On Saturday, an interesting Twitter account appeared out of nowhere: 3dfxofficial. The first post was even more intriguing:

Since it is very likely that this account will be deleted and the embed above will no longer work, here it is in full: "3dfx Interactive is returning after 20 years. This Thursday we will have a major announcement about our return!"

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The tweet is accompanied by the lead image above, which reflects the iconic branding of the original graphics card from the late 90s, and appears to have been taken directly from Deviant Art without credit.

Aside from typographical errors and Creative Commons artwork, there is also the troubling issue that Nvidia acquired 3dfx in 2002, after the company produced its last cards, primarily for its intellectual property. Also, there has been excited talk on Twitter about the trademark expiration, but nothing to lend credibility to this account.

It is not unreasonable for gamers of a certain age to dream of the return of 3dfx and its Voodoo cards. After all, nostalgia is a powerful drug, and the ongoing battle between Nvidia and 3dfx was one of the things that made PC gaming exciting in the '90s; I remember picking up a Voodoo 5 5500 at a discount after the company went bankrupt in 2000, and I was so excited that I decided to buy a Voodoo 5 5500 card from 3dfx, which was a great deal for me. I still have a certain fondness for the brand, even though the next few years were a period of turmoil as I struggled to find a stable fan-made driver that the latest games would stumble upon.

Even PC gamers too young to remember 3dfx can't help but notice the extreme shortage of graphics cards, thanks to a combination of the ongoing global chip shortage and the ability of top-end cards to effectively mine cryptocurrencies. Finding stock of the Nvidia RTX 3080 is incredibly difficult right now. In fact, the company is even bringing back the five-year-old card as a stopgap for those in urgent need of a modest GPU.

And these unusual market conditions are certainly an opportunity for companies looking to disrupt the status quo. Indeed, Intel is soon going to test whether there is room for a third GPU designer in the mix with its DG2 Xe-HPG card, which is rumored to be announced in early 2022.

Likewise, nothing suggests that 3dfx's alleged resurrection is more genuine than Interplay's recent fake Twitter account that promised the return of classic PC games like Messiah, MDK, and Descent. The account was shut down after the real Interplay intervened. However, since the real 3dfx will not intervene and clarify here, we will have to wait until Thursday, August 5, to really quash this unlikely rumor.