refresh" release. Major releases will happen every 18 months or so.

2. NVidia will use 3dfx/gigapixel tech for the release after the NV20. Single chip design is becomming too big to be practical anymore.

3. The Xbox/console segment of gaming is a big wild card in the whole mix. Will Nvida want to release a PC video card that beats the XBox? Will it want to jepordize sales of XBox for that? I think that NVidia will keep Xbox as the low margin/high volumn segment. This will keep the price of video cards at the $400 mark. I also predict that they won't release a video card substantial better than what the XBox can do until after the XBox release.

4. On the positive side, this should make the computer games better. We might actually see games written to take advantage of T&L now. By next X-Mas I predict we will see games requiring T&L video cards.

FiringSquad: Our readers are concerned about NVIDIA's buyout of 3dfx leading to more expensive graphics card. Do you have anything you would like to say directly to our readers?

Our long term goal is to make our 3D graphics technology available to everyone who can benefit from it. We want to be the best graphics solution, top-to-bottom, in each market segment from entry level to high-end. So if you have $100, $300, $500 or $1,500 dollars to invest in graphics for your computer, the best choice for you will be a solution from NVIDIA.

Who the hell pays $1500 for a graphics card?

So after this, can we expect the price of NV20 based cards to be higher? Hmm what other good competitors are left? ATI that's about it I guess.

Why do people think that Nvidia and 3dfx were the only video card maker around? ATI, Matrox exist.

My take on this is that Nvidia moved too fast and if they waited could have gotten 3dfx for much less.

"The transaction is subject to approval of 3dfx shareholders and government anti-trust inquires."

is that a glimmer of hope? ...nah

mmmmmmm nvidia cards cost enough as it is.

Although I can't say I'm happy about this, 3dfx wasn't providing much competition anyway. Hopefully sombody will step forward and give nvidia a run for their money (although I have always owned nvidia graphics cards...)

Cards will go up in price not because of this merger, but because of the consumer.

How many times do you think gamers buy a new card per year?

How many times do you think the vast majority of computer users buy a new video card?

Name the last game/program which forced you to buy a new video card?

Most recent good reason to upgrade your card - DVDs.

We are not buying enough non-new-computer video cards to support these huge companies. After the next few years of new consoles, look out.

nvidia kicks ass :)


heh

I hope Matrox and ATi start kicking some ass.

They shouldn't have been so hesitant to embrace new features/tech. 32-bit took forever.

Considering 3dfx was way way ahead when all of this began with the Voodoo Chipset, it is quite a feat by nVIDIA to pull this off. 3dfx management = not a good business model.

i never thought that i'd see the day one major video card company bought out a wEaker video card company.

I've seen them merge, but never buy out.

hm, I hate my NVidia card...
thats the end of the world

I hope my next card will be ATI, meaning that they can produced something that kicks ass and cost less than a farm.

Well Im proud to state I never had 3dfx stock .
Anyone else find it hard not to think where the fuck what the fuck who the fuck ....oh oh yeah shit.....when reading Brian Burke interviews for Nvidia.