3dfx Interactive was a company which specialized in the manufacturing of cutting-edge 3D graphics processing units and, later, graphics cards. After dominating the field for several years in the late 1990s, by the end of 2000 it underwent one of the most high-profile demises in the history of the PC industry. It was headquartered in San Jose, California until, on the verge of bankruptcy, its intellectual assets (and many employees) were acquired by its rival, NVIDIA Corporation. Image File history File links 3dfx logo File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... The rewrite of this article is being devised at Talk:3D computer graphics/Temp. ... GeForce 6600GT (NV43) GPU Radeon 9800 Pro (R350) GPU A Graphics Processing Unit or GPU (also occasionally called Visual Processing Unit or VPU) is the microprocessor of a graphics card (or graphics accelerator) for a personal computer or game console. ... A graphics card, video card, v card, video board, video display board, display adapter, video adapter, or graphics adapter [1] is a component of a computer which is designed to convert a logical representation of an image stored in memory to a signal that can be used as input for... The 1990s refers to the years 1990 to 1999; the last decade of the 20th Century, but in an economical sense The Nineties is often considered to span from the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 to the September 11 attacks in 2001. ... This article is about the year 2000. ... The tower of a personal computer. ... City nickname: Capital of Silicon Valley Official website: http://www. ... NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) is a major supplier of graphics processors (graphics processing units, GPUs), graphics cards, and media and communications devices for PCs and game consoles (Xbox). ...

Early history

An early version of 3dfx logo. The name was written with a capital 'D' at the time.

Founded in 1994, 3dfx released its famous Voodoo Graphics chip in 1996. The company only manufactured the chips and some "reference boards", and initially did not sell any product to consumers; rather, it acted as an OEM supplier for graphics card companies, who designed, manufactured, marketed, and sold their own graphics cards which included the Voodoo. Image File history File links The older 3Dfx-logo. ... Image File history File links The older 3Dfx-logo. ... 1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International year of the Family. ... 1996 (MCMXCVI) is a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ... An original equipment manufacturer (frequently abbreviated OEM) is a company that builds products or components that are used in products sold by another company (often called a value-added reseller, or VAR.) An OEM will typically build to order based on designs of the VAR. For example, a hard drive...

After a fortuitous drop in EDO RAM prices due to the volatile DRAM market, Voodoo Graphics cards became feasible for the consumer PC market. The Voodoo was the first 3D accelerator that actually accelerated graphics performance; most systems of the era performed no better, if not worse, than software rendering engines. DRAM is a type of random access memory that stores each bit of data in a separate capacitor. ... A screenshot of computer software in action. ...

The original Voodoo Graphics, with pass-through connector.

The Voodoo 1, as the Voodoo Graphics would be later known, was notable for its lack of an onboard VGA controller. This meant a Voodoo equipped PC still required a separate VGA graphics card. The Voodoo 1 occupied a separate PCI slot and only kicked in when the host PC ran a 3D game that had been programmed to use the Voodoo. A passthrough VGA cable daisy-chained the VGA card to the Voodoo 1, and then out to the monitor. Although this was a cumbersome arrangement, hardcore PC gamers were willing to put up with it to gain what was (then) the ultimate in 3D graphics. ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (1067x886, 196 KB) Summary A Diamond Monster 3D Voodoo Graphics add-in card with pass-through connector. ... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (1067x886, 196 KB) Summary A Diamond Monster 3D Voodoo Graphics add-in card with pass-through connector. ... Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a computer display standard first marketed in 1987 by IBM. VGA belongs to a family of earlier IBM video standards and largely remains backward compatible with them. ... A graphics card, video card, v card, video board, video display board, display adapter, video adapter, or graphics adapter [1] is a component of a computer which is designed to convert a logical representation of an image stored in memory to a signal that can be used as input for... For other meanings of PCI, see PCI (disambiguation). ... The elementary meaning of daisy chain is a garland created from the daisy flower, generally as a childrens game. ...

The Voodoo 1's main competition was PowerVR and Rendition. PowerVR produced a 3D add-on card, whereas Rendition offered an integrated (3D+VGA) single-chip solution. Neither competitor achieved the Voodoo 1's popularity among gamers and developers. PowerVR is a subsidiary of Imagination Technologies, a unique technology they developed for the display of 3D scenes and a series of 3D accelerators based on that technology which although no longer popular in desktop PCs are en route to powering more devices than any other graphics provider. ... Rendition was a maker of 3D graphics chipsets in the mid- to late-90s. ...

Glide driver

In order to ensure better performance, 3dfx developed the proprietary Glide API for game developers to use while writing their 3D games. Glide exposed the Voodoo's internal hardware to application programmers directly; it was essentially a small subset of OpenGL that could be implemented in hardware. This strategy differed from that of other 3D APIs of the era (Direct3D, OpenGL, and QuickDraw 3D), which all hid low-level hardware behind an "abstraction layer," with the goal of providing application developers a standard, hardware-neutral interface. Glide was a proprietary 3D graphics API developed by 3dfx used on their Voodoo graphics cards. ... A game developer is a person or business involved in game development, the process of designing and creating games. ... OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a specification defining a cross-language cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 3D computer graphics (and 2D computer graphics as well). ... API redirects here. ... Direct3D is part of Microsofts DirectX API. Direct3D is only for use in Microsofts various Windows operating systems (Windows 95 and above) and, although in a quite different version, in the Xbox. ... OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a specification defining a cross-language cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 3D computer graphics (and 2D computer graphics as well). ... QuickDraw 3D, or QD3D for short, is a 3D graphics API developed by Apple Computer, originally for their Macintosh computers, but delivered as a cross-platform system. ...

The ostensible advantage of an abstraction layer is that game developers save programming effort by writing their 3D rendering code one time, for a single API, and the abstraction layer takes care of managing all the differences in all the hardware cards available to consumers. This advantage is still in place today. However, in the early days of the 3D graphics card, Direct3D and OpenGL were less mature than today, and computers were much slower and had less memory. The abstraction layers' overhead crippled performance in practice. 3dfx had therefore created a strong advantage for itself by aggressively promoting Glide, which was actually implemented in hardware, and therefore effectively eliminated the speed and memory problems of an abstraction layer. Although a full OpenGL library was available for the Voodoo, most developers were glad to spend extra programmer time to support Glide instead, so their games would run faster and look better.

The killer application for the Voodoo was the game Quake, by id Software for which 3dfx were able to produce a stripped-down version of OpenGL - known as MiniGL - which supported just enough functionality to make the game run. A killer application (commonly shortened to killer app) is a computer program that is so useful that people will buy a particular computer hardware, gaming console, and/or an operating system simply to run that program. ... Zombies attacking the player. ... id Software is a computer game developer based in Mesquite, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. ... MiniGL is a cut-down version of the OpenGL 3D graphics API. It was developed by id Software in order to provide a cross-platform hardware abstraction layer for their Quake series games, the first to directly support acceleration on graphics cards. ...

By 1999 and onwards, the increasing usability of Direct3D and OpenGL would make Glide obsolete. Direct3D is part of Microsofts DirectX API. Direct3D is only for use in Microsofts various Windows operating systems (Windows 95 and above) and, although in a quite different version, in the Xbox. ... OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a specification defining a cross-language cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 3D computer graphics (and 2D computer graphics as well). ...

Voodoo Rush

In August 1997, 3dfx released the Voodoo Rush chipset, combining a Voodoo chip with a 2D chip from Alliance Semiconductor that lay on the same circuit board, eliminating the need for a separate VGA card. Unfortunately it performed worse than the Voodoo 1, primarily because the 2D and 3D cores shared the same memory interface and couldn't master the PCI bus correctly, incurring a 10% performance hit. Later versions released by Hercules had 8MB RAM and a 10% higher clock speed to close the performance gap, but in the marketplace the damage had already been done. A rare, third version was produced which featured a Cirrus Logic 2D chip instead of the earlier model. This version fixed the PCI bus collisions and memory interface problems, but there was little interest from graphics board manufacturers and only a few hundred units (if even that) were produced before the Rush was finally discontinued in early 1998. 1997 (MCMXCVII) is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... For other meanings of PCI, see PCI (disambiguation). ... Hercules Computer Technology, Inc. ... Cirrus Logic (NASDAQ: CRUS) is a fabless semiconductor supplier specializing in analog, mixed-signal, and DSP chips. ...

Voodoo 2

In 1998, 3dfx released Voodoo's successor, the popular Voodoo 2. The Voodoo 2 was architecturally similar, but the basic board configuration added a second texturing unit, allowing two textures to be drawn in a single pass. The Voodoo 2 also had a faster clock rate (90MHz), a wider memory bus (192-bit, compared to Voodoo's 128-bit), and support for larger amounts of memory (up to 8MB texture / 4MB frame buffer compared to the Voodoo's 4MB texture / 2MB frame buffer.) A single Voodoo 2 board could display a maximum resolution of 800×600 with higher quality textures. 1998 (MCMXCVIII) is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... Voodoo 2 - Wikipedia /**/ @import /skins/monobook/IE50Fixes. ... The clock rate is the fundamental rate in cycles per second, measured in hertz, at which a [[computer]] performs its most basic operations such as adding two numbers or transferring a value from one processor register to another. ...

A problem with the Voodoo 2 was the fact that it required three chips and a separate VGA graphics card, whereas new competing 3D products, such as the ATI Rage Pro, NVIDIA RIVA 128, and Rendition Verite 2200, were single-chip products.

SLI

The Voodoo 2 introduced Scan-Line Interleave (SLI) to the gaming market. In SLI mode, two Voodoo 2 boards were connected together, each drawing half the scanlines of the screen. For the price of a second Voodoo 2 board, users could essentially double their 3D throughput. A welcome side effect of SLI mode was an increase in the highest supported resolution, up to 1024x768. Scalable Link Interface (SLI) is a method for linking two (or possibly more) video cards together to produce a single output. ...

The Voodoo 2 SLI scheme was considered the pinnacle of gaming performance at the time. SLI was not used in any subsequent 3dfx board designs. Later, in 2004, SLI technology was reintroduced by nVidia (which now owns 3dfx's intellectual property) in their GeForce line. One may add a second card and double some aspects of 3D rendering. 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Voodoo Banshee

Near the end of 1998, 3dfx released the Voodoo Banshee, which used a lower price to aim at a more mainstream consumer market. 1998 (MCMXCVIII) is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ...

A single-chip solution, the Banshee was basically a legacy VGA core and part of a Voodoo 2 (one Texture Mapping Unit), clocked slightly faster than the Voodoo 2. The Banshee's single-chip form factor dictated a 128-bit memory bus, like the first Voodoo. Performance wise, the Banshee was a mixed bag. In scenes which used multiple textures per polygon, the Voodoo 2 was substantially faster, due to the 2nd TMU. In scenes dominated by single-textured polygons, though, the Banshee would match (or even slightly exceed) the Voodoo 2. While it was not a hit on the scale of the Voodoo 1 or 2, the Banshee sold a respectable number of units, although 3dfx started loosing some market share to Nvidia's RIVA TNT. Spherical texture mapping Texture mapping is a method of adding realism to a computer-generated graphic. ... Look up Polygon in Wiktionary, the free dictionary For other use please see Polygon (disambiguation) A polygon (literally many angle, see Wiktionary for the etymology) is a closed planar path composed of a finite number of sequential line segments. ... The RIVA TNT (For TwiN Texel) was a 3D graphics chipset manufactured by NVIDIA. It was released in late 1998 and cemented NVIDIAs reputation as the chief rival of then industry leader 3dfx. ...

Sega Dreamcast

In 1997, 3dfx was working with Sega to develop Sega's next video game console. The process involved two competing designs: a unit called "Katana" being developed in Japan using NEC and VideoLogic technology vs. the "Blackbelt", a system designed in America using a GPU from 3dfx. This deal had the potential to get 3dfx's foot in the home console door, provided the Blackbelt became the console that would become the Dreamcast. Unfortunately for 3dfx, Sega chose the NEC solution. 3dfx sued Sega for breach of contract when the Katana was chosen, accusing Sega of starting the deal in bad faith to take 3dfx technology, and eventually the case was settled out of court; but the failure of the Blackbelt was 3dfx's own doing. 1997 (MCMXCVII) is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Nintendo GameCube is an example of a current generation video game console. ... Sega Dreamcast The Sega Dreamcast (Japanese: ドリームキャスト; code-named Katana during development) was Segas last video game console. ...

When 3dfx declared its Initial Public Offering (IPO) in April 1997, it made the mistake of revealing every detail of the contract with Sega. By law, when a company files an IPO in the United States, it has to make public all details of its business and financial situation, but sensitive information can be kept secret, so long as it does not materially affect the company's statement of its financial position and outlook. Sega had been keeping the development of its next-gen console secret during this competition, and was outraged when 3dfx publicly laid out its deal with Sega over the new system in the IPO; Sega quickly quashed the Blackbelt and used the Katana as the model of the Dreamcast. In financial markets, an initial public offering (IPO) is the first sale of a companys common shares to public investors. ... 1997 (MCMXCVII) is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Decline

In early 1998, 3dfx embarked on its "Rampage" development project, which was to be a new graphics card that would take two years to develop, and would supposedly be several years ahead of the competition once it debuted. The company hired hardware and software teams in Austin, Texas to develop 2D and 3D Windows device drivers for Rampage in the summer of 1998. The hardware team in Austin initially focused on Rampage, but then worked on Transformation and Lighting (T&L) engines and on MPEG decoder technology. (Later, these technologies were part of the NVidia asset purchase in December 2000.) 1998 (MCMXCVIII) is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... Downtown Austin City nickname: Live Music Capital of the World Official website: www. ... A device driver, often called a driver for short, is a computer program that enables another program, typically, an operating system (OS) (e. ... This article is about the year 2000. ...

Voodoo 3 and strategy shift

In mid-1999 the Voodoo 3 was released, which was at heart a dual-core Voodoo 2 with Banshee's 2D core. (Codenamed "Avenger", it was originally supposed to be named Banshee 2 but Voodoo 3 was adopted instead since the Voodoo brand had superior recognition.) It was a compelling solution, since an SLI-configured Voodoo 2 took up three slots, including the 2D card. However, due to the Voodoo 3's design legacy, it lacked support for several technologies that its competitors, ATI Technologies, Matrox and NVIDIA, had since integrated, most notably 32-bit color support and textures greater than 256*256 in size. ATI Technologies Inc. ... Matrox Electronic Systems Ltd is a Canadian company based in Dorval, Quebec, which produces video card components and equipment for personal computers. ... NVIDIA Corporation NASDAQ: NVDA is a major supplier of graphics processors (graphics processing units, GPUs), graphics cards, and media and communications devices for PCs and game consoles such as the original Xbox and the new upcoming next generation Playstation 3. ...

3dfx executed a major strategy change just prior to the launch of Voodoo 3 by purchasing STB Systems, which was one of the larger graphics card manufacturers at the time; the intent was for 3dfx to start manufacturing, marketing, and selling its own graphics cards, rather than functioning only as an OEM supplier. This alienated 3dfx's OEM customers, all of whom chose to switch, and source their 3D chips from other manufacturers, rather than do business with a company who was their direct competitor at retail. An original equipment manufacturer (frequently abbreviated OEM) is a company that builds products or components that are used in products sold by another company (often called a value-added reseller, or VAR.) An OEM will typically build to order based on designs of the VAR. For example, a hard drive...

This strategy change was one of the main contributors to 3dfx's downfall; the company did not sell any Voodoo 3, 4, or 5 chips to third party manufacturers. The company was also presumably distracted by the need to focus both on the retail market as well as the OEM market, selling cards to computer manufacturers. The latter was hard-won business, but provided a steady income to fund subsequent development. A significant requirement of the OEM business was the ability to consistently produce new products on the 6 month product refresh cycle the computer manufacturers required; 3dfx did not have the methodology nor the mindset to the focus on this business model. In the end, 3dfx opted to focus on the retail business using its own manufactured and branded products. The Voodoo 3 sold relatively well, but disappointingly compared to the first two models and 3dfx gave up the market leadership to Nvidia's RIVA TNT2 and then the GeForce 256. The RIVA TNT2 was a 3D graphics chip manufactured by NVIDIA starting in early 1999. ... The GeForce 256 (codenamed NV10), often known simply as the GeForce, was the first of NVIDIAs GeForce product-line. ...

Voodoo 4 and 5

The company's next (and as it would turn out, final) product was code-named Napalm. Originally, this was just a Voodoo 3 modified to support newer technologies and higher clock speeds, with performance estimated to be around the level of the NVidia TNT2. However, Napalm was delayed, and in the meantime NVidia brought out their landmark GeForce chip, which shifted even more of the computational work from the CPU to the graphics chip. Napalm would have been unable to compete with GeForce, so it was redesigned to support multiple chip configurations, like the Voodoo 2 had. The end-product was named VSA-100, which stood for Voodoo Scalable Architecture. The RIVA TNT2 was a 3D graphics chip manufactured by NVIDIA starting in early 1999. ... GeForce is a brand of PC graphics chipsets designed by NVIDIA. The first GeForce products were designed and marketed for the high-margin gamer community of computer users, but later product releases expanded the line to cover all tiers of the graphics market, from low-end to high-end. ...

The two initial products were the Voodoo 4 4500 (single chip) and the Voodoo 5 5500 (dual chip), with a further two parts, the Voodoo 5 5000 (dual chip, but with a smaller frame buffer) and the Voodoo 5 6000 (quad chip) due to be launched later. But by the time the VSA-100 based cards made it to the market, the second-generation GeForce cards had arrived, which offered substantially better performance. By this point ATI had also released their Radeon line, which performed competitively with the GeForce 2 line. The only real advantage the Voodoo 5 5500 had over the GeForce 2 GTS or Radeon was that it had a better anti-aliasing implementation, and didn't lose as much performance when antialiasing was enabled. Voodoo 4 4500 was beaten in almost all areas by the Geforce 2 MX — a low-cost board sold mostly as an OEM part for computer manufacturers — and Radeon VE. The Voodoo5 5500 was the last, most powerful graphics card 3dfx ever released. ... Radeon is a brand of graphics processing units (GPU) that has been manufactured by ATI Technologies since 2000. ... The GeForce 2 (codenamed NV15) was the second generation of GeForce graphics cards by NVIDIA Corporation. ... In digital signal processing, anti-aliasing is the technique of minimizing aliasing when representing a high-resolution signal at a lower resolution. ...

The Voodoo 5 6000 never got to the market, due to a severe bug resulting in data corruption on the AGP bus on certain boards, and was limited to AGP 2x, which would have prevented its use on the then-new Pentium 4 motherboards. Later tests proved that while the Voodoo 5 6000 would have been able to outperform the GeForce 2 GTS, it would have been outperformed by the GeForce 2 Ultra and the GeForce 3. The Voodoo 5 5000 never got launched either, as the smaller frame buffer didn't significantly reduce cost over the Voodoo 5 5500. The Voodoo5 5500 was the last, most powerful graphics card 3dfx ever released. ... Accelerated Graphics Port A Gateway Protocol Abnormal Geopressure Prediction Advanced Glass Products Advanced Graphics Processor Agencia Postal (Spanish: postal sub-agency) AGRI Grain Power Project Agricultural Property Management Regulation Aircraft Grounded for Parts Algal Growth Potential Alpha1-Acid Glycoprotein Analysis Geometry Processor Antisymmetrized Geminal Product Aperture Grille Pitch (Sony CRTs... Pentium 4 (with hyper-threading) brand logo The Pentium 4 is a seventh-generation x86 architecture microprocessor produced by Intel and is their first all-new CPU design, called the NetBurst architecture, since the Pentium Pro of 1995. ... The framebuffer is a part of RAM in a computer allocated to hold the graphics information for one frame or picture. ...

Voodoo 4 was as much of a disaster as Voodoo Rush, and while Voodoo 5's sales were respectable, they were nowhere near as good as 3dfx needed. In late 2000, several of 3dfx's creditors decided to initiate bankruptcy proceedings. 3dfx would have had virtually no chance of successfully contesting these proceedings, and instead opted to be bought by NVidia, ceasing to exist as a company. Most of the design team working on "Rampage" (the successor to the VSA-100 line) was transferred to the team working on what has since become the GeForce FX series. Notice of closure stuck on the door of a computer store the day after its parent company, Granville Technology Group Ltd, declared bankruptcy (strictly, administration - see text) in the UK. Bankruptcy is a legally declared inability or impairment of ability of an individual or organization to pay their creditors. ... This article needs copyediting (checking for proper English spelling, grammar, usage, etc. ...

Cause for Decline

3dfx's decline is a matter of debate. Some attribute it to 3dfx lavishly spending on its employees and they reported spent $30,000 just on company lunches and other perks a month, even up to the last two weeks before it went under.

3dfx's fall is most often attributed to managerial prioritizing of research and development. When Greg Ballard became CEO of 3dfx in 1997, analysts marked that as a turning point since Ballard was a marketing guru but he failed to understand R&D in the graphics industry. His attempt to develop a single 2D/3D solution in the forms of the Voodoo Banshee and the Voodoo 3, even though that was 3dfx's weak point, ending up cost the company millions in sales and lost market share as well as diverting vital resources from the Rampage project. Voodoo cards were typically highly expensive, and left the mid and low end of the market to ATI and NVidia. NVidia chose short development cycles, whereas 3dfx pursued lengthy, ambitious development cycles, and NVidia and ATI cards eventually ended up with better overall performance, with Matrox holding the edge in image quality. Matrox Electronic Systems Ltd is a Canadian company based in Dorval, Quebec, which produces video card components and equipment for personal computers. ...

The "Rampage" project, which 3dfx put much effort into but never was able to bring to market, is said to have been technologically several years ahead of the competition. It debuted in 3dfx's labs in December of 2000, within weeks of the sale of 3dfx's assets to NVidia. The Rampage design team was using a pioneering synthesis tool set which was still under development as the design proceeded. This article is about the year 2000. ...

In addition, the company continued to vacillate on its commitment to the delayed Rampage project versus the need for short-term retail products, such as the Napalm/VSA-100. Because Rampage was oft-delayed — it had been scheduled to show at the 1998 Comdex — 2D and 3D driver software was up and running when it hit the lab. 1998 (MCMXCVIII) is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... COMDEX (Computer Dealers Exhibition) is a computer expo held in Las Vegas, Nevada each November. ...

However, the impending release of Rampage was too little, too late. The deal to "wind down" the company was less than 2 weeks from closure at that point. The history of and participants in the 3dfx/NVidia deal making can be read in the respective companies financial filings from that time period. The resolution of those arrangements (with respect to 3dfx's creditors and its bankruptcy proceedings) was still being worked through the courts as of September 2005. 2005 (MMV) is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

While some have speculated that shipping the "Rampage" might have saved 3dfx, the fact remains that the company never mastered the new concept of relatively cheap, high-performance dies with integrated 2D acceleration, which was to become the de facto standard of PC graphics cards very soon. The success of "Rampage" would not have simply depended upon raw performance, but also the cost of manufacturing, very much reflected in retail prices. According to documents from late in 3dfx's life, the "Rampage" core was evidently not too much more than a more powerful version of the VSA-100, with an entirely separate chip code-named "Sage" required for T&L and hardware shader operation; though to their credit, support for DDR-RAM was implemented. It remains unknown whether "Rampage" would have been a practical product, let alone enough to keep the company alive in the card industry. De facto is a Latin expression that means in fact or in practice. It is commonly used as opposed to de jure (meaning by law) when referring to matters of law or governance or technique (such as standards), that are found in the common experience as created or developed without...

Chip table

• 3D+VGA - products before the Banshee contain only a 3D core (no legacy/VGA)
• †The Voodoo5 6000 was originally intended to have a core and memory clock of 183MHz, but all of the prototypes running at 183MHz stopped working after a short while. The only still-working VooDoo5 6000s all run at 166MHz, and 3dfx had decided to drop the 183/183MHz idea anyway.
• *Shared by two processors; effectively 16MB VRAM. However, the Voodoo 5 5000 was never launched.
• **Shared by two processors; effectively 32MB VRAM.
• ***Shared by four processors; effectively 32MB VRAM.

See Also

• Graphics card
• Graphics processing unit

A graphics card, video card, v card, video board, video display board, display adapter, video adapter, or graphics adapter [1] is a component of a computer which is designed to convert a logical representation of an image stored in memory to a signal that can be used as input for... GeForce 6600GT (NV43) GPU Radeon 9800 Pro (R350) GPU A Graphics Processing Unit or GPU (also occasionally called Visual Processing Unit or VPU) is the microprocessor of a graphics card (or graphics accelerator) for a personal computer or game console. ...

External links

• Firingsquad article about the demise of 3dfx
• Overview of the history of 3D graphics chips
• Performance analysis of the unreleased Voodoo 5 6000
• Another analysis of the unreleased quad chip Voodoo 5 6000
• 3dfx Archive
• 3dfx's Dream is Cast Aside