Registered: Jul 2000
Location: I am everywhere, and I am nowhere.
Posts: 1184

Posted by WildWolf:

Back news for 3dFX as they get smacked again, this time by their major competitor, NVIDIA. What's the suit all about? Patent Infringement. Here's the press release:

NVIDIA(TM) Corporation, the leader in advanced graphics processing technology, announced today that it has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against 3dfx Interactive® Inc. in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

NVIDIA's lawsuit involves five NVIDIA patents and seeks an injunction restraining 3dfx from manufacturing, selling or importing infringing graphics chip and card products including VooDoo3, Voodoo4 and Voodoo5 and VSA-100 family of products, as well as monetary damages.

The lawsuit alleges that 3dfx's graphics chip and card products which are used to accelerate 3D graphics on personal computers, infringe on the following NVIDIA U.S. Patents: No: 5,687,357; No. 5,721,947; No: 5,758,182; No: 6,023,738;
and No: 6,092,124.

``We have always been on the forefront of innovation in 3D graphics technology and visual computing,'' said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of NVIDIA. ``This innovation is achieved through the annual investment of hundreds of millions of dollars in research and development. We cannot allow the fruits of this investment to be misappropriated.''

There's also a big article right here that talks way too much about what the patents are... My outlook for 3dFX is pretty bleak at this point. More on this when more is revealed...

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Champaign, IL
Posts: 362

Yowch. Think 3dFX will lose? Obviously if they can't ship V3,4, or 5's, they're whole market is pretty screwed. Think that will put them out of business or will they perservere despite the fact that they won't have any income for a while?

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Clinton, NY, USA
Posts: 77

Mm.. interesting. If they lose, 3dfx is gone. There's no major competition for nVidia anymore. I personally like 3dfx (and nVidia too). I run a Voodoo3 2000 and it plays all my games excellently.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Over There
Posts: 331

If 3dfx gets castrated by this lawsuit then the consumers are screwed. I hope ATI and Matrox are closely watching and planning their next moves: Because without 3dfx they're the last guardian against outrageous price-hikes from nVidia.

I wonder how the G800 will turn out? The G400 was one helluva nice card, just not very well known...

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Posts: 416

Oh, for goodness sake. NVIDIA must have been looking for some way to dump on 3DFX for a while - the Voodoo3 has been out for ages.

Talk about pathetic.

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: UK 0WNZ J00
Posts: 39

The TNT2 out-performed 3Dfx's rival card, and when we compare both companies third generation cards (the GeForce and the Voodoo3) there was no question that the GeForce won...

Since the Voodoo2, 3Dfx, in my eyes at least, have started going downhill...

I just hope NVidia don't get anything bad from this! If 3Dfx survive, maybe they'll start to try and dominate the market again.. It would be nice to see NVidia and 3Dfx in some real competition...

As far as I can see, NVidia is the only decent choice at the moment... Although I've heard nothing about the release of the Voodoos 4, 5 and 6.... They any good, anyone know?

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Posts: 416

All I know is they're expensive.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 76

MiCroZoft is gonan 0wn3rZ alL of j00z!

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