Fallen Enthusiast GPU Manufacturers

[80-watt Hamster]

My first graphics card was a Voodoo Banshee of the Diamond Monster Fusion variety, purchased on the recommendation of a friend for my first homebuilt in 1998. It might still be buried in my box of spares. Like the rest of the parts, it was chosen on price/performance, and was probably in service for at least the next three years. Too bad it tended to choke a bit on games that weren't written with Glide support. The performance difference between Half-Life and Unreal Tournament was ridiculous.

 

[bit_user]

You can check them and how they ended at mine site (from where are also most photos here) - i did chart covering almost all gpu makers.... http://vgamuseum.info/index.php/history-tree
PS: for better reading comfort try full size image (link is in info text on site), but have to warn you, its twice bigger and you have to scroll a lot....

Wow, I've been enjoying your site a lot, since the first of these articles hit Tom's. But I didn't see this chart until today. WOW! Thank you so much for putting up such great info on the net!

I'm glad to see a mention of BitBoys and Pyramid3D. I remember the rumors around them.

you should write a piece about fallen audio manufactures, Aureal A3d crushed Creative Labs when it came to 3d sound techniques, but creative sued them out of existence

Heh, Creative sued them into bankruptcy, and then bought the assets. Nice.

I had one of the first Aureal cards, and it was good.

 

[bit_user]

Doesn't SLI mean something like scalable link interface or something these days? Did NVIDIA try to find a different acronym using the same letters or is that a coincidence?

I don't know why you got a downvote, but Wikipedia (and my own fuzzy recollection, FWIW) supports you.

Nvidia Corporation reintroduced the SLI acronym in 2004 (though it now stands for Scalable Link Interface) and intends for it to be used in modern computer systems based on the PCI Express bus.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scan-Line_Interleave

After buying out 3dfx, NVIDIA acquired the technology but did not use it. NVIDIA later reintroduced the SLI name in 2004 and intended for it to be used in modern computer systems based on the PCI Express (PCIe) bus; however, the technology behind the name SLI has changed dramatically.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Link_Interface

 

[Xajel]

Strange, Parhelia should have it's own slide. It got massive press news and previews that it raised the hopes of a new powerful competitor that can drive more competition and lower prices.. sadly as soon as actual reviews came.... damn it wasn't up to the hype, not the fastest thing and power hungry along with few driver and software issues. not to mention the expensive asked price that does not justify the other mix.

 

[Crashman]

I thought the title said "Fallen Enthusiast GPU Manufacturers"? I didn't even see Number 9!

 

[samopa]

Tseng Labs ? Where is Tseng Labs ?

 

[Guest]

Worst possible thing could happen to gaming is DirectX.

 

[Guest]

Nvidia and ATI video cards sucked until they released Geforce 3 and ATI release 8500 series.

 

[RedJaron]

Worst possible thing could happen to gaming is DirectX.

Right, because having a common API for 2D, 3D, input, and audio was such a horrid thing, wasn't it? I suppose you want to go back to games only supporting SoundBlaster and Roland audio cards, right?

Nvidia and ATI video cards sucked until they released Geforce 3 and ATI release 8500 series.

Yeah, the 3D Rage II, Rage 128, and All-in-Wonder cards were just trash. And it's best everyone forget about the refuse that was the Riva 128, TNT2, or GeForce 256

 

[kittle]

I thought the title said "Fallen Enthusiast GPU Manufacturers"? I didn't even see Number 9!

Ditto to that. Or is #9 still in business somewhere?

I think I still have a number 9 card in my closet somewhere

 

[ayashi]

Great article. Forced me to go straight to http://qwtf.digitaljedi.com/ and watch some of Meridian's legendary QWTF demos ;D

 

[Crashman]

Tseng Labs ? Where is Tseng Labs ?

I think he covered his bases there with the word "Enthusiast" in the title. My first graphics card was a Western Digital. I bet you didn't know they were ever in the graphics card business? I think they dropped out of it around 1991: 2D only.

The Intel i740 was interesting in that it had high efficiency and was picked up by third-party manufacturers as an entry-level gaming GPU. But that was really just a development chip for Intel's new generation of integrated graphics, and a scaled-back version ended up in the i810

 

[Eximo]

Interesting that someone mentioned the Paradise Pipeline, that was the 2D card I used with my Voodoo2 12MB. (I might still have that somewhere, I know where the Voodoo2 is)

I picked up a Voodoo5 5500 off ebay just to have one. Plays a mean UT 1999 on my dual Pentium 2 ludicrous box.

I really think Nvidia missed out on calling the Titan series Voodoo, would have been a nice throwback, but maybe they didn't get the trademark with the acquisition.

 

[bit_user]

Worst possible thing could happen to gaming is DirectX.

Right, because having a common API for 2D, 3D, input, and audio was such a horrid thing, wasn't it? I suppose you want to go back to games only supporting SoundBlaster and Roland audio cards, right?

I disagree with freak777power's statement, but maybe it's a critique on DirectX, specifically? I think Nvidia certainly felt burned by the fact that DirectX, omitted support for their quadric surfaces.

There was some controversy over Direct3D vs. OpenGL, back in the day. I think it was mostly centered around Direct3D's retained mode. And one benefit of OpenGL was definitely easier portability. Of course, we now wish everyone would use Vulkan (including you, Apple!).

Tseng Labs ? Where is Tseng Labs ?

I think he covered his bases there with the word "Enthusiast" in the title.

True, although they did attempt to enter the 3D race with their ET6000 series. But I'm with you - if we're talking about 3D cards from the 90's, I wouldn't rate them worth a mention.

 

[Sam Hain]

I was a 3Dfx Voodoo user upon first modding PC's in the mid-90's, until NV took them over (2k?) got a message when looking for updates showing NV giving an end-date for them.

Understandably so, but was still so miffed so (LOL) that I went with ATI/AMD cards after that until the GTX 760 rolled out a few years back, replacing my 2-way XFire 5850's that were purchased in 2009; 10+ year run.

Even though it may have had some short-comings, even for back then, my Voodoo 3 sure did my Samsung Synchmaster CRT and gaming justice up to my ATI switch!

 

[Crashman]

I was a 3Dfx Voodoo user upon first modding PC's in the mid-90's, until NV took them over (2k?) got a message when looking for updates showing NV giving an end-date for them.

Understandably so, but was still so miffed so (LOL) that I went with ATI/AMD cards after that until the GTX 760 rolled out a few years back, replacing my 2-way XFire 5850's that were purchased in 2009; 10+ year run.

Even though it may have had some short-comings, even for back then, my Voodoo 3 sure did my Samsung Synchmaster CRT and gaming justice up to my ATI switch!

I switched from a TNT2 to a Banshee because my games with the best bling were optimized for GLIDE

 

[neblogai]

I was a 3Dfx Voodoo user upon first modding PC's in the mid-90's, until NV took them over (2k?) got a message when looking for updates showing NV giving an end-date for them.

Understandably so, but was still so miffed so (LOL) that I went with ATI/AMD cards after that until the GTX 760 rolled out a few years back, replacing my 2-way XFire 5850's that were purchased in 2009; 10+ year run.

Even though it may have had some short-comings, even for back then, my Voodoo 3 sure did my Samsung Synchmaster CRT and gaming justice up to my ATI switch!

I switched from a TNT2 to a Banshee because my games with the best bling were optimized for GLIDE

I switched from TNT2 Vanta 16MB to Voodoo Velocity 8Mb, because Diablo2 was running way better on it

 

[Thorfkin]

Ooohhh those bring back memories. I had a Rendition Verite V1000 and later replaced it with the V2200. Along side that i had a 3DFX Voodoo followed later by a pair of Voodoo 2 cards in SLI since you needed those for reliable Glide support.

 

[Esteban Gonzalez]

It will be great if you could add your original articles on 199x-200x with reviews, analyses of these products , and lynk to them on this article.

 

[Eximo]

Hmm, a throwback article a week would be kind of neat. "This week 5, 10, or 15 years ago" Give you a sense of how quickly technology moves.

 

[Somasonic]

I remember getting my first Voodoo card and enabling Glide in Need for Speed II SE. I couldn't believe the difference in speed and IQ and to this day haven't had such a WOW moment in gaming. Sure there have been some amazing games but nothing like the jump from software rendering to 3D acceleration.

 

[cannoli]

I loved the Voodoo Rush when I bought it. Even though it wasn't a high performance card, I was upgrading form an s3 Virge so it was leaps and bounds better. My first real exposure to what the 3dfx tech could do was after installing the glide patch to Carmegeddon. The game looked incredible and ran relatively well on my ancient Cyrix PR150+

 

[coolkev99]

Yep, I think I have half these cards in my basement. The Matrox Millennium did have Gouraud shading "3d" acceleration. I remember there was a special version of NASCAR racing built for it. I remember being blown away loading up "Tomb Raider" (the original) for the first time with the 3dfx Voodoo(1) card. Played for hours on Mechwarrior 2... and anyone remember "POD" racing? Thjs was definitely the golden era of PC gaming. I held on to buying 3dfx products to the end, I think I had all the cards (except for voodoo 4). Almost everything written in GLIDE was better/faster than Direct3d. Thats why I'm so happy to see Vulkan technology gaining traction, as it works (sort-of) similar to Glide.

 

[akula2]

I still remember writing some Linux kernel stuff for some of those cards. Those were different times....

 

[Martell1977]

Yep, I think I have half these cards in my basement. The Matrox Millennium did have Gouraud shading "3d" acceleration. I remember there was a special version of NASCAR racing built for it. I remember being blown away loading up "Tomb Raider" (the original) for the first time with the 3dfx Voodoo(1) card. Played for hours on Mechwarrior 2... and anyone remember "POD" racing? Thjs was definitely the golden era of PC gaming. I held on to buying 3dfx products to the end, I think I had all the cards (except for voodoo 4). Almost everything written in GLIDE was better/faster than Direct3d. Thats why I'm so happy to see Vulkan technology gaining traction, as it works (sort-of) similar to Glide.

The WD Paradise card i had did a good job with Mechwarrior 2 + the expansion Ghost Bear Legacy, Ultima 8, Warcraft 2, original Wolfenstein, Doom, Doom 2 and The 7th guest. What's funny was I never even considered the amount of VRAM on it, I was focused on the CD-ROM speed, CPU and RAM requirements.

To be honest, it was in my first computer and I didn't even know there was such a thing as a video card driver. Windows 3.11 for Workgroups and DOS 6.22 just made everything work, however, to play Doom 2, I had to use a boot disk to tweak some settings and make it run.