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Quantum3D maintains alliance with 3Dfx

3Dfx will still supply chips to Quantum3D despite move into card manufacturing

Quantum3D yesterday distanced itself from fellow graphics card vendors by choosing to stick with 3Dfx technology following 3Dfx's announcement of its decision to buy board manufacturer STB and begin selling its own cards to OEMs and consumers. 3Dfx's move provoked many licensees of its Voodoo graphics acceleration technology, including Diamond Multimedia and Creative Technology, to abandon Voodoo-based product development. No wonder since the STB purchase changed it from a supplier into a competitor. Quantum3D, however, reckons there's plenty of room for its own products at the high end of the market, particularly now that 3Dfx is developing its technology to embrace applications other than games. While the first two generations of Voodoo could only accelerate full-screen graphics, making them useless for more serious graphics work, such as 3D modelling and animation, which takes place within a window, 3Dfx's Voodoo 2-based Banshee does provide scope to accelerate applications such as these, thanks to its 2D engine, and future products may extend this to full in-a-window 3D acceleration. But while Quantum3D may be sticking with 3Dfx for its high-end cards, which it currently supplies to coin-op games manufacturers and developers of professional visual simulation systems, a question mark continues to hang over the company's gaming-oriented products, Obsidian and Raven. A Quantum3D spokesman said the company would "continue to offer full support and freshen drivers of the inventory already in the channel", suggesting that it may soon retire from the consumer arena. ®

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