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RedHat 5.0 was released in 1997. It was pretty usable, thats pretty much when the university I was at started switching from Sun Xterms to PCs running Linux. There was usable 3D graphics shortly after that.

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The only usable 3D graphics that could compete with graphic workstations, were provided by a company that specialized in supporting specific graphic cards.

The company had a name starting by Xi something and I think the cards were still those that you had to pair a 2D with a 3D card.

Yes indeed. But they were cheap... And worked. We had quite a few. I can't remember the name either. Then Nvidia came along.

Here's a chart I found while looking for info about the first video cards I used in the late 90s (couldn't find Diamond on it though, besides a mention of merging with S3...):

http://www.vgamuseum.info/index.php/history-tree

I see IXMICRO and MXIC (Macronix) on there.

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