Defunct GPU manufacturer 3DFX have (maybe) announced a comeback on Twitter, more in an announcement this Thursday

[Master Disaster]

Anybody over a certain age will remember 3DFX and the legendary Voodoo series of GPU, the brand that arguably brought 3D acceleration to the masses and also the brand that invented SLI. Well a new account has surfaced over on Twitter with some exciting news...

 

Quote

This new account seems to suggest that 3dfx Interactive is coming back after a 20 years wait and their first major announcement will be made on Thursday (5th of August) which is next week. We don't know what the company plans to announce but if this is indeed real news, then we will have another major player in the GPU market aside from NVIDIA, AMD & Intel. You can see the teaser announcement below (Do note that the picture used below is a fan creation from DeviantArt from 2014):

 

Let's wait till next week to see what this is all about. It could very well be a well-played troll account for all we know.

Source - https://wccftech.com/gpu-maker-3dfx-interactive-teases-a-comeback-after-20-years-major-announcement-expected-next-week/

 

Place your bets folks, real or an elaborate troll?

 

I'm guessing real, since Nvidia bought them out I doubt anybody would be dumb enough to try and use the name without permission though I would have thought we would have heard something before now if the name had changed hands.

[da na]

Time for a Voodoo6 6500?

[Vulkan HeStan]

I remember a student tricked people over here (UK) into thinking Woolworths were coming back. Alas it wasn't to be

 

This seems like another prank/social experiment of similar scope

[Dujith]

Didnt they sell most of their intellectual property rights to Nvidia? so was something left they can use?

[Nayr438]

Just now, Dujith said:

Didnt they sell most of their intellectual property rights to Nvidia? so was something left they can use?

Yea. NVIDIA owns it, so if anything is coming back from the dead its not 3dfx, just it's name. Probably another scenario similar to gateway's resurrection.

[WolframaticAlpha]

10 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Anybody over a certain age will remember 3DFX and the legendary Voodoo series of GPU, the brand that arguably brought 3D acceleration to the masses and also the brand that invented SLI. Well a new account has surfaced over on Twitter with some exciting news...

 

Source - https://wccftech.com/gpu-maker-3dfx-interactive-teases-a-comeback-after-20-years-major-announcement-expected-next-week/

 

Place your bets folks, real or an elaborate troll?

 

I'm guessing real, since Nvidia bought them out I doubt anybody would be dumb enough to try and use the name without permission though I would have thought we would have heard something before now if the name had changed hands.

Most probably a troll/scam

 

If it is real, I speculate they will be making SBC's

[Murasaki]

lmao this is really in tech news; I refuse to believe it as I know whatever was left was eaten up by Nvidia

 

But interally I do want this to be real though...

 

[StDragon]

21 minutes ago, Dujith said:

Didnt they sell most of their intellectual property rights to Nvidia? so was something left they can use?

 

19 minutes ago, Nayr438 said:

Yea. NVIDIA owns it, so if anything is coming back from the dead its not 3dfx, just it's name. Probably another scenario similar to gateway's resurrection.

^THIS.

 

Wouldn't be ironic if 3Dfx turned out to be another AIB vendor; specifically selling Nvidia GPUs.  

[TetraSky]

Even if they came back, it would just be an offshoot of what Nvidia has to offer anyway.

So I'm thinking this is a troll account. Or some weird marketing from Nvidia for some reason.

[Master Disaster]

10 minutes ago, Murasaki said:

lmao this is really in tech news; I refuse to believe it as I know whatever was left was eaten up by Nvidia

 

 

But interally I do want this to be real though...

 

Interestingly it seems as though Nvidia only purchased their IP and technology, 3DFX as a business entity filed for bankruptcy.

 

Its possible this is real but under what scope? Its not like they're gonna build their own hardware so at best its just going to be another Partner for Nvidia GPUs.

[StDragon]

1 minute ago, Master Disaster said:

Interestingly it seems as though Nvidia only purchased their IP and technology, 3DFX as a business entity filed for bankruptcy.

 

Its possible this is real but under what scope? Its not like they're gonna build their own hardware so at best its just going to be another Partner for Nvidia GPUs.

The whole 20 years thing is interesting though, because that's how long patents are good for. So.... 

[Master Disaster]

23 minutes ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

Most probably a troll/scam

 

If it is real, I speculate they will be making SBC's

Nvidias new name for their newly acquired ARM branch.....

 

10/10 - Seems legit.

[Blademaster91]

23 minutes ago, Nayr438 said:

Yea. NVIDIA owns it, so if anything is coming back from the dead its not 3dfx, just it's name. Probably another scenario similar to gateway's resurrection.

Even if 3dfx came back as an AIB selling Nvidia cards i think it would be really cool, but this seems fake, if not it could also be a system that comes with games that use the 3dfx glide API.

[aisle9]

Possibilities:

• NVIDIA has quietly sold the 3dfx IP to a different company that wants to use the brand
• NVIDIA has decided to stop releasing FE cards and instead release their own cards directly as 3dfx, which would in no way piss their current partners off beyond belief
• NVIDIA is reviving the name to use in OEM-only cards, sold to the likes of HP, Dell, Acer, etc., with no direct consumer sales
• NVIDIA is going to revive the name and use it for something else
• Someone's having a laugh or engaged in wishful thinking

My money is on the last option, although I wouldn't completely rule out any of the others

[Kisai]

4 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Interestingly it seems as though Nvidia only purchased their IP and technology, 3DFX as a business entity filed for bankruptcy.

 

Its possible this is real but under what scope? Its not like they're gonna build their own hardware so at best its just going to be another Partner for Nvidia GPUs.

All 3DFX trademarks are dead. So it could be anyone.

 

My bet is that it's just a 3DFX branded "something" but the most likely thing is that it's a hoax, otherwise they would have registered the trademark.

[Freakwise]

That's interesting,

 

Would be funny if they release a product that doesn't correlate with their name

[Master Disaster]

1 minute ago, Kisai said:

All 3DFX trademarks are dead. So it could be anyone.

 

My bet is that it's just a 3DFX branded "something" but the most likely thing is that it's a hoax, otherwise they would have registered the trademark.

Yeah, so what we have here is another Atari situation.

[StDragon]

2 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Yeah, so what we have here is another Atari situation.

So is the brand "3Dfx" coming back, or the original founders? After 20 years, a lot occurred; people established in their carrier or retired. Maybe someone or a group of people were playing the long game for 20 years waiting for a time to restart due to legal/patent issues.

Realistically however, I agree with your assessment. But it would be awesome to have another GPU architecture out there; Nvidia, AMD, Intel, and now 3Dfx.

I can dream.

 

[DildorTheDecent]

Inb4 it's real and their first product is a RTX 3090 x4.

[Freakwise]

14 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Yeah, so what we have here is another Atari situation.

Can i ask what actually happened?

[ARikozuM]

It's gonna be another game streaming service, isn't it?

[StDragon]

1 minute ago, Freakwise said:

Can i ask what actually happened?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari,_Inc.

It's now defunct. Same thing with SGI (HP now owns the name).

[Freakwise]

3 minutes ago, StDragon said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari,_Inc.

It's now defunct. Same thing with SGI (HP now owns the name).

Thanks, defunct is a new word for me so i got confused there a bit

[Tieox]

I low key want this to happen.

[Murasaki]

1 hour ago, ARikozuM said:

It's gonna be another game streaming service, isn't it?

please no