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Friday, Nov 27, 2009
How, with a little help from Microsoft, 3-D chipmaker Nvidia won the hearts and minds of hardcore gamers.
May 16, 2002 | In the world of golf, new designs for clubs and balls can lead to greater accuracy and longer drives. The game of tennis has changed dramatically from the days when Bjorn Borg swung a wooden racket, as the progression to steel and graphite made serves ever more powerful. Likewise, moviemaking and pop music take advantage of every increase in special effects or production technology.
But gaming, which exists in a strange terrain somewhere between competitive sport and pure entertainment, is inseparable from gaming technology to a degree that trumps everything else. New technology makes possible new kinds of games -- and gamers have come to expect that each year's games will be prettier, more realistic, more immersive. Computer gaming has become a standard bearer for the belief that technology, of any kind, is inherently progressive. So what if the dot-com bubble popped, and if the Internet hasn't yet demolished international borders or toppled authoritarian governments? Games are still getting better, technically. Computers keep improving, bandwidth keeps growing, and the picture keeps getting brighter.
3Dfx stumbled in 1997, when its first attempt at an integrated 2-D/3-D card, the Voodoo Rush, cratered. For the first time, 3Dfx showed vulnerability and allowed potential customers to look to alternatives -- a problem accentuated in 1998 when the Voodoo Banshee card was also panned. But the 1998 introduction of the Voodoo 2 chip set, which offered significant speed gains over previous cards -- when used with Glide-compatible games -- won plaudits from gamers.
And that was crucial, because the possession of a good 3-D accelerator was the only way to play certain games as they were meant to be played. The shooter Unreal, for example, was little more than a well-executed variant of the Doom run-and-gun formula. But when matched with the newest accelerator card, the game's graphics, which prompted one game magazine to warn readers that its cover image was in fact a screen shot from the game, were astonishing. The enemies looked and moved more realistically (as realistically as a 7-foot-tall bipedal reptile with razorlike claws could move), thanks to the new card's ability to push even more polygons, which also allowed for larger and more detailed environments. The new card also handled reflective surfaces, multiple light sources and more. Some features were supported by older cards, but though the result might be almost as pretty, frame rates ran in the single digits. Gamers rushed to upgrade their systems.
This symbiotic evolution cycle continues to this day: Developers, desperate to distinguish their product in the marketplace, regularly throw in graphics features they hope will seem new and innovative -- facial expressions, limb-specific damage modeling, sparkly weapons effects -- to elicit a "whoaaa" from the gaming press. Though new graphics are not sufficient to ensure that a game will be a hit, last year's graphics are a sure knock against any game. As most triple-A titles take years to gestate (so much so that one company lists the release date for a long-anticipated game as "When it's done"), most developers aim their products for the upcoming generation of video cards, sometimes working closely with card makers to get a jump on what those features may be. When the collaboration works, it works well for both parties. The desirability of one spurs interest in the other.
However, the cycle can break down when new products, like 3Dfx's Rush and Banshee, two cards that the company attempted to introduce in 1997 and 1998, don't feed the frame rate or feature beasts. Those failures, most observers agree, were the beginning of the end for 3Dfx -- and gave Nvidia an opening.
"In a nutshell," says Brian Hook, formerly a 3Dfx lead programmer, "3Dfx's management simply couldn't capitalize on the boon handed to them ... and as a result they flailed and turned over management numerous times. The top management at 3Dfx was never, ever in a position to really maximize the opportunity presented to them, and it just happened to take a couple years for reality to catch up. 3Dfx coasted a long time on Glide compatibility and name recognition, but neither of those would last forever -- and they knew it. They couldn't cultivate relationships with OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] -- another key sign of failure on their part."
And Nvidia wasn't sitting still. In 1997 it introduced the Riva 128 chip, which, though it didn't match the existing Voodoo 2-based cards in terms of performance, was inexpensive and, crucially, supported both 2-D and 3-D. Nvidia won a few OEM contracts, and this base kept it in the game. Meanwhile, ATI released its improved Rage 128 card; however, it was plagued with software driver problems -- a curse that would follow ATI products for years and hinder its aftermarket cachet.
One year after it showed signs of new life with the Riva 128, Nvidia introduced the Riva TNT. From there, it was clover. Certainly, it was at that point that Nvidia didn't look back.
