Maybe you're too young, but in the late 90's 3Dfx was so hot. They weren't the first GPU, but they were the first to break out and make it big in the PC space. The difference between software rendering and hardware accelerated Voodoo graphics was nuts. It was mind blowing. Once one of your friend's had a Voodoo card, software rendering was never enough. You had to get one too.
Between the release of the Voodoo 3 and Voodoo 4/5, NVIDIA would eat 3Dfx's lunch, but not (at first) by having better tech. They just built momentum by consistently releasing new cards every six months like clockwork, whereas the Voodoo 4 and Voodoo 5 cards were feature-oriented releases stuck in development hell. 3Dfx was still the sexy hotrod brand, although NVIDIA's market share kept growing. Then the GeForce 2 came along and it was clearly better than any 3Dfx offering, while people were tired of waiting for a new Voodoo card. The rest is history.
Between the release of the Voodoo 3 and Voodoo 4/5, NVIDIA would eat 3Dfx's lunch, but not (at first) by having better tech. They just built momentum by consistently releasing new cards every six months like clockwork, whereas the Voodoo 4 and Voodoo 5 cards were feature-oriented releases stuck in development hell. 3Dfx was still the sexy hotrod brand, although NVIDIA's market share kept growing. Then the GeForce 2 came along and it was clearly better than any 3Dfx offering, while people were tired of waiting for a new Voodoo card. The rest is history.