Youtube: 3dfx Oral History Panel

[Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson]

Dear a.f.computers,

This interview is probably old hat here by now,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MghYhf-GhU

though I was only made aware of it now. They confirm that at some
point in time SGI did experiment with a 3D card for PCs [1], but it was
really high end, and therefore not a consumer product like the Voodoos.

It's also interesting that their in-house opinion about why 3Dfx failed
was that they started making cards, and not just chips, so they ended up
competing with their previous/current customers. Though they also
stress that it's very hard to guess what would have had to be different
for 3Dfx to be a long term success.

I guess the lasting effect of 3Dfx is that they demonstrated that cheap
real time 3D rendering was possible, and here we are today. [2]

[1] Something I wasn't aware of until it was mentioned here or in
comp.arch.

[2] Though it's debatable that the Nvidia monoculture is cheap.

--
Johann | email: invalid -> com | www.myrkraverk.com/blog/
I'm not from the Internet, I just work there. | twitter: @myrkraverk

[Scott Lurndal]

Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <joh...@myrkraverk.invalid> writes:
>Dear a.f.computers,
>
>This interview is probably old hat here by now,
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MghYhf-GhU
>
>though I was only made aware of it now. They confirm that at some
>point in time SGI did experiment with a 3D card for PCs [1], but it was
>really high end, and therefore not a consumer product like the Voodoos.

Indeed, it was high-end consumer grade graphics that killed SGI.