GeForce 256
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The GeForce 256 is the original release in
Nvidia Nvidia Corporation ( ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and incorporated in Delaware. Founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang (president and CEO), Chris Malachowsky, and Curti ...
's "
GeForce GeForce is a brand of graphics processing units (GPUs) designed by Nvidia and marketed for the performance market. As of the GeForce 50 series, there have been nineteen iterations of the design. In August 2017, Nvidia stated that "there are o ...
" product line. Announced on August 31, 1999 and released on October 11, 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 Motion compensation in computing is an algorithmic technique used to predict a frame in a video given the previous and/or future frames by accounting for motion of the camera and/or objects in the video. It is employed in the encoding of video ...
for
MPEG-2 MPEG-2 (a.k.a. H.222/H.262 as was defined by the ITU) 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 ...
video. It offered a notable leap in 3D
PC gaming A personal computer game, or abbreviated PC game, also known as a computer game, is a video game played on a personal computer (PC). The term ''PC game'' has been popularly used since the 1990s referring specifically to games on "Wintel" (Micr ...
performance and was the first fully Direct3D 7-compliant 3D accelerator.


Architecture

GeForce 256 was marketed as "the world's first 'GPU', or
Graphics Processing Unit A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed for digital image processing and to accelerate computer graphics, being present either as a discrete video card or embedded on motherboards, mobile phones, personal ...
", 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 "256" in its name stems from the "256-bit QuadPipe Rendering Engine", a term describing the four 64-bit pixel pipelines of the NV10 chip. In single-textured games NV10 could put out 4 pixels per cycle, while a two-textured scenario would limit this to 2 multitextured pixels per cycle, as the chip still had only one TMU per pipeline, just as TNT2. In terms of rendering features, GeForce 256 also added support for cube environment mapping and dot-product (Dot3) bump mapping. The integration of the transform and lighting hardware into the GPU itself set the GeForce 256 apart from older 3D accelerators that relied on the CPU to perform these calculations (also known as software transform and lighting). 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 (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve c ...
(CAD). NV10's T&L engine also allowed Nvidia to enter the CAD market with dedicated cards for the first time, with a product called
Quadro Quadro was Nvidia's brand for graphics cards intended for use in workstations running professional computer-aided design (CAD), computer-generated imagery (CGI), digital content creation (DCC) applications, scientific calculations and machine l ...
. 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. The chip was manufactured by
TSMC Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC or Taiwan Semiconductor) is a Taiwanese multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company. It is one of the world's most valuable semiconductor companies, the world' ...
using its 220 nm
CMOS Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS, pronounced "sea-moss ", , ) is a type of MOSFET, metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) semiconductor device fabrication, fabrication process that uses complementary an ...
process A process is a series or set of activities that interact to produce a result; it may occur once-only or be recurrent or periodic. Things called a process include: Business and management * Business process, activities that produce a specific s ...
. There was only one GeForce 256 release, as succeeding GeForce products would have varying chip speeds. However there were two memory configurations, with the SDR version released in October 1999 and the DDR version released in mid-December 1999each with a different type of
SDRAM Synchronous dynamic random-access memory (synchronous dynamic RAM or SDRAM) is any DRAM where the operation of its external pin interface is coordinated by an externally supplied clock signal. DRAM integrated circuits (ICs) produced from the ...
memory. The SDR version uses
SDR SDRAM Synchronous dynamic random-access memory (synchronous dynamic RAM or SDRAM) is any DRAM where the operation of its external pin interface is coordinated by an externally supplied clock signal. DRAM integrated circuits (ICs) produced from the ea ...
memory from
Samsung Electronics Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (SEC; stylized as SΛMSUNG; ) is a South Korean multinational major appliance and consumer electronics corporation founded on 13 January 1969 and headquartered in Yeongtong District, Suwon, South Korea. It is curr ...
, while the later DDR version uses
DDR SDRAM Double Data Rate Synchronous Dynamic Random-Access Memory (DDR SDRAM) is a double data rate (DDR) synchronous dynamic random-access memory (SDRAM) class of memory integrated circuits used in computers. DDR SDRAM, also retroactively called DDR ...
memory from
Hyundai Electronics SK Hynix Inc. () is a South Korean supplier of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips and flash memory chips. SK Hynix is one of the world's largest semiconductor vendors. Founded as Hyundai Electronics in 1983, SK Hynix was integrated into ...
(now
SK Hynix SK Hynix Inc. () is a South Korean supplier of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips and flash memory chips. SK Hynix is one of the world's largest semiconductor vendors. Founded as Hyundai Electronics in 1983, SK Hynix was integrated into ...
).


Product comparisons

Compared to previous high-end 3D game accelerators, such as 3dfx Voodoo3 3500 and Nvidia RIVA TNT2 Ultra, GeForce provided up to a 50% or greater improvement in frame rate in some games (ones specifically written to take advantage of the hardware T&L) when coupled with a very-low-budget CPU. The later release and widespread adoption of GeForce 2 MX/4 MX cards with the same feature set meant unusually long support for the GeForce 256, until approximately 2006, in games such as Star Wars: Empire at War or Half-Life 2, the latter of which featured a Direct3D 7-compatible path, using a subset of Direct3D 9 to target the fixed-function pipeline of these GPUs. 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 A first-person shooter (FPS) is a video game genre, video game centered on gun fighting and other weapon-based combat seen from a First person (video games), first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action directly through t ...
s, most notably '' Quake III Arena''. Benchmarks using low-budget CPUs like the Celeron 300A would give favourable results for the GeForce 256, but benchmarks done with some CPUs such as the Pentium II 300 would give better results with some older graphics cards like the 3dfx Voodoo 2.
3dfx 3dfx Interactive, Inc. was an American computer hardware company headquartered in San Jose, California, founded in 1994, that specialized in the manufacturing of 3D graphics processing units, and later, video cards. It was a pioneer in the f ...
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 Radeon () is a brand of computer products, including graphics processing units, random-access memory, RAM disk software, and solid-state drives, produced by Radeon Technologies Group, a division of AMD. The brand was launched in 2000 by ATI Tech ...
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 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, which caused display output to be blurry. As CPUs became faster, the GeForce 256 demonstrated 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 hindrance 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.


Motion compensation

The GeForce 256 introduced
motion compensation Motion compensation in computing is an algorithmic technique used to predict a frame in a video given the previous and/or future frames by accounting for motion of the camera and/or objects in the video. It is employed in the encoding of video ...
as a functional unit of the NV10 chip, this first-generation unit would be succeeded by Nvidia's HDVP (High-Definition Video Processor) in GeForce 2 GTS.


Specifications

* All models are made via
TSMC Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC or Taiwan Semiconductor) is a Taiwanese multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company. It is one of the world's most valuable semiconductor companies, the world' ...
220 nm fabrication process


Discontinued support

NVIDIA has ceased driver support for the GeForce 256 series.


Final drivers

* Windows 9x & Windows Me: 71.84 released on March 11, 2005
Download


* Windows 2000 & 32-bit Windows XP: 71.89 released on April 14, 2005



The drivers for Windows 2000/XP may be installed on later versions of Windows such as Windows Vista and 7; however, they do not support desktop compositing or the
Aero Aero is a Greek prefix relating to flight and air. In British English, it is used as an adjective related to flight (e.g., as a shortened substitute for aeroplane). Aero, Ærø, or Aeros may refer to: Aeronautics Airlines and companies * Aero (A ...
effects of these operating systems.


Competitors

* ATI Rage 128 and Rage Fury MAXX * 3dfx Voodoo3 * Matrox G400 * S3 Savage 2000


See also

*
Graphics card A graphics card (also called a video card, display card, graphics accelerator, graphics adapter, VGA card/VGA, video adapter, display adapter, or colloquially GPU) is a computer expansion card that generates a feed of graphics output to a displa ...
*
Graphics processing unit A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed for digital image processing and to accelerate computer graphics, being present either as a discrete video card or embedded on motherboards, mobile phones, personal ...
*
List of Nvidia graphics processing units This list contains general information about graphics processing units (GPUs) and video cards from Nvidia, based on official specifications. In addition some Comparison of Nvidia nForce chipsets, Nvidia motherboards come with integrated onboard GP ...


References


External links


NVIDIA: GeForce 256 – The World's First GPU from web archive





techPowerUp! GPU Database
{{DEFAULTSORT:Geforce 256 Computer-related introductions in 1999 Nvidia graphics processors Graphics cards