3dfx Open Sources Glide

This morning, 3dfx announced that it would open the source code to its proprietary graphics API, Glide, and make the hardware specification of the company's Voodoo Graphics, Voodoo Rush, Voodoo2, and Banshee chipsets available to the public.

"By providing Glide and programming specifications to the development community, we once again demonstrate our commitment to Open Source technology," said 3dfx CTO and executive vice president Scott Sellers. "The release of the API and the hardware specifications allows for rapid tailoring of drivers and applications for 3dfx products to suit a variety of platform needs. This leadership move substantially enhances our ability to become the standard for cross-platform 3D hardware."

The first version of Glide was released in 1996 as a proprietary API meant to take advantage of specific features found only on Voodoo Graphics boards. Glide was touted as being easy to develop for and flourished in the face of a feature-lacking DirectX 3.0 and an OpenGL API that was still regarded as a workstation CAD/CAM-only API. Since then, however, support in the gaming community for OpenGL has dramatically increased, and DirectX 7.0 is regarded as the industry standard API. 3dfx simply couldn't sustain the manpower necessary to compete against the open-sourced OpenGL or Microsoft's massive DirectX development team.

Developers interested in getting their hands on Glide 2.0/3.0 code or the hardware specifications of the Voodoo chipset line can register at linux.3dfx.com. All Glide and Voodoo information is available today. Coincidentally, even though Glide is now open-sourced, Sellers stated that 3dfx would not be dropping the breach of contract lawsuit against Creative Labs for its Unified drivers. The Unified drivers allow Creative's D3D card users to run 3dfx Glide-specific games without owning a 3dfx graphics processor.