3D Chronicles, Part I: 1995-1997

NVIDIA on the alert

We should also mention the most serious rival of 3Dfx - RIVA 128, which was then upgraded to RIVA 128zx. The title of the new product from NVIDIA stands for Realtime Interactive Video and Animation. Unlike its competitors, its 3D section was more than decent as far as its characteristics were concerned. 4 MB or 8 MB (for RIVA 128zx with 250MHz RAMDAC and AGP 2x) of fast SDRAM / SGRAM memory helped intensify data exchange with a GPU. But the key peculiarity lied in another thing. The key innovation was in processing two pixels per cycle - quite a logical move, considering that such computations can be distributed. It allowed RIVA 128 to reach the unprecedented peak fill rate of 100 million pixels per second (for comparison, ATI Radeon X850 XT PE has the fill rate of 9.28 billion pixels per second).

ASUS 3DExPlorer V3000 - a popular modification of RIVA 128 with the state-of-the-art AGP bus.

Compared to 50 millions in Voodoo Graphics, NVIDIA achievements looked like a step into a new dimension. However, if the promotion was based on the last part of the phrase, the key word here was "seemed". A very weak OpenGL driver, limited compatibility with applications, as well as incorrect operation did their part - computing potential was strangled by these factors. Even performance in a few fully supported applications was often lower than that a Voodoo card could offer. Besides, RIVA 128 had higher CPU requirements: it required Intel Pentium II for good performance.

STB Velocity 128

That was why only few manufacturers of ready cards decided to base their products on the new NVIDIA solution. For example, RIVA 128/128zx cards were mostly represented by ASUSTeK V3000 and Diamond Multimedia Viper V330 on the Russian market.

Thus, even though Voodoo Graphics was not the most advanced product by the end of 1997, a good combination of its features and API Glide ensured prosperity of 3Dfx in 1997 as well. It laid significant groundwork for several years in advance. Nevertheless, even the market leader failed to come up with a sterling 2D/3D product.

Spoil after you spin

Voodoo Rush was the first attempt of 3Dfx to combine 2D and 3D components on a single card: the PCB contained Voodoo Graphics chips as well as a separate chip for 2D graphics output. You might have already guessed that it was a trojan approach: the 2D component of mediocre quality was actively using card's resources, which were also accessible to Voodoo Graphics. It certainly affected the overall performance of this solution, which was lower than in a regular daughter card without this doubtful "makeweight". Moreover, combining 2D and 3D sections required to overhaul the driver. It resulted in limited compatibility of Voodoo Rush with applications written for Voodoo Graphics. No wonder that the product was not popular. So the task of designing an all-purpose multimedia product responsible for video output to a display remained a pressing issue.

3Dfx's failed attempt to add 2D graphics from Alliance Semiconductor to Voodoo Graphics. The card was made by InnoVision Multimedia.

How this problem was solved and whether it was solved in 1998-1999 will be covered in the next article. It will also dwell on 3Dfx dynamics that had started so well in 1996-1997. Besides, we'll see how the grands of 2D cards (ATI, Matrox, and S3) adapted to the 3D market.

And here is a complete table of old GPUs specifications.