zlacker

>>BirAda+(OP)
Nice trip down memory lane. I still remember when I popped the 3dfx in and played quake, after playing quake on some ATI or Matrox I had (and a hell of a lot of other games before that lol). It was a transformative experience. I was stunned at how smooth everything was. It was beautiful. It was more incredible than going from 320x200x16(colors) to 640x480x256 and then 1024x768x16.8M, which were all quite marvelous increments. I think Moore's Law was just more visible in the early days. You really felt each iterative change. Going from "PC Speaker" to an Adlib was also a massive transformation.

>>cronix+p4
I had the same experience. Running qw.exe and it just feeling substantial and beautiful compared to the software renderer. I have been chasing a transformative high like that since. I sat out the initial VR iterations hoping for the biggest wow factor when I finally strapped on the HTC vive connected to a PC. It was great but still not at that level.

One aspect of this story I've never seen covered is how Nvidia managed as a quiet dark horse to come from behind and crush 3dfx in a few years with the TNT and TNT2. The article talks about the GeForce 256, but 3dfx crown was stolen before that.