3dfx: So powerful, it's kind of ridiculous (2023)

Porting and Technical Context

• One commenter links a detailed presentation on porting Rogue Squadron 3D from 3dfx Glide to Vulkan, tying the article’s history to modern low-level APIs.
• Several posts clarify that early Voodoo cards were true 3D accelerators, not post‑processors: they rendered textured triangles and took over the video signal via VGA passthrough, leaving 2D to a separate card.
• People discuss Glide as a proprietary rival to OpenGL/Direct3D; some argue 3dfx’s long bet on Glide, rather than embracing DirectX early, eroded their advantage.

Jaw‑Dropping Leap in Graphics and Gameplay

• Many recall the step from software rendering to Voodoo as one of the biggest “before/after” moments in gaming: Quake/Quake 2, Unreal, Heretic 2, NOLF, Carmageddon, and others suddenly ran smoother, at much higher resolutions, with colored lights, transparency, and special effects.
• Several describe specific “wow” moments: transparent water in Quake/Team Fortress maps like 2Fort4, Unreal’s lighting and water, and Quake 2 on Glide feeling nearly latency‑free.
• Others argue the opposite aesthetically: they preferred the gritty, pixelated look of software renderers over bilinear‑filtered “muddy” GLQuake textures, and note passthrough image quality loss.

Latency, Bandwidth, and Competitive Advantage

• Multiple stories highlight how early 3D cards and early broadband (or campus OC‑level links) gave massive competitive advantages in online games like Quake, Tribes, Starsiege, and Subspace.
• Players reminisce about high‑ping vs low‑ping dynamics, client‑side prediction glitches, and how some games’ mechanics implicitly assumed or even exploited lag.

Hardware Evolution and Market Shifts

• Commenters contrast compact, low‑power Voodoo cards with today’s large, high‑wattage GPUs and oversized coolers, lamenting case fit and SFF constraints.
• There is debate over whether more GPUs are now sold for ML than for graphics: some say data‑center GPUs dominate vendor revenue, others emphasize that in unit terms gaming/PC GPUs still vastly outnumber ML parts.
• Nostalgic retrospectives cover the rapid late‑90s turnover in GPU vendors, and how 3dfx went from dominant to bankrupt in a few years while NVIDIA has held a leading position for decades.

Why 3dfx Failed (per Discussion)

• The article’s author summarizes: 3dfx alienated OEM board partners by entering the board business, then shipped slightly slower, similarly priced products, struggled with production, and couldn’t get next‑gen hardware out fast enough.
• Some see the Sega Dreamcast contract fiasco and Glide‑centrism as additional strategic missteps; others think the core failure was simply execution on new chips amid fast‑moving competition.

Nostalgia and Retro Builds

• Numerous posts share first‑GPU stories (Voodoo, Banshee, TNT2, Riva, Matrox), retro LANs, dual‑Celeron overclocking, and even current efforts to keep Voodoo cards alive in arcade cabinets or retro PCs.
• Several note that no later upgrade—SSD, modern GPUs, or even ray tracing—has matched the subjective shock of the first 3dfx jump, with VR cited as the closest modern analogue.