GeForce 256
Encyclopedia
The GeForce 256 is the original release in Nvidia
's "GeForce
" product-line. Released on August 31, 1999, the GeForce 256 improves on its predecessor (RIVA TNT2
) by increasing the number of fixed pixel pipelines, offloading host geometry calculations to a hardware transform and lighting (T&L) engine, and adding hardware motion-compensation
for MPEG-2
video. It offered a notably large leap in 3D gaming performance and was the first fully Direct3D 7-compliant 3D accelerator.
," a term Nvidia defined at the time as "a single-chip processor with integrated transform, lighting, triangle setup/clipping, and rendering engines that is capable of processing a minimum of 10 million polygons per second."
The integration of the transform and lighting hardware into the GPU itself set the GeForce 256 apart from older 3D accelerators that used separate chips for the task. This reduction of 3D graphics solution complexity brought the cost of such hardware to a new low and made it accessible to cheap consumer graphics cards instead of being limited to the previous expensive professionally-oriented niche designed for computer-aided design
(CAD). NV10's T&L engine also allowed Nvidia to enter the CAD market for the first time, with a product called Quadro
. The Quadro line uses the same silicon chips as the GeForce cards, but has different driver support and certifications tailored to the unique requirements of CAD applications.
and Nvidia RIVA TNT2 Ultra
, GeForce provided up to a 50% or greater improvement in frame rate in some game titles (ones specifically written to take advantage of the hardware T&L) when coupled with a very slow budget CPU. Support of the full Direct3D 7 API also assured the card of a strong future, unlike its initial Direct3D 6 based competition. The GeForce 256 was supported in games up until approximately 2006, in games such as Star Wars: Empire at War
.
However, without broad application support at the time, critics pointed out that the T&L technology had little real-world value. Initially, it was only somewhat beneficial in certain situations in a few OpenGL-based 3D first-person shooter
titles, most notably Quake III Arena
. Benchmarks using slow, budget CPUs like the Celeron 300A would give favourable results for the GeForce 256, but benchmarks done with faster CPUs such as the Pentium II 300 would give better results with some older graphics cards like the 3dfx Voodoo 2
. 3dfx
and other competing graphics card companies pointed out that a fast CPU could more than make up for the lack of a T&L unit. Software support for hardware T&L was not commonplace until several years after the release of the first Geforce. Early drivers were buggy and slow, while 3dfx cards enjoyed efficient, high speed, mature Glide API
and/or MiniGL
support for the majority of games. Only after the GeForce 256 was replaced by the GeForce 2, and ATI's T&L-equipped Radeon
was also on the market, did hardware T&L become a widely-utilized feature in games.
The GeForce 256 was also quite expensive for the time and it didn't offer tangible advantages over competitors' products outside of 3D acceleration. For example, its GUI and video playback acceleration were not significantly better than that offered by competition or even older Nvidia products. Additionally, some GeForce cards were plagued with poor analog signal circuitry that caused display output to be blurry.
As CPUs became faster, the GeForce 256 showed that the disadvantage of hardware T&L is that if a CPU is fast enough, it can perform T&L functions faster than the GPU, thus making the GPU a limit to rendering performance. This changed the way the graphics market functioned, encouraging shorter graphics card lifetimes, and placing less emphasis on the CPU for gaming.
NVIDIA
Nvidia is an American global technology company based in Santa Clara, California. Nvidia is best known for its graphics processors . Nvidia and chief rival AMD Graphics Techonologies have dominated the high performance GPU market, pushing other manufacturers to smaller, niche roles...
's "GeForce
GeForce
GeForce is a brand of graphics processing units designed by Nvidia. , there have been eleven iterations of the design. The first GeForce products were discrete GPUs designed for use on add-on graphics boards, intended for the high-margin PC gaming market...
" product-line. Released on August 31, 1999, the GeForce 256 improves on its predecessor (RIVA TNT2
RIVA TNT2
The RIVA TNT2 was a graphics processing unit manufactured by Nvidia starting in early 1999. The chip is codenamed "NV5" because it is the 5th graphics chip design by Nvidia, succeeding the RIVA TNT . RIVA is an acronym for Real-time Interactive Video and Animation accelerator...
) by increasing the number of fixed pixel pipelines, offloading host geometry calculations to a hardware transform and lighting (T&L) engine, and adding hardware motion-compensation
Motion compensation
Motion compensation is an algorithmic technique employed in the encoding of video data for video compression, for example in the generation of MPEG-2 files. Motion compensation describes a picture in terms of the transformation of a reference picture to the current picture. The reference picture...
for MPEG-2
MPEG-2
MPEG-2 is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods which permit storage and transmission of movies using currently available storage media and transmission...
video. It offered a notably large leap in 3D gaming performance and was the first fully Direct3D 7-compliant 3D accelerator.
Architecture
Upon release, GeForce 256 offered industry-leading real-time 3D rendering performance. It was marketed as "the world's first 'GPU', or Graphics Processing UnitGraphics processing unit
A graphics processing unit or GPU is a specialized circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory in such a way so as to accelerate the building of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display...
," a term Nvidia defined at the time as "a single-chip processor with integrated transform, lighting, triangle setup/clipping, and rendering engines that is capable of processing a minimum of 10 million polygons per second."
The integration of the transform and lighting hardware into the GPU itself set the GeForce 256 apart from older 3D accelerators that used separate chips for the task. This reduction of 3D graphics solution complexity brought the cost of such hardware to a new low and made it accessible to cheap consumer graphics cards instead of being limited to the previous expensive professionally-oriented niche designed for computer-aided design
Computer-aided design
Computer-aided design , also known as computer-aided design and drafting , is the use of computer technology for the process of design and design-documentation. Computer Aided Drafting describes the process of drafting with a computer...
(CAD). NV10's T&L engine also allowed Nvidia to enter the CAD market for the first time, with a product called Quadro
NVIDIA Quadro
The Nvidia Quadro series of AGP, PCI, and PCI Express graphics cards comes from the NVIDIA Corporation. Their designers aimed to accelerate CAD and DCC , and the cards are usually featured in workstations....
. The Quadro line uses the same silicon chips as the GeForce cards, but has different driver support and certifications tailored to the unique requirements of CAD applications.
Performance and value
GeForce 256 offered exceptional 3D performance that surpassed existing graphics cards. Compared to previous high-end 3D game accelerators, such as 3dfx Voodoo3 3500Voodoo3
Voodoo3 was a series of computer gaming video cards manufactured and designed by 3dfx Interactive. It was the successor to the company's high-end Voodoo 2 line and was based heavily upon the older Voodoo Banshee product. Voodoo3 was announced at COMDEX '98 and arrived on store shelves in 1999...
and Nvidia RIVA TNT2 Ultra
RIVA TNT2
The RIVA TNT2 was a graphics processing unit manufactured by Nvidia starting in early 1999. The chip is codenamed "NV5" because it is the 5th graphics chip design by Nvidia, succeeding the RIVA TNT . RIVA is an acronym for Real-time Interactive Video and Animation accelerator...
, GeForce provided up to a 50% or greater improvement in frame rate in some game titles (ones specifically written to take advantage of the hardware T&L) when coupled with a very slow budget CPU. Support of the full Direct3D 7 API also assured the card of a strong future, unlike its initial Direct3D 6 based competition. The GeForce 256 was supported in games up until approximately 2006, in games such as Star Wars: Empire at War
Star Wars: Empire at War
Star Wars: Empire at War is a 2006 real-time strategy game developed by Petroglyph Games and published by LucasArts. Set between Episode III and Episode IV, it focuses on the fledgling struggle between the Empire and the Rebels. It uses Petroglyph's game engine Alamo. The most recent patch was...
.
However, without broad application support at the time, critics pointed out that the T&L technology had little real-world value. Initially, it was only somewhat beneficial in certain situations in a few OpenGL-based 3D first-person shooter
First-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...
titles, most notably Quake III Arena
Quake III Arena
Quake III Arena , is a multiplayer first-person shooter video game released on December 2, 1999. The game was developed by id Software and featured music composed by Sonic Mayhem and Front Line Assembly...
. Benchmarks using slow, budget CPUs like the Celeron 300A would give favourable results for the GeForce 256, but benchmarks done with faster CPUs such as the Pentium II 300 would give better results with some older graphics cards like the 3dfx Voodoo 2
Voodoo2
The Voodoo2 was a set of three graphics processing units on a single chipset, made by 3dfx. It was released in February 1998 as a replacement for the original Voodoo Graphics chipset. The card ran at a chipset clock rate of 90 MHz and used 100 MHz EDO DRAM, and was available for the PCI interface...
. 3dfx
3dfx
3dfx Interactive was a company that specialized in the manufacturing of 3D graphics processing units and, later, graphics cards. It was a pioneer in the field for several years in the late 1990s until 2000 when it underwent one of the most high-profile demises in the history of the PC industry...
and other competing graphics card companies pointed out that a fast CPU could more than make up for the lack of a T&L unit. Software support for hardware T&L was not commonplace until several years after the release of the first Geforce. Early drivers were buggy and slow, while 3dfx cards enjoyed efficient, high speed, mature Glide API
Glide API
Glide is a 3D graphics API developed by 3dfx Interactive for their Voodoo Graphics 3D accelerator cards. Although it originally started as a proprietary API, it was later open sourced by 3dfx. It was dedicated to gaming performance, supporting geometry and texture mapping primarily, in data...
and/or MiniGL
MiniGL
The term MiniGL was applied to a wide range of incomplete OpenGL implementations provided by graphics card hardware companies including 3dfx, PowerVR and Rendition in the late 1990s. They owe their genesis to the computer game Quake....
support for the majority of games. Only after the GeForce 256 was replaced by the GeForce 2, and ATI's T&L-equipped Radeon
Radeon R100
The Radeon R100 is the first generation of Radeon graphics chips from ATI Technologies. The line features 3D acceleration based upon Direct3D 7.0 and OpenGL 1.3, and all but the entry-level versions offloading host geometry calculations to a hardware transform and lighting engine, a major...
was also on the market, did hardware T&L become a widely-utilized feature in games.
The GeForce 256 was also quite expensive for the time and it didn't offer tangible advantages over competitors' products outside of 3D acceleration. For example, its GUI and video playback acceleration were not significantly better than that offered by competition or even older Nvidia products. Additionally, some GeForce cards were plagued with poor analog signal circuitry that caused display output to be blurry.
As CPUs became faster, the GeForce 256 showed that the disadvantage of hardware T&L is that if a CPU is fast enough, it can perform T&L functions faster than the GPU, thus making the GPU a limit to rendering performance. This changed the way the graphics market functioned, encouraging shorter graphics card lifetimes, and placing less emphasis on the CPU for gaming.
Discontinued support
NVIDIA has ceased driver support for GeForce 256 series.Final Drivers Include
- Windows 9x & Windows Me: 71.84 released on March 11, 2005; Download;
- Product Support List Windows 95/98/Me – 71.84.
- Windows 2000 & 32-bit Windows XP: 71.89 released on April 14, 2005; Download.
- Product Support List Windows XP/2000 - 71.84.
Competitors
- ATI Rage 128ATI RageThe ATI Rage is a series of graphics chipsets offering GUI 2D acceleration, video acceleration, and 3D acceleration. It is the successor to the Mach series of 2D accelerators.-3D RAGE :...
and Rage Fury MAXXATI RageThe ATI Rage is a series of graphics chipsets offering GUI 2D acceleration, video acceleration, and 3D acceleration. It is the successor to the Mach series of 2D accelerators.-3D RAGE :... - 3dfx Voodoo3Voodoo3Voodoo3 was a series of computer gaming video cards manufactured and designed by 3dfx Interactive. It was the successor to the company's high-end Voodoo 2 line and was based heavily upon the older Voodoo Banshee product. Voodoo3 was announced at COMDEX '98 and arrived on store shelves in 1999...
- Matrox G400Matrox G400The G400 is a video card made by Matrox, released in September 1999. The graphics processor contains a 2D GUI, video, and Direct3D 6.0 3D accelerator...
- S3 Savage 2000S3 SavageSavage was a product-line of PC graphics chipsets designed by S3.-Savage 3D:At the 1998 E3 Expo S3 introduced the first Savage product, Savage3D. Compared to its ViRGE-derived predecessor , Savage3D was a technological leap forward...