The diagram below illustrates the abstract rendering engine of the SST-1 graphics subsystem. SLI also made it possible to increase the maximum screen resolution from 800 × 600 to 1024 × 768.įigure 2: Scan-line interleave was developed by 3Dfx in 1995 (3Dfx) That became known as SLI - Scan-Line Interleave.
One of the innovative features of the design was its ability to gang TREX units. FBI implemented basic 3D primitives including Gouraud shading, alpha blending, depth-buffering, and dithering.įigure 1 : 3Dfx’s Basic graphics engine circa 1995 (3Dfx)īoth FBI and TREX supported various memory types including standard, Extended-Data-Out (EDO), and Synchronous DRAM to provide a wide range of price/performance options. FBI (Frame Buffer Interface) which served as a PCI slave device, and all communication from the host CPU to the SST-1 graphics subsystem was performed through the FBI. In its entry level configuration, a SST-1 graphics solution consisted of two rendering ASICS: TREX and FBI. In addition to 3Dfx, SGI’s decision also caused other chip designers to leave and start ArtX (which was later acquired by ATI). However, SGI was going trough turmoil and didn’t want to pursue the gaming industry. The founders of 3Dfx had been at SGI during the period SGI developed the first 3D gaming chip for a console, known as the Nintendo 64, which was released in 1996. Prior to the announcement of the Voodoo chipset, the founders Ross Smith, Gary Tarolli and Scott Sellers were showing their plans for their SST-1 graphics engine for 3D acceleration to various arcade and AIB companies. During that same period several AIB suppliers like Orchid and Diamond also announced plans to use 3Dfx’s chipset.
Voodoo 1 8mb macmagic 3dfx series#
In late 1995 Fujitsu announced it would use 3Dfx in a new series of gaming PCs it was planning to bring out.
Voodoo 1 8mb macmagic 3dfx Pc#
Although the company ended up being a PC graphcis AIB supplier, it started out as a board supplier for arcade machines, with New York city-based Innovative Concepts in Entertainment (ICE) being one of (if not the) first to use 3Dfx’s parts. The company was quiet for the two years prior to its release of the Voodoo, and dozens of speculative stories sprung up around it adding to the mystery, myth, and anticipation. VGA (for PC bootup) was supplied to the Voodoo AIB with a pass-through cable which then fed the VGA data to the display. Voodoo was a 3D-only add-in board (AIB) that required an external VGA chip. In 1995 the company raised $5.5 million dollars from venture capitalists.ģDfx released its Voodoo Graphics chipset in November 1996. This is the latest installment of a series of short articles about graphics chips, controllers and processors, that changed the course of the computer graphics (CG) industry.ģDfx was founded in 1994 in San Jose, California by former employees of Silicon Graphics (SGI) with backing from Gordie Campbell’s TechFarm. Voodoo changed the gaming landscape with 3D
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