From accelenation.com :
At Siggraph in August 1996 Microsoft tried to dictate the future path of 3D rendering technology by announcing their Talisman project. The philosophy behind Talisman was to reduce bandwidth by introducing a tile-based rendering approach similar to the one being developed by PowerVR. Microsoft was supported by no less than Samsung, Fujitsu and Cirrus Logic, all of whom pledged silicon to implement the technology. Unfortunately over the coming months rendering philosophy would be defined by the likes of 3dfx and not by some vision of the future from Microsoft. One by one each chipmaker pulled out of the project and although some of the technology would eventually be licensed by Trident, the Microsoft dream was dead.
Unfortunately the Talisman project had sidetracked Microsoft and shifted their attention away from the development of DirectX. If Talisman had taken off, history may have witnessed a completely different path for DirectX. As it was, the failure of Talisman meant that it took Microsoft another twelve months to admit defeat, reverse and then forge ahead with the de facto rendering approach. It would not be until the end of 1997 that the world would finally see a competent API from Microsoft in the shape of DirectX version 5.
