Acquisition and bankruptcy

28 March 2000, 3dfx bought GigaPixel for US$186 million, to help launch product to market quicker.[13] In late 2000, not long after Voodoo 4's launch, several of 3dfx's creditors decided to initiate bankruptcy proceedings. 3dfx, as a whole, would have had virtually no chance of successfully contesting these proceedings, and instead opted to be bought by Nvidia, thus ceasing to exist as a company. The history of and participants in the 3dfx/Nvidia deal making can be read in the respective companies' financial filings from that time period. The resolution and legality of those arrangements (with respect to the purchase, 3dfx's creditors and its bankruptcy proceedings) were still being worked through the courts as of February 2009, nearly 9 years after the sale. A majority of the engineering and design team working on "Rampage" (the successor to the VSA-100 line) that remained with the transition, were requested and remained in house to work on what became the GeForce FX series. Others are known to have accepted employment with ATI to bring their knowledge to the creation of the X series of video cards and reform their own version of SLI known as "Crossfire" and yet another interpretation of 3Dfx's SLI ideal.[citation needed]

After Nvidia acquired 3dfx, mainly for its intellectual property, they announced that they would not provide technical support for 3dfx products. Drivers and support are still offered by community websites. However, while being functional, the drivers do not carry a manufacturer's backing and are treated as "Beta" by users still wanting to deploy 3dfx cards in more current systems. Nvidia offered a limited time program under which 3dfx owners could trade in their cards for Nvidia cards of equal performance value.[14] On December 15, 2000 3dfx apologized to the customers with a final press release.[15] In 2003, the source code for 3dfx drivers leaked,[16] resulting in fan-made, updated drivers and further support.

The 3dfx bankruptcy is in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, appeal, Docket # 11-15189. Following is a clerk's order as filed in the docket:

[1 May 2012]. Oral argument in this case is vacated. Oral argument and submission of this case are deferred pending resolution of In re Bellingham, No. 11-35162 (Argued and Submitted October 13, 2011). The question in In re Bellingham is whether, or in what circumstances, a bankruptcy court has jurisdiction to enter judgment on a fraudulent conveyance action.

Cause of decline
Although 1997 was marked by analysts as a turning point for 3dfx due to the marketing led by the new CEO Greg Ballard, there was criticism of Ballard's understanding of R&D in the graphics industry. Single-card 2D/3D solutions were taking over the market, and although Ballard saw the need and attempted to direct the company there with the Voodoo Banshee and the Voodoo3, both of these cost the company millions in sales and lost market share while diverting vital resources from the Rampage project.[3] Then 3dfx released word in early 1999 that the still-competitive Voodoo2 would support only OpenGL and Glide under Microsoft's Windows 2000 operating system, and not Direct3D. Many games were transitioning to Direct3D at this point, and the announcement caused many PC gamers–the core demographic of 3dfx's market–to switch to Nvidia or ATI offerings for their new machines.