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the owner of this GPU was recently offered fifteen thousand dollars by a

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collector why I'll tell you why because

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it's a ridiculously rare artifact from the early days of 3D gaming the bad news

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is the collector wasn't me

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good news is that I got my hands on it

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anyway

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the deal fell through the owner Ross agreed to drive it up to Canada for us

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to show it off and as luck would have it it actually works this is the real deal

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guys a very late stage prototype of what

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would have been 3dfx's final Flagship card the voodoo 5 6000 and this one has

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even been reworked by a former 3dfx engineer to reach what we believe would

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have been the final spec could this

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Beast of a quad GPU card of saved 3dfx

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and changed the face of gaming as we know it probably not but that doesn't mean that

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we can't fire it up and relive our wildest dreams from a parallel universe

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and fire up this message from our sponsor iFixit learn more about the

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extremely portable and affordable minnow and moire sets and how they can make

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your repair life easier at the end of this video what makes this card really

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special is that it's straight from 3dfx themselves making it the best Glide

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gaming experience on the planet I mean yes we showed recently that you can

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emulate 3dfx Hardware on a modern PC but

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so far you can only go up to the voodoo 3. you want to go faster

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you're gonna need bare metal

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Let's Ride not being a 3dfx historian

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myself I wasn't 100 sure what to expect I can tell you that I didn't expect an

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external DC Barrel Jack though okay

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sure rather than just putting a bigger cooler on the front you just add these little

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heatsinks to the back of where the dies are soldered I guess

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man I wish we'd done this video even like six months ago you guys would have

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been so impressed by the size of this card but now that the 490 exists it's

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like make up for it with your personality

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here we go it's loud it's right next to

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my mic wish I'd thought of that hey nice Athlon XP 2200 plus oh no

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is everything working right now like I it captures working and everything

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capture is working it's so exciting World of Warcraft

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1.12.1 I mean surely we can't play WoW on this

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yeah I didn't like that what should we play half-life

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if you have a 3D card that incorporates the voodoo 2 or Banshee chip sets you

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will want 3dfx mini driver let's go

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that is some mighty fine screen tearing

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the latency is great and this is Butters

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move if I had to guess and this is going to be pretty tough because I'm on a 60hz

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display I would say probably 100 to 150

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frames per second like it feels very

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very low oh get back here

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man imagine having this kind of money for a computer back then and like six

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hundred dollars for one of these things 600 GPU but it runs like

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I just at now it's worth noting that this is a game from 1998. yeah right so

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this game came out a couple of years before this even had reached the

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Prototype whoa hey hey stop that yeah hence the voodoo 2 and Voodoo Banshee

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notes in the option screen there ah okay

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this thing absolutely blows away what I would have been using

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at the time I know obviously it looks like crap by today's standards but I

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wouldn't have been able to believe my eyes if I had seen this back in 2000.

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can I just say how painless this was for a prototype graphics card I don't think

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it was very painless to get it working to begin with well yeah but it's painless for me now

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yeah so go to console and then time demo

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as one word space blowout okay here we go

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oh look at it go we're gonna find out what the FPS was and this is a much more

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demanding scenario than what I was looking at and I feel like I

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underestimated it 119 frames per second

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oh okay let's try tribes a voodoo card has

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been detected If you experience Oddities you should try the wicked GL drivers at

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wicked3d.com

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oh so first of all 10 24 by 768 right

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yep bit depth 16 right can be 16 or 32

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well let's go 32 let's go okay I mean obviously we're just gonna

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crank everything to high right what could go wrong let's see how many FPS's

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we get here plenty we're getting shot down boys

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oh wait did I actually die seriously

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okay how do I how do I make this go away I

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think it's just paused you while it tells you about everything ah

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come on oh hey here we go we got something to fight play Master let's go

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what the what the crap am I even firing

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it's a bouncy ball oh my goodness bouncing up the thing oh I got one it's

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running shockingly well that is to say the performance is great on that era

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games and kind of problem free

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as far as I can tell for flipping gpus

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uh um Benchmark I mean she's running it

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Yep this is about what I remember this looking like

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I remember this second run through oops uh-oh okay mostly Problem free

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I thought this was pulled from an actual Matrix game at the time

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I don't think are you sure I don't you're making me doubt myself

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I mean the reflections are all looking okay kinda nope you're totally right

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it's just a matrix inspired demo so why

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Shazam you okay hold on a second did we

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faster and faster than a Ferrari and more reliable that that PC World ad in

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the bottom love it I remember this running a lot better on

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Hardware a couple of years later oh boy yikes I think software rendering would

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be actually faster oops no Hardware support rip

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we'll talk about that later oops no Hardware support just doesn't do bump

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mapping at all we'll talk about that later or not yet pixel Shader no

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Hardware support rip hey 26 47 3D marks

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let's go there it is yep that's why it was so

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slow if you ran 2000 it would actually like probably be pretty good basically

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NVIDIA having that was a killer app for them what a cool trip to 3D gaming

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Christmas past but believe it or not this isn't the only time machine there

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are other brand new voodoo 5 6000s that are available today for a fraction of

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the cost of this one Russian modern Anthony zx64 has made a name for himself

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refurbishing and modding vintage gpus and the voodoo 5 6000 rebuild is his

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crowning achievement not only did he build his reproduction with only a

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non-working prototype for reference he actually improved the design by doubling

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the vram to 256 megabytes though it

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should be noted that Anthony recommends using the onboard jumper to fall back to

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128 Megs to improve compatibility with older games

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genuine 3dfx Hardware or not though this thing was wicked fast at the time even

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if the truth is that the voodoo 56000 was destined for failure before it even

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got to this prototyping phase so here's the thing 3dfx had a wealth of

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experience using multiple gpus together to make FPS number go up but the fact is

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the single GPU competition was getting good really good and in 2001 the GeForce

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2 and Radeon 8000 showed up with both strong performance and a new technology

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that would radically change the graphical Fidelity of video games shaders

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this meanwhile lack shaders and was

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expected to cost an estimated 600 US dollars at retail Unthinkable at the

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time even if it sounds pretty good today so as amazing as it was that's a turd

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that absolutely will not polish

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how did 3dfx get to this point they were the Undisputed Kings of the 3D gaming

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space from 1996 onward to understand that we have to understand why they were

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the Kings because it's not like they were the first incumbents like matrox

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ATI and S3 had their own 3D boards and

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Renditions Veritas series came out at around the same time and unlike 3dfx's

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early cards none of those required a separate video card just to run the 2D

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desktop two gpus one for 3D one for 2D

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3dfx actually came into this Market with a huge disadvantage but what they had

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was as perfect a blend of features and performance as you could possibly expect

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at the time not only did the voodoo 1 sport a faster fill rate than its

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competitors it had Hardware support for Z buffer depth information bilinear

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texture filtering anti-aliasing and it boasted higher resolution higher color

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output these are all things that other cards either relied on the CPU to do for

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them or just straight up couldn't do at all which meant that you could run a

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much lower tier processor like even a 486 and still get an enjoyable 3D

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experience I mean to be clear unlike today a dedicated 3D accelerator wasn't

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necessary to play most games but if you

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used full software rendering you'd be stuck at super low video quality I'm

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talking 320 by 240 256 colors if you

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were lucky Voodoo to the rescue then and a big part

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of their special sauce was the way that they wrapped these advantages into a

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relatively easy to program package with the Glide API remember guys this is in

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the days before direct 3D or widespread

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opengl support so each vendor had their own API that game developers needed to

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support but Glide was surprisingly similar to opengl in both syntax and

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feature set limited though it was so if a game developer had to program in

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support for each vendor's API well they were far more likely to support Glide

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over say s 3D or Redline this almost

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immediately gave 3dfx a special place in the hearts of Gamers even if the API was

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proprietary 3dfx then subsequently enjoyed a virtual monopoly in the 3D

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gaming space while the competition either made expensive gambles or sat

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with their development effectively on pause while they waited for the first

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direct 3D specification the nv1 for example from NVIDIA used a wildly

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different rendering mode than direct 3D would eventually use forcing NVIDIA to

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scrap their nv2 and then start playing catch-up but while 3dfx became well

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known for their robust feature set easy development and their multi-GPU scanline

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interleave or SLI which allowed for higher frame rates and resolutions than

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anyone else success seemed like a paralyzing Force for them and by the

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time of the voodoo 3 things started to take a turn with direct 3D and clearer

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opengl specifications to Target the competition was catching up and fast and

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in some cases even surpassing 3dfx's offerings for example NVIDIA's Riva tnt2

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brought competitive performance 32-bit color rendering and maximum texture

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sizes that were eight times larger than the voodoo 3 which could still only

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display 16-bit color in game meanwhile 3dfx rather than investing in GPU r d

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invested in a Litany of side projects and attempts to Stave off the

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competition the failed bid to provide chips for the Sega Dreamcast was a major

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blow that ended in a lawsuit and while the terms weren't disclosed Sega had

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intended to purchase the rights to use 3dfx's technology so as to prevent the

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competition from being able to and it's likely they got their way you can get

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your way by the way with a desk pad from ltdstore.com same price any size and now

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available in our stealthy circuit pattern and while they didn't know it

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then 3dfx's 1998 purchase of their biggest board partner stb systems ended

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up being not the monopolistic takeover of the market that many feared but

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rather the beginning of their end in effect it changed 3dfx's relationship

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with their board Partners from chipset provider partner to competitor which

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incentivized their Partners to support the real competition primarily NVIDIA

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and ATI whose rapid Hardware development Cycles became popular with system

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integrators like HP and Dell which 3 3D

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effects had no interest in catering to so without chips going into game

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consoles and with their board partners mutinying and taking over the system

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space 3dfx was left in the unenviable position of relying on only the

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Enthusiast segment as their customers and better options were now beginning to

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emerge for them as well perhaps seeing the writing on the wall 3dfx purchased

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gigapixel in mid-2000 after that company

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lost its bid to provide chips for the original Xbox the idea it seems was to

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finally get their next-gen GPU Rampage across the finish line that GPU had been

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in development since 1998 and had it released when 3dfx would have liked it

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to it's possible that they could have stayed competitive with the GeForce 2

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that they were staring down in 2000 unfortunately for them their creditors

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were fed up by Year's End voting for bankruptcy and liquidating the company

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NVIDIA would go on to acquire all of their intellectual property pretty

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bitter pill to swallow the parallels between 3dfx's downfall and NVIDIA's

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behavior lately is kind of ironic if you think about it because they've been going down a very similar path

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antagonizing their board Partners diverting attention to side businesses

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like crypto mining autonomous vehicles machine learning you get it but

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fortunately for NVIDIA it seems like they've got a wide enough mode around

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them and enough cash on hand to whether pretty much an apocalypse and there are

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no existential threats to them like 3D effects faced during their decline at

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least not yet this my friends is why competition is so

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important in the industry because it can and will light a fire under a company

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that's grown complacent like 3dfx did if

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they'd had less debt if they'd gotten the Sega contract or simply made

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different decisions who knows what might have happened when the competition heated up a 3dfx forced to compete well

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they still could might have survived unfortunately for this timeline they

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chose the voodoo 5. and I choose this segue to our sponsor iFixit if you're

202
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that's easily opened and doubles as a built-in sorting tray it has 16

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different bits and the handle has a built-in Sim eject tool and if you're in

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the need of something bigger the moire driver kit is only 19.99 it's got 32

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regardless of the price comes with a lifetime warranty so check out our links

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in the description and buy yours today if you enjoyed this video go check out

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our video on the 3dfx voodoo 2 SLI gaming setup for a little more on just

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how good 3dfx used to be and how much they allowed to slip through their

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fingers