On 4 March 1996, just under one year after the establishment, 3Dfx received a further capital inflow of 11.6 million USD. Still in the same month the co-operation with Micronics Computers was sealed, these should develop a platform for play hall consoles based on the Voodoo Graphics system in connection with that already admitted company Orchid.

Already on 16 May the first play hall automat based on this system could be delivered.

Nearly at the same time as the first Voodoo Graphics cards came at the beginning of August 1996 on the market, 3Dfx already announced a kind of a successor: The Voodoo Rush. The internal 2D interface of the Voodoo Graphics should be used together with a well-known 2D chip (predominantly Alliance Semiconductor chips came to the use) to offer a adequate graphics card in one product.

On the day exactly mentioned, the first Voodoo Graphics (Voodoo 1) graphics cards appeared in the dealer shelves on 5 August: The Diamond Monster 3D.

The potential of the 3Dfx technology was already made clear with the first tests: A Pentium 200 MMX at that time did not bring in Quake 1 with a resolution of 320x200 with 41 frames per second what was needed for the future in three-dimensional games. Using the new 3Dfx technology increased the performance already to 70 frames per second. In higher resolutions the boosted output amounted to partly impressing 300%!

Together with the Voodoo 1 3Dfx delivered also its own software interface to their graphics cards:  GLIDE. Consequently game developers were easily able to tap the full potential of therse graphics cards. Some play developers provided new updates for Voodoo cards to existing games.

At the end of August the probably most well-known title for the Voodoo Graphics at all was published:  Tomb Raider 1 with the game figure Lara Croft.

Soon legendary titles appeared such as POD, Mechwarrior 2 and many further, which used the technology of 3Dfx, the break-through had finally succeeded!

On 18 November 1996 3Dfx showed again at the COMDEX its newest creation in co-operation with Hercules:  The first Voodoo Rush graphics card with own 2D-kernel, at that time still as a graphics card with a "sandwich-design".

Towards the end of the year, on 9 December 3Dfx again received a capital syringe at a value of 11.6 million USD and seemed to be prepared for the coming years at best.

In the beginning of the year 1997 3Dfx experienced a true high-altitude flight: Sega engaged the chip smithy for the new Dreamcast console, in addition the official 3Dfx extension appeared for the highly popular game Quake in the form of GLQuake.

At 31 March 1997 Quantum 3D was incorporated as an independent company. Already at 8 April 3Dfx and Quantum 3D band together, when Q3D took over the product group Obsidian, in order to develop them further and adapt these based on the products of 3Dfx for the console and simulation market.

In April the first Hercules Rush graphics cards appeared still in the "sandwich design" on the market. However, in June they were replaced successfully by a revised version with only one plate. At the same time further companies like Jazz Multimedia and Intergraph brought their own Rush graphics cards based on the reference design on the market.

In spite of the spezial versions of Hercules with TV Out and a faster clock rate the Rush didn’t enjoy as much popularity as the Voodoo1 cards did. Therefore, the Rush was rather degenerated to an edge product.

In September 3Dfx suffered the first setback in their firm history: Sega cancelled the contract for the Dreamcast console. Although the law case was won in the year after by 3Dfx, it silted up without any further successes in this industry.

Nevertheless, the time did not stand still and in November 3Dfx announced the successor of the Voodoo 1: The Voodoo 2 chipset.

At the same time with the announcement of the Voodoo 2 chipsets, partner Q3D communicated their first Voodoo 2 products. A further high-altitude flight announced itself by the interest of Creative Labs in Voodoo 2 products, Creative was indeed the the largest manufacturer of multimedia products for the computer sector at that time.