Maybe it should be nVidia vs. ATI now.
Aug 29 '00 (Updated Nov 25 '00)
Updated 11/25/00 Which is better nVidia or 3DFX? It all comes down to the way they actually marketed their hardware.
3DFX originally had the lead by being the first to introduce a low-cost high-performance 3D accelerator card for the PC. 3DFX's products were unmatched, no competitor could produce hardware that produced even half of what 3DFX was offering.
Meet nVidia, nVidia brought in the riva 128, the TNT, TNT2, Geforce, and Geforce 2. 3DFX was able to hold their ground up untill the introduction of the Geforce.
Meet ATI, long time graphics chip maker. With their Rage I and Rage II not even coming close to 3DFX's speed in the 3D acceleration, ATI finally did something to quit playing Catch-up.
It was always a battle between 3DFX and nVidia (ATI was producing products that would have competed better with the prior generation of hardware) up untill nVidia released the Geforce and 3DFX had nothing to show for it. ATI stepped in and released the Radeon with TC&L, nVidia with the Geforce 2 with T&L, but where was 3DFX? they released a product with no T&L and thus got poor reviews and benchmarks when compared to nVidia and ATI. 3DFX and ATI had switched placed, instead of ATI producing poor performing hardware, 3DFX was.
The 3DFX (Voodoo 1, Voodoo 2, Voodoo 3) could not do anything other than 16bit color, and only performed the best when software was developed using their own propietary GLIDE API. 3DFX released the Voodoo4+ with nothing other than their T-buffer, when nVidia already had T&L. 3DFX's downfall was not implementing 32bit color earlier on (their chips had been optimized for 16bit color only) and then in their marketing, stating how you can not tell the difference between 16bit and 32bit color and that 16bit color was better.
nVidia always had 32bit color support in the TNT and Geforce products, and was able to get ahead of 3DFX with that fact and that it performed equally or greater on 16bit color benchmarks.
ATI, however they designed their chips to run in 32bit mode from ground up, and always had disappointing 16bit color benchmarks. (ATI states that 16bpp mode is actually just 32bpp with extra processing to convert the 16bpp mode on their cards) With the Rage 128, now finally able to offer comparable performance to the TNT2, they were still a step behind.
ATI finally released the ATI Radeon, a chip that is comparable to the Geforce and Geforce 2 in that it has a T&L unit onboard. 3DFX still didn't have T&L, Strike 2 3DFX.
nVidia doesn't consider 3DFX a threat, only ATI, because ATI is producing hardware that can compete head-on.
Details:
3DFX:
Voodoo 1, 2, 3 - 16bpp no T&L
Voodoo 4 and 5 - 32bpp, no T&L
nVidia
TNT 1 and 2 - 32bpp no T&L
Geforce 1 and 2 - 32bpp and T&L
ATI
Rage I and II - poor performance, less than voodoo1
Rage Pro - Performance close to Voodoo1/2 levels (but still lacking)
Rage 128, 128pro - 32bpp no T&L
Radeon - 32bpp and T&L (Actually transform,clipping and transform)
ATI however is the only one currently offering full fledged MPEG-2 (color conversion, motion compensation and iDCT) and with their ALL-in-Wonder series they also offer superior analog video-in/video-out over the Voodoo 3500TV and various nVidia products with video-in/video-out features.
If you want the best performance, go for the nVidia Geforce 2 if you want the most features with only a little less performance choose the All-in-Wonder Radeon.
Something to note, in 3DFX's marketing they frequently stated things that were less than true, and in my opinion this was the reason for many 3DFX supporters to switch sides. (The infamous 16bpp vs 32bpp, removal of video-in/video-out features, introducing the T-buffer instead of putting in T&L)
3DFX literatly shot themselves in the foot several times because they were telling customers what they want instead of giving them what they asked for. nVidia on the other hand gave the customers what they wanted and threw in some extras.
Some notable things:
ATI aquired ARTX, and with that they also may have access to technologies that will be in Nintendo Game Cube.
nVidia will have their chip in the Microsoft Xbox
3DFX claimed to have hardware MPEG-2/DVD support at the time of the Voodoo3 but only had the color conversion and no motion compensation or iDCT (Of which only ATI,S3 and Intel seem to support)
*note* iDCT means "Inverse Descrete Cosine Transform" or in otherwords it decompresses DCT mpeg blocks.
What to buy?
Get a Geforce 2 if you are a serious gamer and will never want TV/video-in/video-out support.
Get a ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon if you wish to do multimedia stuff over just playing games.
Get a 3DFX card if all you want to do is play old "Glide-only" games, or are looking for a new card to put in an aging PC.
Update:
3DFX is no longer making their own boards anymore. They are outsourcing manufacturing (similar to what nVidia is doing, and what 3DFX did in the past prior to the voodoo3) So 3DFX is now only making their own chips and licensing their technology.
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Kisai
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