Hear ye, hear ye ! Let it be known far and wide that the historical truth is as follows : whatever anyone says about this defunct company, whatever anyone thinks about the performance of its products, 3Dfx was the spark that started the bonfire of 3D on the PC platform.

The Voodoo 1 was not just a revolutionary product, it started a whole industry. Before it, industrial and personal users had the same focus : more CPU megaherz for more performance. When the Voodoo chip popped out of nowhere, personal users suddenly had a shift in focus. A new star was born and its light would outshine the CPU business in raw FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) and rumor mill speed. Next to CPU, another word gained increasing weight in hardware conversations : FPS (frames per second).

So, although 3Dfx became 3dfx and then died, that company and all the employees can rightly be proud of a serious accomplishment : to have opened the gates of real-time realism to the consumer. It is a legacy of no small weight that they leave.

Let's see how the story went :

• First off, the Voodoo came and took the game world by the throat
• Then there was the Voodoo 2, and 3Dfx was at the pinnacle of its power
• The Voodoo 3 and Banshee started a downward trend from which the company never recovered
• The Voodoo 4 was the first vaporware of 3D history
• Finally, the Voodoo 5 arrived too late to save 3dfx

Too late indeed, because 3dfx had made two big mistakes. Its first was to insist for too long that 16 bit color was amply enough, and 32 bit color was not only useless but a power-consuming gimmick. nVidia blew that argument out of the water with its TNT2.

3dfx's second mistake was to let success go to their heads and imagine that not only they could continue controlling the game industry, but they could also dispense with any help and become the One Big Guy buy making the chips AND the cards, and not letting anybody else make cards.

This move was certainly the greatest cause of their downfall, for 3dfx had to invest enormous amounts of money into making cards, but at the same time they cut off their sales because they were no longer allowing others to help them make cards. To top it off, they had trouble getting cards made reliably, which meant not getting the product to the market. So the whole affair was an enormous fiasco, fans were literally apoplectic, and then nvidia stepped in and wiped the floor of them with its GeForce 2 (and its checkbook).

3dfx has managed to make a great many firsts. It was first to market with a revolutionary product. It was first to create was is now known as a fan base. It was first to hype a product that never really came out (the voodoo 4), and it was the first to bring hardware that could actually be combined to be more powerful (SLI).

The loss that was felt by fans and followers cannot be described. Let me just say that a gaping hole marks the grave of 3dfx in the hearts of gamers everywhere. Let us always fondly remember the father of our gaming joy.

And now, if you wish, we may go on to the nemesis of this fabulous adventure, the Dark Side of 3D if you will : NVidia.