If you owned an Apocalypse 3d/3dx or Matrox m3D, you would've been one of many gamers that had bought a PowerVR Series 1 based 3D graphics accelerator and was both excited and underwhelmed at the same time. Released originally in 1996 and the PCX1 manufactured a 500 nm and a core clock speed of whopping 60 MHz, it was the only direct competitor of 3dfx's original Voodoo graphics card, which was technically slower at 50 MHz, but delivered a lot better in terms of 3D quality. Here we are in 2022 and Imagination Technologies, the company behind the PCX1 and the die shrunk PCX2 that was launched a year later, is releasing the drivers for both 3D accelerators as open source. Outside of a big nostalgia trip for those that might still have their card knocking around, there's questionable value in these drivers.

The second generation of PowerVR GPU's ended up powering the Sega Dreamcast with the third generation ending up in PC GPUs that were competitive with the NVIDIA GeForce 256, at least until NVIDIA changed from SDR to DDR memory. The most unique part of the PowerVR Series 1 was that the 3D accelerator could use the main 2D display cards memory as a framebuffer over the PCI bus. Sadly most games didn't support the PowerSGL API at the time and weren't able to take full advantage of the hardware when DirectX 3.0 was used. The open source drivers are provided as is and it seems like some libraries are missing for the Tomb Raider port for the PoverVR Series 1 3D accelerators, but beyond that, there should be no limitations.

Nostalgia is perhaps the most present feeling among many gamers across the globe, and someone is seemingly playing with ours as there is a Twitter account claiming the return of a company that has been dead for 20 years. 3dfx Interactive, once a giant in the graphics card industry, is allegedly returning after 20 years to give gamers a new choice of a graphics card. According to a Twitter account that claims that 3dfx Interactive is returning, we are seeing a massive amount of hype being built around the seemingly fake and bad attempt of playing with our nostalgia.

3dfx went bankrupt in 2000 and was acquired by NVIDIA, who took over the rights to trademarks and everything involved with the brand. In the latest tweet, the alleged resurrected company is claiming a return after 20 years. It says that Jansen Products, also an alleged investment firm, that we couldn't find in any database of registered firms, is now the owner of 3dfx Interactive brand and its trademarks. A simple Google search points towards a Belgian building firm, not an alleged San Francisco investment company.. Together, this is making the alleged return seem just like a joke, as someone must be playing with many gamers that used 3dfx's famous Voodoo lineup of graphics cards.

3DFX is a well-known name for most in our community, I'd wager (I don't have the data to back me up on that, but bare with me). The company is one of the highest-profile defunct companies that vied for a place in the desktop, high-performance GPU space back in the day, and brought its guns bearing on NVIDIA and then ATI. The Rampage was the last GPU ever developed by the company, and looked to compete with NVIDIA's GeForce3. That never saw the light of day, though, with the company shutting its doors before development became viable for market release.

DSOGaming has some images of some of the Rampage GPUs that survived 3DFX's closure, though, and the graphics card is shown running Max Payne, Unreal Tournament & 3DMark 2001. For those of you that ever had a 3DFX graphics card, these should bring you right down memory lane. Enjoy.

3dfx Zone has released an updated driver package for 3dfx accelerators, version 6.17.0065.0001 (SFFT 1.5), published today. The driver is based on a unified architecture, meaning the same driver would work for a whole range of 3dfx GPUs, Voodoo3 and upwards. This includes Voodoo3 2000, Voodoo3 3000 and Voodoo3 3500 cards, as well as all 3dfx VSA-100 products and so Voodoo4 4500, Voodoo5 5500 and Voodoo5 6000 cards, is on line.

This driver extends support to Windows 2000, Windows XP (both 32bit and 64bit). Apparently there isn't a Windows Vista driver, possibly due to the newer driver model. 3dfx Zone also publishes Set3Tile and Set4Tile Utilities that tweak the texture-handling capabilities of the accelerators. For more information, visit this page.

DOWNLOAD: 3dfx Zone SFFT 1.5 | Set3Tile and Set4Tile Utilities.

NVIDIA Corporation today announced that the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California issued its Memorandum Decision After Trial (the "Decision") in the 3dfx bankruptcy action. In the Decision, the Court found in favor of NVIDIA on all issues and rejected the Trustee's attempts to obtain damages from NVIDIA in excess of $100 million. The Trustee's lawsuit arose from NVIDIA's 2001 acquisition of certain assets of its former competitor, 3dfx Interactive, Inc. Specifically, the Trustee claimed that NVIDIA did not pay fair value for the assets it acquired in the transaction, thereby allegedly harming 3dfx's creditors.