zlacker

>>BirAda+(OP)
>Voodoo Graphics and GLide were the standard in the PC graphics space for a time. 3dfx created an industry that is going strong today, and that industry has affected far more than just gaming. GPUs now power multiple functions in our computers, and they enable AI work as well.

>This tale brings up many “what ifs.”

What if 3dfx had realized early on that GPUs were excellent general purpose linear algebra computers, and had incorporated GPGPU functionality into GLide in the late 90s?

Given its SGI roots, this is not implausible. And given how NVidia still has a near stranglehold on the GPGPU market today, it’s also plausible that this would have kept 3dfx alive.

>>MontyC+K8
Early 3dfx cards did not do any linear algebra or even 3D rendering. They accelerated triangle rasterization in screen coordinates, everything else was done by the CPU. So, 2.5D at most really.

>>zozbot+Ru
It is funny playing titles from that era on modern hardware as it is apparent just how much the CPU was doing. Mostly due to the lack of optimization of the geometry routines past basic use of MMX - frame rate are still high just nowhere near as high as you would expect.

I remember when a friend 1st got an i7 machine and we decided to see just how fast Turok 2 would go. I mean seeing Quake 3 go from barely 30fps to up near 1,000 FPS over the same time period, we figured it would be neat to see. Turns out it could barely break the 200 FPS mark even though it was a good 8 times the clock rate compared with the PC we originally played it on at near 60fps.

No use of SSE, no use of T&L units or Vertex/Pixel shaders. It is all very much just plane rasterisation at work.