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1. ChuckN+(OP)[view] [source] 2023-03-05 11:05:15
>In my opinion, Direct X was what killed it most.

False, 3dfx killed themselves. Their graphics chips and their architecture became quickly outdated compared to the competition. Their latest efforts towards the end of their life resorted to simply putting more of the same outdated and inefficient chip designs on the same board leading to monstrosities GPUs with 4 chips that came with their own power supply. Nvidia and ATI were already eating their lunch.

Also, their decision to build and sell graphics cars themselves directly to consumers, instead of focusing on the chips and letting board partners build and sell the cards was another reason for their fall.

Their Glide API alone would not be enough to save them from so many terrible business and engineering decisions.

>OpenGL was well supported on the Voodoo cards and Microsoft was determined to kill anyone using OpenGL

Again, false. OpenGL kinda kiled itself on the Windows gaming scene. Microsoft didn't do anything to kill OpenGL on Windows. Windows 95 supported OpenGL just fine, as a first class citizen just like Direct3D, but Direct3D was easier to use and had more features for windows game dev, meaning quicker time to market and less dev effort, while OpenGL drivers from the big GPU makers still had big quality issues back then and OpenGL progress was stagnating.

DirectX won because it was objectively better than OpenGL for Windows game dev, not because Microsoft somehow gimped OpenGL on Windows, which they didn't.

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