Graphics Tech startup from the 90s

[Stoly]

Does anyone remember a tech startup that was supposed to take over the big three? 3dfx, ATI (now AMD) and nvidia back in the 90s?

They ended up being vaporware, never releasing a working product. Can't remember the name.

Actually, I think there were 2 startups.

 

[Grimlakin]

Man there were several back in the day. I remember one of the first all in one 2d/3d cards... it wasn't matrox.. who was it.. I think it started with a W but my brain is having issues remembering as it wasn't mine. It had like 8 meg of vram on it.

Some digging makes be believe it was the S3 Virge.

As far as the company I bet you're thinking of Silicon Graphics.

 

[Dan_D]

S3 predated the GPU wars entirely. Though they did participate with the S3 Virge. Back then everyone had 2D/3D accelerators but really lost out to the VooDoo 1 and later VooDoo 2, which were dedicated 3D cards but were so much faster when utilizing the Glide API. The only thing else like it was the NEC Power VR. For 2D/3D cards you had FireGL, Matrox, ATi, and I think STB had its own or used something from Cirrus Logic, etc.

The only startup I can recall that was poised to take on anyone was ArtX which ATi purchased which led to the creation of the Radeon 9700 Pro. But by then 3DFX was gone and ATi's market share still barely existed. It was Radeon that put them on the map. During those days ATi had its basic bitch 2D chips in every server and workstation and it served as integrated graphics in tons of stuff. All their own 3D accelerators prior to the Radeon series weren't really all that competitive.

There was no "Big 3" by that point. There was NVIDIA, and ATi was just kind of there. I think the "Big 3" that people think of is ATi, 3DFX and NVIDIA but that's not really how it was. Yes they all existed at that time. ATi had volume with ancient 2D only video chips that had a massive OEM presence. In the 3D accelerator world it was always just 3DFX and NVIDIA by the late days of the Riva TNT2 Ultra and the GeForce 256. ATi's Rage Fury Maxx was interesting, but not really all that competitive.

There may have been some startups announced but nothing ever came of any of them.

 

[MadMummy76]

S3 had some decent attempts with the Savage3D and later Savage4 and maybe Savage2000 models.

 

[Grimlakin]

S3 had some decent attempts with the Savage3D and later Savage4 and maybe Savage2000 models.

I knew a guy back then that would buy each iteration after the first of that line and simply rebox the old one and return it as defective. Every time... and the resellers never blinked.. it was shady as eff...

 

[Brent_Justice]

You could be thinking of the Kyro and Kyro II tile-based rendering GPUs, PowerVR/ST. It was supposed to revolutionize how games were rendered.

 

[Space_Ranger]

Matrox was supposed to have some killer card that NEVER came to be if I remember correctly..

 

[Dan_D]

You could be thinking of the Kyro and Kyro II tile-based rendering GPUs, PowerVR/ST. It was supposed to revolutionize how games were rendered.

I completely forgot about those. I think I only ever saw one or two of those cards in person.

Matrox was supposed to have some killer card that NEVER came to be if I remember correctly..

I vaguely remember something like that.

 

[Stoly]

It was Bitboys Oy and Gigapixel I recall they were both supposed to take the graphics market by storm and obliterate everything else. None of them delivered

Bitboys ended up with AMD and Gigapixel was aquired by 3dfx. In 3dfx case, its argued that buying Gigapixel was a bad move and contributed to 3dfx demise.

 

[Grimlakin]

It was Bitboys Oy and Gigapixel I recall they were both supposed to take the graphics market by storm and obliterate everything else. None of them delivered

Bitboys ended up with AMD and Gigapixel was aquired by 3dfx. In 3dfx case, its argued that buying Gigapixel was a bad move and contributed to 3dfx demise.

Going by memory it was the fact the 3dfx stopped allowing partner cards altogether, and tried to control the full production flow and effectively having inventory bankrupted them because they planned on having more sales than materialized.

But that's going by memory.

 

[Stoly]

Going by memory it was the fact the 3dfx stopped allowing partner cards altogether, and tried to control the full production flow and effectively having inventory bankrupted them because they planned on having more sales than materialized.

But that's going by memory.

There was that, but AFAIK the technology they acquired from Gigapixel, was too little too late. So they didn't have the chance to implement the technology in 3dfx designs. Funny thing, by the time nvidia acquired 3dfx technologies they were already behind so much that nvidia didn't use any of it. About the only thing nvidia used is SLI and only by name.

 

[MadMummy76]

Matrox was supposed to have some killer card that NEVER came to be if I remember correctly..

Yeah, the Matrox Parhelia if I remember the name correctly. Everyone was excited for it, but then it was either a dud or never even released, I don't remember which.

 

[Space_Ranger]

Yeah, the Matrox Parhelia if I remember the name correctly. Everyone was excited for it, but then it was either a dud or never even released, I don't remember which.

That was the name of the chip.. Yeah.. I think it was released and was a huge flop..

 

[Stoly]

Yeah, the Matrox Parhelia if I remember the name correctly. Everyone was excited for it, but then it was either a dud or never even released, I don't remember which.

yup it was a flop, I think it was the last matrox card aimed at gaming. It was the mother of multimonitor gaming. which actually was the route Matrox took. with cards aimed at video walls mutimonitor cards

 

[Dan_D]

Going by memory it was the fact the 3dfx stopped allowing partner cards altogether, and tried to control the full production flow and effectively having inventory bankrupted them because they planned on having more sales than materialized.

But that's going by memory.

Buying STB and making their own cards (by extension getting rid of AIB partners) was what really did them in. Even then, their last hurrah which never came out was an inelegant, brute force solution which as I recall wouldn't have saved them. By that point, I think the GeForce 256 and GeForce 2 GTS 32MB/64MB cards were too far ahead.

 

[SamMaster]

You could be thinking of the Kyro and Kyro II tile-based rendering GPUs, PowerVR/ST. It was supposed to revolutionize how games were rendered.

I had one of those at one point! Was a good price to performance card.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

yup it was a flop, I think it was the last matrox card aimed at gaming. It was the mother of multimonitor gaming. which actually was the route Matrox took. with cards aimed at video walls mutimonitor cards

I think it's cool they offer solutions from Nvidia, AMD, and Intel ARC.

IIRC Bitboys was the first time I read the term vaporware.

 

[511]

this thread feels ancient

 

[Stoly]

I think it's cool they offer solutions from Nvidia, AMD, and Intel ARC.

IIRC Bitboys was the first time I read the term vaporware.

Really? Ever heard of Duke Nukem Forever?

AFAIK Matrox cards are based on AMD chips. I recall reading that somewhere.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

It's been so long...

My memory is not so good anymore. I thought the Bitboys hardware delays preceded everyone getting antsy about Duke not being out yet?