Among the top stories at games.macnn.com:

3dfx Interactive has announced that they plan to abandon the manufacturing of graphics cards for desktop computers. Instead, the company plans to return to a model of selling their chips to third-party manufacturers who will sell the graphics cards to consumers, according to CNN Financial Network. This could prove disasterous for Mac users who have just begun to enjoy the benefits of Mac-specific products from 3dfx Interactive after less-than-adequate results from third-party manufacturers in the past.

[Ruddigger]

D'oh

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-Ruddigger
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Have you had your
gigaflop today?

[dviant]

From xlr8yourmac.com, Lisa Grubbs (3dfx) replies to Mikes questions:

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" Hi from Las Vegas Mike,

(Mike) does this mean any impacts on the mac products?

No.

(Mike) or simply getting another company to build the boards?

Yes.

(Mike) Just wondering how this affects current and future mac products. (esp. current models)

Allow me to explain.

Our business strategy is changing. As I stated to Chris this morning, we are reinventing ourselves. We are shifting from a AIB manufacturer to a fabless chip and AIB model. In addition to ASIC sales, we will be outsourcing our board manufacturing retaining the Voodoo brand in the retail channel. The purpose is to lower costs and improve flexibility. We are implementing strict fiscal controls that will increase our profits and grow our bottom line.

Hope that helps,
lg"

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Just trying to alleviate the fears that everyone (including myself) had when this was announced. From the response above they actually aren't returning to the previous 3dfx model. They still will have 3dfx Voodoo boards like we have now, just outsourcing the manufacturing.

[Jsnuff1]

Dosent bother me, i'm quite happy with my radeon

[mac freak]

And once nVidia comes to the Mac side (maybe even at MWSF), there will no longer be any need for 3dfx.

And, of course, we have the Radeon... although only the low-end 32MB version

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Be Happy.

[gwalrath]

The article title here and on main page is misleading - they are not abandoning chip production, they're just not going to make boards anymore. Quite a difference.

See http://cnnfn.cnn.com/2000/11/14/technology/3dfx/

[seanyepez]

3dfx can leave the Mac and it won't be missed at all. With prettier alternatives from ATi (for FSAA-enabled graphics cards), and sheer FPS from nVidia, 3dfx has no market.

It sickens me how people know the 3dfx brand and ask for "Voodoo" at stores. I don't want consumers buying crappy products from 3dfx because of their brand.

I do think 3dfx will go bankrupt. Leave the market for nVidia and ATi, 3dfx!

Glide is old. RAVE, Direct3D, and OpenGL is the future.

[blizzard]

Perhaps this would be why 3dfx has publicly moved away from the aged Glide API and announced support for OpenGL? Regardless of what happens to 3dfx, they are pioneers in the 3D market and still have a strong case for SLI image processing - I would hope that they can capitalize soon, or, as people have said before, they run the risk of disappearing. The more competition you can get in a market, the better, so I'm afraid I don't understand why people want 3dfx to go bankrupt just because their current video card isn't quite up to par with the offerings of ATi and nVidia. Remember when we were stuck with the RAGE 128, people wanted ATi to go under so that we'd be left with 3dfx and nVidia? Phew...talk about a rough audience...

[Leonard]

Good ridence I say, they can't even create a GPU as fast as a Radeon. It takes 2 VSA-100 chips to keep up to a Radeon. Their technology is old and out-dated.

I'd rather see a graphics card with an Nvidia GPU on it.