Not many gamers have heard of the video card manufacturer Number 9, and even fewer have actually bought one of their products. This isn't due to poor products coming from the Lexington Massachusetts based company, it's due to Number 9 focusing and achieving strong performance figures and sales in the strict area of primarily 2D video accelerator products.

Much like the struggle between nVidia and 3Dfx on the 3D side of the ballgame, Number 9's primary market share opponent has historically been Matrox.

For years, buyers were forced to pick and choose and debate which company's product (Matrox or Number 9) had the highest level of Windows 3.1 and Win95 desktop performance. But now the game has changed considerably, and the perceived value of good 2D-only performance has been replaced with strong 2D AND 3D performance needs set forth by both the consumer and OEM system integrators like Micron, Dell, Gateway, and Compaq.

So Matrox and Number 9 marshaled their efforts, and are introducing mainstream 2D/3D accelerator cards that fully support the graphic features of DirectX 6.0.

For Matrox, the chip they're gambling the future on is the currently available MGA-G200.

For Number 9, their chip's project code name was "Silver Hammer" and is now almost ready for mass production as the "Ticket to Ride 4" chip.