The 3dfx Voodoo Turns 30 – interview with cofounder Ross Smith
19 hours ago
- 30 years ago, the Orchid Righteous 3D was the first card with 3dfx's Voodoo Graphics chipset, transforming PC gaming with graphics that surpassed consoles like PlayStation and N64.
- 3dfx was founded by ex-SGI engineers Ross Smith, Scott Sellers, and Gary Tarolli, focusing solely on gaming 3D acceleration, avoiding VGA compatibility to reduce cost and complexity.
- The Voodoo chipset used two separate chips (FBI for rasterization, TMU for texture mapping) and relied on the CPU for geometry processing, achieving high performance at low cost.
- 3dfx created the Glide API and provided emulators to game developers, winning support for games like Quake (via GLQuake), which became a killer app that sold millions of boards.
- The name 'Voodoo' was inspired by a New Orleans shop, initially resisted by the team but became iconic, helping differentiate the product.
- Competitors like Nvidia (NV1), S3, and PowerVR existed, but 3dfx's immediate mode rendering and game-focused approach gave it an edge, until Nvidia later acquired its assets.