I just bought a VooDoo 4 and now I hear that 3Dfx is selling to Nvidia (I don't know the whole story, so correct my if I'm wrong). Does anyone know anything about what 3Dfx / NVidia plans to do about future mac driver updates. Will the drivers be updated to support OSX?

Its a great card, I'd hate to see it forgotten.

[wild9]

Yeah! I'm interested in this too! With all the commotion over which companies will offer a Cube graphics card, which companies will offer drivers for OS X and now which companies are still around it's getting a bit confusing!

Over at http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/archives/...00.html#S10941
Brian Burke of Nvidia says in response to a question about whether Nvidia will continue to sell Mac Voodoo cards, "The remaining 3dfx entity is responsible for their current product lines and retail channel. It is best to check those details with 3dfx management. I do not know their plans. NVIDIA is not announcing any future plans related to the Macintosh market at this time. "

Nvidia seems to be passing the buck regarding current products, even though 3Dfx has stated their intent to dissolve following the sale of their assets. So it doesn't look good.

If 3dfx does decide to go out of business after the sale, AND nVidia is looking into getting into the Mac market (often rumored but yet to be announced), then I would think nVidia would be stupid NOT putting out updated drivers, even if they are beta or unofficial drivers (like the voodoo3 drivers were). Reason being that if I need to get a new video card for my mac to run OS X, 6 months after buying my 4500, there's not a chance in hell I'll get an nVidia product. I don't take forced upgrades well, and I'm sure a lot of other owners are the same way.

[denim]

Not to act as an nVidea apologist, but the 3dfx cards are not their product. If they decide to support the cards at all, I'd be (pleasantly) surprised. I'm already shocked that 3dfx is going away, and I feel bad for those people who, unlike me, could actually afford to buy the cards when they finally came out, but them's the breaks. You can't be sure that things will hold together. nVidea could be a good sport about it and generate a lot of good customer feeling, but for them to write (or just finish) a major new driver for someone else's hardware... is asking a lot, IMHO.

I understand now that 3dfx was known to be having financial trouble. I hadn't known that before. What it looks like is that those people who bought the cards are stuck. You might try begging nVidea to produce new drivers, but they're not bound to listen. They aren't merging with 3dfx, they're not buying 3dfx en toto: they're just buying some of 3dfx's assets if I understand correctly. Can you say, "fire sale"? How 'bout "garage sale"?

From what MacNN is reporting, they're thinking about hiring 100 people from 3dfx. That means that those people wouldn't already be working for them. 3dfx would continue to exist for a short time, I guess. It sounds like 3dfx has decided to sell out, take the money from that, and split. It's not even bankrupcy, is it? They've simply decided, for some reason, to dissolve?

[This message has been edited by denim (edited 12-18-2000).]

[bygimis]

With some luck 3dfx will open source their drivers - then the Linux / Darwin / Mac community might produce some drivers...

NVidia will introduce their line of products for the Macintosh in MacWorld San Francisco next month. Wait and see.

[mrpuny]

Originally posted by bygimis:
With some luck 3dfx will open source their drivers - then the Linux / Darwin / Mac community might produce some drivers...

They already have - check out
http://linux.3dfx.com

[mrpuny]

Originally posted by bygimis:
With some luck 3dfx will open source their drivers - then the Linux / Darwin / Mac community might produce some drivers...

They already have - check out
http://linux.3dfx.com