3dfx Interview (September 1999)

Conclusion

So after all that, what do we know? We tried our best to get some additional information on their next generation product, but 3dfx is being very secretive on this. However, we can infer a fair amount about such a product from the information above.

3dfx is still saying speed is king, but has finally come around to supporting more advanced rendering features like 32-bit rendering, larger texture sizes, and the T-Buffer effects. We also know that a sigh of relief was breathed by everyone when NVIDIA announced the GeForce 256 and its meager 480MP/s fill rate. It looks like 3dfx's next generation product is going to be quite solid with an immense fill rate that should make it the fastest for current games. They expect 1024x768x32 to be the resolution will be playing at with 60fps still considered the minimum acceptable frame rate.

It's also great to see 3dfx expanding their support to include alternative OS's like BeOS, Linux, MacOS, etc. Hoepfully this trend will be picked up by other manufacturers. Otherwise, 3dfx may end up dominating those small, but important segments.

Of course, they could get in trouble if polygon rates in games rise as NVIDIA would like. Either way, it will definitely be an interesting holiday season, with the big winners the consumers.

Special thanks go out to Scott Sellers at 3dfx for taking the time to answer all our questions.