This video is sponsored by MSI's range of next generation QD-OLED monitors. Learn more here: msi.gm/QD-OLEDs UK viewers can click here for a chance to win an MSI MPG 271QRX QD-OLED Gaming Monitor, Metaphor: ReFantazio Xbox/PC game code and exclusive tote bag: msi.gm/msi-x-metaphor-refantazio-giveaway
I could listen to John Spitzer talking tech all day. Very interesting guy. For those curious about the name, from Wikipedia: 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. The "GeForce" name originated from a contest held by Nvidia in early 1999 called "Name That Chip". "GeForce" originally stood for "Geometry Force" due to the T&L geometry.
How time has passed. I wrote about the GeForce 256/NV10 launch when I was still an Editor-in-Chief. I was way younger then, saw GeForce 256 at its IFA launch in Berlin, and I remember being totally excited. :-)
What a great group of people to interview. All were very knowledgeable in their different fields. I also think Alex did an excellent job as interviewer. Well done!
@@MysteryDI have fond memories of my 3dfx Voodoo 2, but that wasn't really a "GPU". 3D accelerators =/= GPUs. Sounds pedantic, but it's literally the entire point of this video.
@@Wobbothe3rd you are correct. This video was a fun gateway to a trip down the Wikipedia memory lane. I remember my jaw dropping at the absolutely staggering difference in image quality the first time I booted up Team Fortress with a Voodoo 1. Not quite as big a divide as going from 8-bit to EGA/VGA, but nothing quite as earth shaking as that since that moment. Though we’re not that far removed from FULLY photorealistic ray tracing in VR, though I do have reservations about that becoming the norm in gaming. Definitely a jump from the VR headsets and Prodigy 3D mech games that we were being touted in the gaming mags 😂
Geforce 2 MX 32mb vram. My first computer came with this GPU. Bought my first PC game the same day, Rainbow Six : Rogue Spear. Thinking about all this brings me back to december 2000, and not without tears 🥹. Thank you dad for this wonderful xmas gift.
Cool. What about Soldier of fortune, played that at the time? I had the same gpu.
8 дней назад+1
@@ESEJESEJ Only the playable demo (same for SoF 2). Spent an insane amount of time playing it, but goddamn the train level had my computer freeze so many times. Then again, I forgot to say my comp' ran Windows Millenium edition, one of Microsoft's biggest piece of trash ever made.
I had only just purchased a TNT2 Ultra and was gobsmacked when the 256 released. Back then Graphics cards were out of date by the time you got home from the shop.
Haha yes, younger people will never understand how shitty a two years old PC felt in the 1990s. 😂 Progress was so fast, it was incredible (and terribly expensive for young me).
Future Shop [Canada thing, now Best Buy], had an EVIL warranty / replacement upcharge you could buy at the time, pay the extra $80 CAD or what not, and you could bring your GPU back in and swap it for full value, no questions asked, for like 3 or 6 months or something? Either way, I got to try out EVERY. SINGLE. CARD. upon release, during the fastest moving and most excitement era of GPU technology that ever existed. Got to try the TNT 2 Ultra, the GeForce 256, the Voodoo 5, etc, and so forth... sigh.
Voodoo fell off after the Voodoo 2, they were chasing fill rate at the expense of all the cool things Nvidia did with GeForce. Banshee was ok, but Nvidia blew them out of the water.
UK was there first. We were making 3D GPUs in the 1990s in Imagination Technologies, since at least 1993 when NVidia was founded. I started work there in 1993 on the 3D team. For PCs then the Dreamcast then most phones and then Apple GPUs used our PowerVR.
man you guys gotta bring spitzer on to one of the df retro projects, he seems to have worked on so many games as support for the devs, amazing person Im honestly rly happy with the stories he talked about
The GeForce 256 was a card of many firsts, and they really only just scratched the surface of it here. One key addition was the DDR version released a few months later, which provided one of the single biggest leaps in memory bandwidth in a single generation. This interview looks like it would have been a blast to be on, and even just listening, it was really great to hear from internal perspectives. It makes me reminisce on the old, simpler NVIDIA when their primary focus was still gaming.
Mate! I'm just at the introductions and this is awesome! You were able to gather so experienced and responsible people in once place! Great work! Glad to be supporting you guys! Amazing!
I remember it like yesterday. I had bought "ASUS Agp-v6800 Deluxe NVIDIA GeForce 256 with 3D Glasses" ... it has DDR ram instead of SDR. I dont know how many times i watched 3D Mark 2000 with it.. Those were the days. I'd like to thank you Nvidia for every tech they brought to computer scene.
Geforce 256 was the second GPU I got back when I was a teen. My first was an ATI with 4mb of memory and it was getting pretty old back in 2002. It was a night and day upgrade I can tell you that. I could finale play GTA 3, Mass Payne, Soul Reaver 2, Diablo II, Warcaft III and many more. I have very fond memories of this GPU and I had completly forgot about. Thank DF for this nostalgic trip.
What's crazy to think about is how quickly the idea of what a GPU is took over the industry. Most of the time when we think about what preceded the Geforce 256 when don't even acknowledge that these peripherals weren't called GPU and had actually very limited role in the creation of a 3D scene. ps : forgot to say that I had a GF 256. Coming from a 3Dfx voodoo it really felt like entering into a new era.
Nvidia was legit trash at first compared to what 3Dfx had. Stop selling revisionist history. The N64 was more influential than anything Nvidia made for YEARS. 3Dfx was just mismanaged, Nvidia ended up with the patents and now game journalism owned by IGN is selling their revisionist history.
@@hackintosh3899 The video is literally about the GeForce legacy, at which point 3DFX were killing their business and NVIDIA were on a roll. How is that revisionist?
@@alexatkin No this video is from an advertising partner that is selling a fairy tale and leaving out patents they used when they made "GPU's" that weren't garbage or at best "even" except when Glide was involved and then they got crushed.
@@hackintosh3899 3dfx killed themselves and Nvidia was ahead of them by the time of the 256: "Despite its success, 3dfx made several key missteps during its history. The first was a failed collaboration with Sega, with whom 3dfx was to develop and supply video hardware for the Sega Dreamcast console. Sega would instead choose industry competitor NEC for the project. The second was its acquisition of STB Systems, then a major supplier of video cards. With STB, 3dfx would no longer license its technology to OEMs to release their own versions of 3dfx hardware. The Voodoo 3 was the first 3dfx product to be produced solely by 3dfx. The company no longer received revenue from partnerships with other manufacturers, who started producing cards based on chipsets from 3dfx rivals such as Nvidia and ATI. The Voodoo 3 and its successors the Voodoo 4 and Voodoo 5 faced stiff competition from rival hardware, eventually leading to 3dfx's bankruptcy in 2002. "
What an amazing video! Great to see the people that make such incredible technology have some time to shine and explain their work. Often these people are relegated to what's new txt document. Amazing interview cast. Well done digital foundry.
My first dedicated GPU was a Nvidia Geforce 2 MX (the original one, so no 200 or 400 version). It was practically a compact version of the Geforce 256 with a few Geforce 2 enhancements. I was baffled by what this thing could do on a budget. It was waaaaay more advanced than the TNT GPUs.
Geforce 2 MX 400 Gang Gang Gang (->Geforce 2 Ti, Geforce 3 Ti 500, Radeon 9800 Pro, Geforce 6800 LE @ GT.......) Das waren noch Zeiten. Und selbst die Eltern haben bei den Preisen damals noch gut mit supported :D ... und jetzt ... 2500€ für das Top Modell xD
Also das Geforce 2 Ultra für knapp 1000DM waren auch kein Pappenstiel ;) Die Voodoo 5-6000 hätte auch 1000DM kosten sollen. Ich hätte sie gekauft, wäre 3dfx nicht pleite gegangen
I've also had a slew of cards, can't even remember all of them. I remember upgrading often. Gforce 2 MX, GF 4 4600Ti, Radeon 9700, Radeon 9800 Pro, at least three more cards, then a GTX 550 Ti, and now still running on a 1070Ti (had no need for ray tracing) but with AI I am now gunning for an AMD card with 16GB
Wow, seems like I picked one up just yesterday - I feel very old. That being said, there were plenty of other T&L fixed-function pipeline chips and chipsets prior to the GeForce 256. I personally feel that the first true GPU was the GeForce 3, with the introduction of programmable vertex and pixel shaders (with the later 2006 Tesla/G80 being the first fully modern "general purpose" programmable GPU). IMHO, programmability with its own state makes something a real processor, whether we're talking the Amiga's copper or a modern GPU. The importance of the GeForce 256 was less about what it was, but what it represented about Nvidia's ascendency. Nvidia, in very quick succession, became the company that set the standard for feature-set and functionality. From the GeForce 256 onwards, with very few exceptions, it would be Nvidia that defined the market. They were the first to coin the phrase GPU, even if I don't think NV10 constitutes a GPU; they popularized DX7's T&L support as a mainstream feature; they introduced programmable shaders; while they didn't produce the first unified shader GPU, they were the ones who delivered it at scale on PC and generalized the model with CUDA; they were the first to deliver ray tracing but, IMHO, more importantly they were the first to deliver hardware for tensor operations that's proved remarkably capable (which on the consumer side gave them an ongoing advantage with DLSS). This mindshare leadership all started with the GeForce 256 - before the GeForce, they were just one of many display chipset shops.
These were the BEST of days... OG celerons OC'd from 433 to 750 each, on an ABIT BP6 dual CPU mobo... STB Riva 128, to Voodoo 3s, to GeForce 256 to Voodoo 5s, to GeForce 2's, 3s, 4s.... The computer scene back then, with local expo mart show and sales, local shops, Tiger Direct, etc... The RAPID development of ALL of the tech... it was just beyond magical. Amazing to see and hear from some of the folks that made my childhood as magical as it was. I mean, parents of course... most of the magic. But YOU GUYS for sure added to it as well. And never even knew you were doing so... MDK2 hasn't been mentioned thus far though, and I'd be remissed not to mention MDK2... it was a launch hardware T&L game, and it was quite a looker and a player for it. But as Nick said, there were lots of benchmarking utilities back then that would highlight the ability, and what it could offer looks and performance wise. Anyways... thanks guys, this was awesome!
Back at the day, I was working at NDP. I got to test the "Beta" version of GeForce 256 DDR-version. Of course, gaming wasn't the thing, compatibility was. But I got to "loan" it for myself for a while :) I also got a retail version of G400 MAX, when my boss had a sick leave... "To give me a better motivation to work" ;D Wonderful card, good picture quality, loved that... I hope I still had it, but I don't...
It's a shill video for Nvidia. Nvidia just released an article about this at exactly the same time DF dropped this vidoe. They got shill money for this sponsored puff piece. 'Sponsored by MSI' my ass, Nvidia paid them.
Do these people know how happy they made children, young people and adults? In 1999 I was 9y and in 2001 I remember it as if it were today, my dear uncle (21y) bought a Geforce 2 for the PC we had in the house. Even my grandfather (53y), a big NES and SNES player, was amazed at how good the games looked and ran. God bless these people.
I remember back in 2017 fresh out of college I got my first GTX 560 2GB model (that's what I could afford at the time, still had a blast playing Witcher 3), now I'm on the RTX 3080 12GB. Lots of fond memories in gaming eversince, thanks to Nvidia
I have not much clue for technical stuff but this retrospective was so good i watched it several times now. Thank you Alex, Nick, John.M, John.S and Jacob 😊
Oh man I feel like we need an extended cut where this exact lineup just sits down for like 10 hours and shares all kinds of personal and professional stories and anecdotes from that era
I remember getting my first Nvidia card, an AGP 7300GT specifically for shader model 3.0 support. To then have multiple games refuse to launch because the lack of SM 3.0. Fun Times! Still the card was a trooper, I even played CoD 4 mp with it! The GTX 1060 was also a great card I had. It's unfortunate that Nvidia is in such a league of their own when it comes to cutting edge GPUs nowadays.
born in 85', managed to persuade my parents in 1998 to let me get a PC, read about the GeForce cards and waited until 2000 to get a PC when the GeForce 2 was released, then bought a cheap "GeForce 256 Guillemot 3D Prophet 32MB" card in an AMD Athlon 750 with 750 MHz and 64MB RAM pc. In Germany, the cards were mainly advertised with NovaLogic games (Comanche 3 Gold, Delta Force, Delta Force 2 & Comanche 4). There was an advertisement for Comanche 4 that said that the system requirements for high settings were only a GeForce! I remember that the drivers had problems with 2D but 3D ran super fast, especially in many games the 2D text was buggy (e.g. Unreal Tournament). I used the card until 2004 when the "GeForce 5 FX" cards were released and then I bought a very cheap "Geforce 3 Leadtek Winfast 64MB" and played a lot of Delta Force: Black Hawk Down ^^
At the time it was current gen very few games supported T&L and in traditional games it wasn't (much) faster than the TNT 2 (Ultra). Those who where patient could get a faster card with the GeForce 2 for the same price or the same speed with the 2 MX for less money.
I never had a Geforce 256 I hat a Riva TNT 2 at the time, but a friend of mine di buy one and man!!!! Did I want one badly!!!! So I worked hard for a lot of time ( I was 19 at when 256 came out and in University) but I was able to sabe and I jumped from TNT 2 to Geforce TI 4600, man it was AMAZING!!!
I had the Geforce 256 SDR, it was glorious. Quake 3 ran so much better. I eventually swapped it (with some cash) for the DDR version and it was a decent boost too.
I was at that press event announcing the GeForce 256 at the Intel Developer Forum in Palm springs, CA in 1999. They gave us jerseys announcing 'today the world has changed'. I still have it packed away. Compared to the big events Nvidia does today, this was a small room with just a couple dozen or so people in it listening to Jensen tells us why this was a big deal. It was at another press event that it became apparent 3Dfx wasn't player anymore. This was at CES and we'd been invited to a 3Dfx event off-site from the show floor. They spent over an hour talking about how great the new product was going to be but there were no demos of even engineering samples. Just video that could have been rendered over who knows how long rather than real-time. As were were leaving I told the co-worker I'd attended with, "They don't have a product." The new chips eventually shipped but 3Dfx's strength among high end game development was fading fast in favor of DirectX that was hardware agnostic. They did give us very nice backpacks and I still have that too.
It's what they marketed it as back then. Obviously it's not true. It's the first Geforce card, but that's about it. The things it brought in had already been done in workstation and console GPUs, and the term GPU was already in use for many years, as todays meaning, graphics processing unit, coined by Sony in 94 for the PS1 GPU, and many many years earlier meaning graphics processor unit, for 70s, 80s, 90s GPUs.
Let’s stop and appreciate how incredible it is for DF to get this level of access to insiders from one of the most valuable and influential companies in the world right now. It’s a huge credit to the DF team’s professionalism and passion for the technology.
I was ALL OVER this GPU!! It was 2D & 3D (accelerated!!) and that was Mind Blowing for the day!! Featuring true D3D support, it was finally a Real Contender to 3DFX' Voodoo and Glide API. I remember playing games in front of my friends using this GPU/D3D to render games that otherwise were only possible with another add-in card/d3DGPU. When Nvidia bought them, I new it was ON. The competition between the two companies beat out their other 10 or so competitors and we've been left with only two. It's been a great and wild ride, but we could really use Intel or somebody to make it a legit 3 way race, at least in some price brackets. Finger's crossed ;D
I remember back then when Nvidia announced the first GPU, their website said : "Today the world changed" I thought it was silly hyperbole at the time, I was wrong..
My first Video card was a STB Velocity (Riva 128) 128. After that it was a quick flurry of some sort of an ATi Rage i borrowed from my mom's computer to a GeForce 2 MX that maybe came with my Dell i got for Y2K christmas... then to a Matrox G400 Max and then to a GeForce 3 Ti 200... that whole time period blends together because it was so fast! i can't remember how long i used each or the correct order. That GF3 Ti200 i loved so much though. Playing Carma 2 with Quincunx AA and custom car mods was something i did a lot. EDIT: That Environmental Bump Mapping in the Matrox is what made me want the cards that would have cool neat shiny features from then on.
@@lukemclaughlin2184 My first graphics card was known as a 3D decelerator because it had worse performance with the 3D acceleration enabled than running in software mode. It was equipped with the legendary S3 Virge Chip with 2 MiB of V-Ram expendable to a whopping 4MiB on my Elsa Victory 3D. It was the card that came with my first PC that I bought in 1997.
Alex keeps getting confused when he says the term "GPU", the problem is GeForce 256 was the ONLY GPU in the year 1999, the ATI RADEON didn't show up until a year later with buggy ATI drivers while Nvidia drivers were very stable. The other 3d graphics cards were "3d chipsets" or just "3d graphics cards", they never were "GPU" especially because many of them had multiple processor chips, not ONE like GeForce 256 and to boot full T&L offloading from the CPU where other 3d cards still relied on the drivers using the CPU for that function. The other thing I noticed here that was not really well remembered is that PC tech reviewers back then ran a set of different benchmarks that included many different games that were released up to the year 1999 and the heavy hitters were Unreal Tournament 99 and Quake III Team Arena among other games like Soldier of Fortune, etc. Remember... games released up to the year 1999 whenever the GeForce 256 was finally revealed and reviewed and Nvidia's GeForce basically shattered the benchmark framerates and image quality even with the first review release drivers which is crazy so if you refused to read the tech specs and the white papers there was no way you were not going to buy a GeForce 256 or wanted to unless you were waiting for 3DFX Glide optimized games which almost became obsolete at the potential for Direct X and Open GL Also image quality analysis and comparisons between 3DFX and Nvidia were basically spelling the end of 3DFX unless they could make something that could improve image quality and performance which they kinda sorta seemed to never had planned for in the same way that Nvidia and later ATI did. Also note ATI was playing with a dual ATI RADEON graphics card, or a Radeon card with two Radeon GPUs by late 2000 iirc as a possible weapon to use against 3DFX and Nvidia but they had issues getting the two GPUs working together like their previous Rage Fury Maxx which had problems working with Windows 2000... iirc ATI was unable to fix the drivers on that O.S. due to how different it worked as opposed to Windows 98se which was another issue because GeForce 256 drivers worked right away with Windows 2000 and after that it was a countdown for Nvidia to eventually make the GeForce 3 by 2001.
Before that they were considered 3D accelerators, and yes there were accelerators before, but the Geforce 256 was considered the first GPU for what the actual chipset could do.
@@Hoytehablode The term "GPU" was coined by Sony in reference to the 32-bit Sony GPU (designed by Toshiba) in the PlayStation console, released in 1994. All the 256 did was incorporate Hardware T&L, which the N64 GPU already did 3 years earlier.
S3 ViRGE Voodoo3 ati 9700 pro GeForce 6800 Ultra GeForce 8800 GS GeForce GTX 460 GeForce GTX 760 GeForce GTX 980 Ti (started making money from this point lmao) GeForce GTX 1080 Ti GeForce RTX 2080 Ti GeForce RTX 4090 was a fun run
IBM PC Jr (what a piece of junk that was) Some IBM PC compatible computer my dad had built from a local shop with a 20 MB harddrive I still have mounted on my wall with the case open and a giant copper platter. AutoCAD cards we used to game with, I remember ATi being one. He bought them so I can't remember much. I bought a Orchid Righteous 3D voodoo 1 gpu in 96 with summer job money. Starsiege Tribes was life. I honestly don't remember between then and the R9 290 other than it was all Nvidia and a few BFG cards. These were the WoW years which were a black hole of gaming for me other than WoW and Bioware RPG's and CPU mattered more in WoW. When the GPU died I bought a new Nvidia card. Vega 56 due to my IPS monitor working with freesync before Gysnc worked on other monitors. 4070 mitx console for kids 4090 desktop for Dad. Will be skipping the 5000 series and waiting until the next console gen to upgrade
@@NeovanGoth it was fun using it with the 3 games that supported it , i remember monstertruck madness and descent were 2 of them. i think the brand was ELSA
@@visker81 Yes! I remember getting a demo of Monster Truck Madness with S3 Virge 3D support (it may have been Direct3D 3.0 or so) with my PC, and it really sucked. xD Also got POD, but that one "only" had special MMX support and ran pretty fine actually. About Descent: I know that there were plenty of special versions for all kinds of more or less obscure 3D accelerators (like Rendition Verite and Matrox Mystique), but wasn't that Descent 2 only? 🤔 I played it with Glide, and it was absolutely awesome.
Think technically my first GPU was a GTX 560 but I still consider what my brother had was my first GPU because it was the first time I understood what a GPU was. I played on that computer a ton and we shared it a lot. And then I eventually inherited that computer. so it ended up being mine. it was the G-Force 3 256 MB lol
24:30 Thanks for showing this A-B comparison for Hardware T&L. GF256 was a major architectural change, like the 10xx series where there's a distinct Before and After. First time I saw bump mapping used all over the place was in Halo. It's definitely a "The Future Is Now" feeling.
Many of the engineers left to nVIDIA/ATi from Silicon Graphics at that time because they were already in trouble. I remember the GeForce 256 but I didn't had an nVIDIA card till GF mx 440 64mb because I stick with 3Dfx till the end. The people who were lucky to be teenagers in the 90s (like me) we saw the whole evolution of gaming PCs/consoles.
Nice to hear, nostaliga, GF256 32mb had similar performance to TNT2 32mb, after that the second big step up was (i would say even bigger than 256) was GF 6 series, like 6600GT, with pixel sharders & pixel pipes, which eventually transformed in to rendering pipelines and CUDA. True the Citizen Kabuto represended all the best geforce had to offer, vast world that u could flight everywhere, great roams of something (echo), beautiful landscapes. Quake was more like sport game, and half life had good story.
man. that Nvidia forward thinking mentality paid of big time with AI and RT. everybody said "who needed this" with RTX 20 series. look at them now. in the TOP 3 most important company in the world and AMD to this day doesn't have the tech the 20 series had.
I still remember when the first guy had the GeForce 256 SDR at a LAN party and they crazy amount of FPS he got with it in Quake 3. My first GeForce was the ELSA GeForce 2 GTS some times later 😀
John Spitzer is like a very hardcore version of some witcher knight nightmares persona, that you see when you wake up after total comedown 7days of party, totally scary af
I just missed the Geforce 256, upgrading from a Voodoo 3 to an MX 200. The Ti 4600 I got after that might be the greatest GPU I've ever had. The raw power it could bring to bear on games of the time felt amazing compared to what I was used to.
Remember helping my cousin set up his Pc in 2002 I was 4 and was helping him with the CPU and RAM. Don’t remember the specs but the the process is something I can’t forget. On my 9th Pc build and while some aspects of PC building back then are now outdated it’s fun looking at the old PC Gamer magazines from the early 2000s
The GeForce 256 was barely faster than the TNT2 at release and was much more expensive. Still, had to have one. :D And in less than a year it became much faster, especially in the new games. Unreal Tournament, Quake III, Half-Life. Those were the best days of my life.. ;) I still have a GeForce 256 SDR in my P3 PC and it still work flawlessly! Great video!
I'm sitting here watching this presentation and it just doesn't feel right hearing the 256 called the first "GPU." I remember the excitement of getting my first Voodoo card or before that an ATI Mach. The 256 was long after that. If it was was truly the first product to be called a "GPU"... then it was the first Graphical Processing Unit in name only.
The term "GPU" was coined by Sony in reference to the 32-bit Sony GPU (designed by Toshiba) in the PlayStation, released in 1994. This seems to be the usual DF NV fanboyism.
@@TTOOS Lol, what are you talking about? I'm not sure how old you are but for a large part of the audience the 256 isn't going to feel anything like the first GPU. Even by definition, there were several that came years beforehand, 2D and 3D both. If you were old enough to be there, the title is incredibly wrong (and now clearly labeled "Sponsored")
My first ever graphics card was the Geforce 3 Ti 200 I believe it was named. Great card back in the day paired with my Athlon x2 3800plus with 4 GB of ram. Oh man that Windows XP and "Internet explorer has encountered an problem and most be closed" were the times.
This video is sponsored by MSI's range of next generation QD-OLED monitors. Learn more here: msi.gm/QD-OLEDs
UK viewers can click here for a chance to win an MSI MPG 271QRX QD-OLED Gaming Monitor, Metaphor: ReFantazio Xbox/PC game code and exclusive tote bag: msi.gm/msi-x-metaphor-refantazio-giveaway
this isnt the first gpu lol
John Spitzer more like Geralt of NVIDIA
GeForce for gaming, Quadro for work. )
Geralt of Riva TNT
i had to look twice. thought it was an old lady 😂
Game.
Blouses.
If you still have a full head of hair at grey-hair ages you have every right to rock it like that
John Spitzer with that NVIDIA HairWorks hair.
I thought He was an old lady. 😅
@@starbez lmao same
grey talon
Geraltalon
He looks fabulous
Geralt of NVIDIA
I could listen to John Spitzer talking tech all day. Very interesting guy. For those curious about the name, from Wikipedia: 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. The "GeForce" name originated from a contest held by Nvidia in early 1999 called "Name That Chip". "GeForce" originally stood for "Geometry Force" due to the T&L geometry.
Geforce is from Gigatexel Engine
1999 was a crazy year for Graphics Cards.
Nvidia Geforce 256
3DFX Voodoo 3
S3 Savage 4
Ati Rage 128
Matrox Millennium
My young self crying in S3 ViRGE
I remember those days man. 3dfx owner here.
The only thing Savage about S3 3D cards are the marketing lies.
Tell me about it, i was using a SIS530. Unreal ran better in software mode.
How time has passed. I wrote about the GeForce 256/NV10 launch when I was still an Editor-in-Chief. I was way younger then, saw GeForce 256 at its IFA launch in Berlin, and I remember being totally excited. :-)
At 5:24 I thought my Nvidia card failed me.
RTX Grey
@@jimmyvau LOL, same here. Had to pause the video and check different videos on youtube to check if it was driver bug.
What a great group of people to interview. All were very knowledgeable in their different fields. I also think Alex did an excellent job as interviewer. Well done!
My first Nvidia gpu was MX420 from 2002.
Now I'm 40 years old and have the RTX4080. Still playing and will play till my last breath! 😊
Mine was 3dfx voodoo 2. I'm also 40. I got mine for Christmas in 1998ish
Still have my Geforce 4 mx440 128mb, and my voodoo 3dfx card , late 90's were golden years for PC Gaming.
@@mikestewart368 2000s too :D
@@MysteryDI have fond memories of my 3dfx Voodoo 2, but that wasn't really a "GPU". 3D accelerators =/= GPUs. Sounds pedantic, but it's literally the entire point of this video.
@@Wobbothe3rd you are correct. This video was a fun gateway to a trip down the Wikipedia memory lane. I remember my jaw dropping at the absolutely staggering difference in image quality the first time I booted up Team Fortress with a Voodoo 1. Not quite as big a divide as going from 8-bit to EGA/VGA, but nothing quite as earth shaking as that since that moment. Though we’re not that far removed from FULLY photorealistic ray tracing in VR, though I do have reservations about that becoming the norm in gaming. Definitely a jump from the VR headsets and Prodigy 3D mech games that we were being touted in the gaming mags 😂
Came for GPU talk, stayed waiting to know about Spitzer's hair care routine.
Geforce 2 MX 32mb vram. My first computer came with this GPU. Bought my first PC game the same day, Rainbow Six : Rogue Spear. Thinking about all this brings me back to december 2000, and not without tears 🥹. Thank you dad for this wonderful xmas gift.
Cool. What about Soldier of fortune, played that at the time? I had the same gpu.
@@ESEJESEJ Only the playable demo (same for SoF 2). Spent an insane amount of time playing it, but goddamn the train level had my computer freeze so many times. Then again, I forgot to say my comp' ran Windows Millenium edition, one of Microsoft's biggest piece of trash ever made.
I had that GPU as an upgrade to my Voodoo 4 4500
I had only just purchased a TNT2 Ultra and was gobsmacked when the 256 released. Back then Graphics cards were out of date by the time you got home from the shop.
Same here!!
There were only a few games which used T&L for better graphics
CPUs in the 90's were also like that, too. Pentium 1 to 2 was the difference between running and NOT running Quake 2.
Haha yes, younger people will never understand how shitty a two years old PC felt in the 1990s. 😂 Progress was so fast, it was incredible (and terribly expensive for young me).
Future Shop [Canada thing, now Best Buy], had an EVIL warranty / replacement upcharge you could buy at the time, pay the extra $80 CAD or what not, and you could bring your GPU back in and swap it for full value, no questions asked, for like 3 or 6 months or something? Either way, I got to try out EVERY. SINGLE. CARD. upon release, during the fastest moving and most excitement era of GPU technology that ever existed. Got to try the TNT 2 Ultra, the GeForce 256, the Voodoo 5, etc, and so forth... sigh.
LOL trying to add 3D to OS/2 Warp. THAT is the story i want to hear!
Spoiler alert: it didn't end well.
Not a GPU, but for me, Voodoo still stands as more game changing.
They bought 3DFx eventually, which boosted Nvidia to an impressive degree.
Yeah, they used the term "3D accelerator" or something like that?
Voodoo fell off after the Voodoo 2, they were chasing fill rate at the expense of all the cool things Nvidia did with GeForce. Banshee was ok, but Nvidia blew them out of the water.
I agree but the GeForce was the first to offload T&L from the CPU.
@@kondor99999What about the Dreamcast GPU?
UK was there first. We were making 3D GPUs in the 1990s in Imagination Technologies, since at least 1993 when NVidia was founded. I started work there in 1993 on the 3D team. For PCs then the Dreamcast then most phones and then Apple GPUs used our PowerVR.
I still have a PCX-2.
That's very true
@@WayneCouyon nice one I remember that!
It was known as VideoLogic back then
@@FarawayJohn I bought one right when it was available!
man you guys gotta bring spitzer on to one of the df retro projects, he seems to have worked on so many games as support for the devs, amazing person Im honestly rly happy with the stories he talked about
Didn‘t know that Patrick Stewart was sidehustling for NVidia.
Hey, yeah. I had a Voodoo first, then a 256. Tomb Raider before and after was fantastic.
The GeForce 256 was a card of many firsts, and they really only just scratched the surface of it here. One key addition was the DDR version released a few months later, which provided one of the single biggest leaps in memory bandwidth in a single generation. This interview looks like it would have been a blast to be on, and even just listening, it was really great to hear from internal perspectives. It makes me reminisce on the old, simpler NVIDIA when their primary focus was still gaming.
Giants Citizen Kabuto is still an amazing visual experience today (and sometime ago it got a D3D9 rendering path too :p)
I might need to look for that patch I still have the game here on CD-Rom.
Amazing both graphically and still a fun game to this day!
my 5 year olf just came in and confidently said that she recognised John Spitzer from Harry Potter
At 2X speed John Spitzer sounds like Campbell from MGS
when he said "codec" I was, wait a minute! 😂
Snake?! SSSNNNAAAKE!!!
Wow, good call.
I NEED SCISSORS
Mate! I'm just at the introductions and this is awesome! You were able to gather so experienced and responsible people in once place! Great work! Glad to be supporting you guys! Amazing!
I remember it like yesterday. I had bought "ASUS Agp-v6800 Deluxe NVIDIA GeForce 256 with 3D Glasses" ... it has DDR ram instead of SDR. I dont know how many times i watched 3D Mark 2000 with it.. Those were the days. I'd like to thank you Nvidia for every tech they brought to computer scene.
Geforce 256 was the second GPU I got back when I was a teen. My first was an ATI with 4mb of memory and it was getting pretty old back in 2002. It was a night and day upgrade I can tell you that. I could finale play GTA 3, Mass Payne, Soul Reaver 2, Diablo II, Warcaft III and many more. I have very fond memories of this GPU and I had completly forgot about. Thank DF for this nostalgic trip.
What's crazy to think about is how quickly the idea of what a GPU is took over the industry. Most of the time when we think about what preceded the Geforce 256 when don't even acknowledge that these peripherals weren't called GPU and had actually very limited role in the creation of a 3D scene.
ps : forgot to say that I had a GF 256. Coming from a 3Dfx voodoo it really felt like entering into a new era.
Nvidia was legit trash at first compared to what 3Dfx had. Stop selling revisionist history. The N64 was more influential than anything Nvidia made for YEARS. 3Dfx was just mismanaged, Nvidia ended up with the patents and now game journalism owned by IGN is selling their revisionist history.
@@hackintosh3899 The video is literally about the GeForce legacy, at which point 3DFX were killing their business and NVIDIA were on a roll. How is that revisionist?
@@alexatkin No this video is from an advertising partner that is selling a fairy tale and leaving out patents they used when they made "GPU's" that weren't garbage or at best "even" except when Glide was involved and then they got crushed.
@@hackintosh3899 3dfx killed themselves and Nvidia was ahead of them by the time of the 256: "Despite its success, 3dfx made several key missteps during its history. The first was a failed collaboration with Sega, with whom 3dfx was to develop and supply video hardware for the Sega Dreamcast console. Sega would instead choose industry competitor NEC for the project. The second was its acquisition of STB Systems, then a major supplier of video cards. With STB, 3dfx would no longer license its technology to OEMs to release their own versions of 3dfx hardware. The Voodoo 3 was the first 3dfx product to be produced solely by 3dfx. The company no longer received revenue from partnerships with other manufacturers, who started producing cards based on chipsets from 3dfx rivals such as Nvidia and ATI. The Voodoo 3 and its successors the Voodoo 4 and Voodoo 5 faced stiff competition from rival hardware, eventually leading to 3dfx's bankruptcy in 2002. "
The term "GPU" was coined by Sony in 1994.
What an amazing video! Great to see the people that make such incredible technology have some time to shine and explain their work. Often these people are relegated to what's new txt document. Amazing interview cast. Well done digital foundry.
My first dedicated GPU was a Nvidia Geforce 2 MX (the original one, so no 200 or 400 version). It was practically a compact version of the Geforce 256 with a few Geforce 2 enhancements. I was baffled by what this thing could do on a budget. It was waaaaay more advanced than the TNT GPUs.
Geforce 2 MX 400 Gang Gang Gang (->Geforce 2 Ti, Geforce 3 Ti 500, Radeon 9800 Pro, Geforce 6800 LE @ GT.......) Das waren noch Zeiten. Und selbst die Eltern haben bei den Preisen damals noch gut mit supported :D ... und jetzt ... 2500€ für das Top Modell xD
Also das Geforce 2 Ultra für knapp 1000DM waren auch kein Pappenstiel ;)
Die Voodoo 5-6000 hätte auch 1000DM kosten sollen. Ich hätte sie gekauft, wäre 3dfx nicht pleite gegangen
I've also had a slew of cards, can't even remember all of them. I remember upgrading often. Gforce 2 MX, GF 4 4600Ti, Radeon 9700, Radeon 9800 Pro, at least three more cards, then a GTX 550 Ti, and now still running on a 1070Ti (had no need for ray tracing) but with AI I am now gunning for an AMD card with 16GB
It was all 3dfx for me back then. First Geforce for me was the 4200 Ti 64MB.
It was actually called Ti 4200, They used to put the Ti in front of the number before hehehe
@@Hoytehablode A long time ago...
Wow, seems like I picked one up just yesterday - I feel very old. That being said, there were plenty of other T&L fixed-function pipeline chips and chipsets prior to the GeForce 256. I personally feel that the first true GPU was the GeForce 3, with the introduction of programmable vertex and pixel shaders (with the later 2006 Tesla/G80 being the first fully modern "general purpose" programmable GPU). IMHO, programmability with its own state makes something a real processor, whether we're talking the Amiga's copper or a modern GPU.
The importance of the GeForce 256 was less about what it was, but what it represented about Nvidia's ascendency. Nvidia, in very quick succession, became the company that set the standard for feature-set and functionality. From the GeForce 256 onwards, with very few exceptions, it would be Nvidia that defined the market. They were the first to coin the phrase GPU, even if I don't think NV10 constitutes a GPU; they popularized DX7's T&L support as a mainstream feature; they introduced programmable shaders; while they didn't produce the first unified shader GPU, they were the ones who delivered it at scale on PC and generalized the model with CUDA; they were the first to deliver ray tracing but, IMHO, more importantly they were the first to deliver hardware for tensor operations that's proved remarkably capable (which on the consumer side gave them an ongoing advantage with DLSS). This mindshare leadership all started with the GeForce 256 - before the GeForce, they were just one of many display chipset shops.
My NVIDIA GPU "collection": 16Mb Riva TNT 2 Vanta (2001), 64Mb GeForce 2 MX-400 (2002-2003), 256Mb GeForce 8500GT (2007-2009), 1Gb GeForce 9600GT (2009-2012), 1Gb GeForce GTX 560 (2012-2013), 6Gb GeForce GTX 1060 (2016-2022), 8Gb GeForce RTX 3050 (2022-2023), 12Gb GeForce RTX 4070 (since 2023). From 2003 to 2007 used Radeon 9100 and 9550, from 2013 to 2016 used Radeon R9 270X.
brilliant historical document , Nice one DF , Well done Alex
These were the BEST of days... OG celerons OC'd from 433 to 750 each, on an ABIT BP6 dual CPU mobo... STB Riva 128, to Voodoo 3s, to GeForce 256 to Voodoo 5s, to GeForce 2's, 3s, 4s.... The computer scene back then, with local expo mart show and sales, local shops, Tiger Direct, etc... The RAPID development of ALL of the tech... it was just beyond magical. Amazing to see and hear from some of the folks that made my childhood as magical as it was. I mean, parents of course... most of the magic. But YOU GUYS for sure added to it as well. And never even knew you were doing so...
MDK2 hasn't been mentioned thus far though, and I'd be remissed not to mention MDK2... it was a launch hardware T&L game, and it was quite a looker and a player for it. But as Nick said, there were lots of benchmarking utilities back then that would highlight the ability, and what it could offer looks and performance wise.
Anyways... thanks guys, this was awesome!
Back at the day, I was working at NDP. I got to test the "Beta" version of GeForce 256 DDR-version. Of course, gaming wasn't the thing, compatibility was.
But I got to "loan" it for myself for a while :)
I also got a retail version of G400 MAX, when my boss had a sick leave... "To give me a better motivation to work" ;D
Wonderful card, good picture quality, loved that...
I hope I still had it, but I don't...
Great talks! WE NEED MORE OF THIS!!!
My first GPU that I remember was a TNT 2, then GeForce 2 MX 200, and my first big jump was Ti 4200 128 GB in 2002. Good old times.
128GB in 2002 LOL, you mean 128 MB
@@paulmichaelfreedman8334 You are right. :)
One of the first GPUs to have a cooling fan also
I forgot about Evolva and Giants: Citizen Kabuto! So many feelings just rushed back to me
Super cool to see an in-depth video about something niche like the GeForce 256
It's a shill video for Nvidia. Nvidia just released an article about this at exactly the same time DF dropped this vidoe. They got shill money for this sponsored puff piece. 'Sponsored by MSI' my ass, Nvidia paid them.
Niche? It's one of the first GPUs that kickstarted the whole industry.
@@Razumen yeah, I know. It’s awesome!
Do these people know how happy they made children, young people and adults? In 1999 I was 9y and in 2001 I remember it as if it were today, my dear uncle (21y) bought a Geforce 2 for the PC we had in the house. Even my grandfather (53y), a big NES and SNES player, was amazed at how good the games looked and ran. God bless these people.
3dfx made children, young people, and adults happy years before Nvidia did.
@@jg_ultra...and?
Great job Alex. Very cool to hear from some of the OGs.
I remember back in 2017 fresh out of college I got my first GTX 560 2GB model (that's what I could afford at the time, still had a blast playing Witcher 3), now I'm on the RTX 3080 12GB. Lots of fond memories in gaming eversince, thanks to Nvidia
I have not much clue for technical stuff but this retrospective was so good i watched it several times now. Thank you Alex, Nick, John.M, John.S and Jacob 😊
Oh man I feel like we need an extended cut where this exact lineup just sits down for like 10 hours and shares all kinds of personal and professional stories and anecdotes from that era
I remember getting my first Nvidia card, an AGP 7300GT specifically for shader model 3.0 support. To then have multiple games refuse to launch because the lack of SM 3.0. Fun Times! Still the card was a trooper, I even played CoD 4 mp with it! The GTX 1060 was also a great card I had. It's unfortunate that Nvidia is in such a league of their own when it comes to cutting edge GPUs nowadays.
Shit I forgot I had a 7300LE 128MB before my 8600GT
born in 85', managed to persuade my parents in 1998 to let me get a PC, read about the GeForce cards and waited until 2000 to get a PC when the GeForce 2 was released, then bought a cheap "GeForce 256 Guillemot 3D Prophet 32MB" card in an AMD Athlon 750 with 750 MHz and 64MB RAM pc. In Germany, the cards were mainly advertised with NovaLogic games (Comanche 3 Gold, Delta Force, Delta Force 2 & Comanche 4). There was an advertisement for Comanche 4 that said that the system requirements for high settings were only a GeForce!
I remember that the drivers had problems with 2D but 3D ran super fast, especially in many games the 2D text was buggy (e.g. Unreal Tournament).
I used the card until 2004 when the "GeForce 5 FX" cards were released and then I bought a very cheap "Geforce 3 Leadtek Winfast 64MB" and played a lot of Delta Force: Black Hawk Down ^^
At the time it was current gen very few games supported T&L and in traditional games it wasn't (much) faster than the TNT 2 (Ultra).
Those who where patient could get a faster card with the GeForce 2 for the same price or the same speed with the 2 MX for less money.
I never had a Geforce 256 I hat a Riva TNT 2 at the time, but a friend of mine di buy one and man!!!! Did I want one badly!!!! So I worked hard for a lot of time ( I was 19 at when 256 came out and in University) but I was able to sabe and I jumped from TNT 2 to Geforce TI 4600, man it was AMAZING!!!
Ty so much.
A great video before bed, will save it for later.
Ty DF
I bought one back in the day, the SDR memory version, then later upgraded to the DDR version when that came out.
I bought this back in the day. 25 years flew by
I had the Geforce 256 SDR, it was glorious. Quake 3 ran so much better. I eventually swapped it (with some cash) for the DDR version and it was a decent boost too.
I was at that press event announcing the GeForce 256 at the Intel Developer Forum in Palm springs, CA in 1999. They gave us jerseys announcing 'today the world has changed'. I still have it packed away. Compared to the big events Nvidia does today, this was a small room with just a couple dozen or so people in it listening to Jensen tells us why this was a big deal.
It was at another press event that it became apparent 3Dfx wasn't player anymore. This was at CES and we'd been invited to a 3Dfx event off-site from the show floor. They spent over an hour talking about how great the new product was going to be but there were no demos of even engineering samples. Just video that could have been rendered over who knows how long rather than real-time. As were were leaving I told the co-worker I'd attended with, "They don't have a product." The new chips eventually shipped but 3Dfx's strength among high end game development was fading fast in favor of DirectX that was hardware agnostic. They did give us very nice backpacks and I still have that too.
This is a really great idea. You can feel Alex’s passion shine through with videos like this
I love the GeForce 256 Annihilator 🥳
First gpu?? My old voodoo would have something to say about that.
It's what they marketed it as back then. Obviously it's not true. It's the first Geforce card, but that's about it. The things it brought in had already been done in workstation and console GPUs, and the term GPU was already in use for many years, as todays meaning, graphics processing unit, coined by Sony in 94 for the PS1 GPU, and many many years earlier meaning graphics processor unit, for 70s, 80s, 90s GPUs.
That was a 'Graphics Accelerator' and had to be used alongside a graphics card ;) but you knew that.
@@80n3y4rd And both had a processor used for manipulating a digital image, a GPU.
@@Arcona you have been proven wrong in other comments, Sony did not coin "GPU" - stop with your fanbaby misinfo
@@Arcona jen was the director of ps1s hardware 8 years before the ps1came out, lsi logic coreweave.
Let’s stop and appreciate how incredible it is for DF to get this level of access to insiders from one of the most valuable and influential companies in the world right now. It’s a huge credit to the DF team’s professionalism and passion for the technology.
I remember saving up my allowance for the Geforce 256 just to play Hitman: Codename 47
We can see from 1000 miles that the long hair guy is an extremely good communicator.
I was ALL OVER this GPU!! It was 2D & 3D (accelerated!!) and that was Mind Blowing for the day!! Featuring true D3D support, it was finally a Real Contender to 3DFX' Voodoo and Glide API. I remember playing games in front of my friends using this GPU/D3D to render games that otherwise were only possible with another add-in card/d3DGPU. When Nvidia bought them, I new it was ON. The competition between the two companies beat out their other 10 or so competitors and we've been left with only two. It's been a great and wild ride, but we could really use Intel or somebody to make it a legit 3 way race, at least in some price brackets. Finger's crossed ;D
I had one of these, then sold it shortly thereafter to get the DDR version. Wow what an upgrade from my Riva TNT2 Ultra!!!
I remember back then when Nvidia announced the first GPU, their website said : "Today the world changed" I thought it was silly hyperbole at the time, I was wrong..
My first Video card was a STB Velocity (Riva 128) 128. After that it was a quick flurry of some sort of an ATi Rage i borrowed from my mom's computer to a GeForce 2 MX that maybe came with my Dell i got for Y2K christmas... then to a Matrox G400 Max and then to a GeForce 3 Ti 200... that whole time period blends together because it was so fast! i can't remember how long i used each or the correct order. That GF3 Ti200 i loved so much though. Playing Carma 2 with Quincunx AA and custom car mods was something i did a lot.
EDIT: That Environmental Bump Mapping in the Matrox is what made me want the cards that would have cool neat shiny features from then on.
The TI200 was a beast for the price!!
@@lukemclaughlin2184 My first graphics card was known as a 3D decelerator because it had worse performance with the 3D acceleration enabled than running in software mode. It was equipped with the legendary S3 Virge Chip with 2 MiB of V-Ram expendable to a whopping 4MiB on my Elsa Victory 3D. It was the card that came with my first PC that I bought in 1997.
My cousin Erik Lindholm co-architected the GeForce 256, would have been cool to see him on this panel, he's a great guy.
Alex keeps getting confused when he says the term "GPU", the problem is GeForce 256 was the ONLY GPU in the year 1999, the ATI RADEON didn't show up until a year later with buggy ATI drivers while Nvidia drivers were very stable. The other 3d graphics cards were "3d chipsets" or just "3d graphics cards", they never were "GPU" especially because many of them had multiple processor chips, not ONE like GeForce 256 and to boot full T&L offloading from the CPU where other 3d cards still relied on the drivers using the CPU for that function.
The other thing I noticed here that was not really well remembered is that PC tech reviewers back then ran a set of different benchmarks that included many different games that were released up to the year 1999 and the heavy hitters were Unreal Tournament 99 and Quake III Team Arena among other games like Soldier of Fortune, etc. Remember... games released up to the year 1999 whenever the GeForce 256 was finally revealed and reviewed and Nvidia's GeForce basically shattered the benchmark framerates and image quality even with the first review release drivers which is crazy so if you refused to read the tech specs and the white papers there was no way you were not going to buy a GeForce 256 or wanted to unless you were waiting for 3DFX Glide optimized games which almost became obsolete at the potential for Direct X and Open GL
Also image quality analysis and comparisons between 3DFX and Nvidia were basically spelling the end of 3DFX unless they could make something that could improve image quality and performance which they kinda sorta seemed to never had planned for in the same way that Nvidia and later ATI did.
Also note ATI was playing with a dual ATI RADEON graphics card, or a Radeon card with two Radeon GPUs by late 2000 iirc as a possible weapon to use against 3DFX and Nvidia but they had issues getting the two GPUs working together like their previous Rage Fury Maxx which had problems working with Windows 2000... iirc ATI was unable to fix the drivers on that O.S. due to how different it worked as opposed to Windows 98se which was another issue because GeForce 256 drivers worked right away with Windows 2000 and after that it was a countdown for Nvidia to eventually make the GeForce 3 by 2001.
I still have my AGP 64MB DDR version! I bought it after reading the review on Anandtech. What a throwback!
The jump from Riva 128 to TNT in terms of image quality both in 2D and 3D was massive.
The "first" GPU? In 1999, what?
I'm sorry but I have Graphics accelerators in my PC since the early 90's. It was a dedicated graphics card.
Before that they were considered 3D accelerators, and yes there were accelerators before, but the Geforce 256 was considered the first GPU for what the actual chipset could do.
@@Hoytehablode The term "GPU" was coined by Sony in reference to the 32-bit Sony GPU (designed by Toshiba) in the PlayStation console, released in 1994. All the 256 did was incorporate Hardware T&L, which the N64 GPU already did 3 years earlier.
@@Arcona The N64's T&L used microcode running on a general purpose processor. GeForce had dedicated silicon for the work.
Thank you for putting this interview together! Love listening to this nerdy shit lol
S3 ViRGE
Voodoo3
ati 9700 pro
GeForce 6800 Ultra
GeForce 8800 GS
GeForce GTX 460
GeForce GTX 760
GeForce GTX 980 Ti (started making money from this point lmao)
GeForce GTX 1080 Ti
GeForce RTX 2080 Ti
GeForce RTX 4090
was a fun run
S3 Virge? We don't talk about that one. 😜 (had one too and quickly supplemented it with a 3DFX Voodoo)
@@NeovanGoth not that I had any say in the matter lol
IBM PC Jr (what a piece of junk that was)
Some IBM PC compatible computer my dad had built from a local shop with a 20 MB harddrive I still have mounted on my wall with the case open and a giant copper platter.
AutoCAD cards we used to game with, I remember ATi being one. He bought them so I can't remember much.
I bought a Orchid Righteous 3D voodoo 1 gpu in 96 with summer job money. Starsiege Tribes was life.
I honestly don't remember between then and the R9 290 other than it was all Nvidia and a few BFG cards. These were the WoW years which were a black hole of gaming for me other than WoW and Bioware RPG's and CPU mattered more in WoW. When the GPU died I bought a new Nvidia card.
Vega 56 due to my IPS monitor working with freesync before Gysnc worked on other monitors.
4070 mitx console for kids
4090 desktop for Dad.
Will be skipping the 5000 series and waiting until the next console gen to upgrade
@@NeovanGoth it was fun using it with the 3 games that supported it , i remember monstertruck madness and descent were 2 of them. i think the brand was ELSA
@@visker81 Yes! I remember getting a demo of Monster Truck Madness with S3 Virge 3D support (it may have been Direct3D 3.0 or so) with my PC, and it really sucked. xD Also got POD, but that one "only" had special MMX support and ran pretty fine actually.
About Descent: I know that there were plenty of special versions for all kinds of more or less obscure 3D accelerators (like Rendition Verite and Matrox Mystique), but wasn't that Descent 2 only? 🤔 I played it with Glide, and it was absolutely awesome.
Think technically my first GPU was a GTX 560 but I still consider what my brother had was my first GPU because it was the first time I understood what a GPU was. I played on that computer a ton and we shared it a lot. And then I eventually inherited that computer. so it ended up being mine.
it was the G-Force 3 256 MB lol
My SECOND graphics card (after a voodoo2) good times...
24:30 Thanks for showing this A-B comparison for Hardware T&L. GF256 was a major architectural change, like the 10xx series where there's a distinct Before and After.
First time I saw bump mapping used all over the place was in Halo. It's definitely a "The Future Is Now" feeling.
Super cool episode and an interesting talk! Thanks for making it, guys.
Oh hell yes I remember every detail of this release like it was yesterday. Missing next gen magazine
I remember having a Riva TNT2 and my brother got a Geforce 256, those were the days.
Thanks DF, Very cool video.
This is a very cool setup and brilliant idea to celebrate an important moment in graphics history
I was half my age back then...remember then revolution ^^
I had "someone will mention Foley and Van Dam" in my bingo card, and I was not disappointed.
Many of the engineers left to nVIDIA/ATi from Silicon Graphics at that time because they were already in trouble.
I remember the GeForce 256 but I didn't had an nVIDIA card till GF mx 440 64mb because I stick with 3Dfx till the end.
The people who were lucky to be teenagers in the 90s (like me) we saw the whole evolution of gaming PCs/consoles.
I had one... The SDR version then changed it to the DDR one. I'm feeling a little old now
First graphic card to do hardware t and l i had the geforce 256 ddr version max payne ran superb on it
First user card, yeah. Various workstation cards already did it, hell the N64 and Dreamcast GPUs already did it too.
Nice to hear, nostaliga, GF256 32mb had similar performance to TNT2 32mb, after that the second big step up was (i would say even bigger than 256) was GF 6 series, like 6600GT, with pixel sharders & pixel pipes, which eventually transformed in to rendering pipelines and CUDA. True the Citizen Kabuto represended all the best geforce had to offer, vast world that u could flight everywhere, great roams of something (echo), beautiful landscapes. Quake was more like sport game, and half life had good story.
Fantastic panel Alex, tanks for this one. It will be great to see something like that about VooDoo Graphics ❤
man. that Nvidia forward thinking mentality paid of big time with AI and RT. everybody said "who needed this" with RTX 20 series. look at them now. in the TOP 3 most important company in the world and AMD to this day doesn't have the tech the 20 series had.
I still remember when the first guy had the GeForce 256 SDR at a LAN party and they crazy amount of FPS he got with it in Quake 3.
My first GeForce was the ELSA GeForce 2 GTS some times later 😀
John Spitzer is like a very hardcore version of some witcher knight nightmares persona, that you see when you wake up after total comedown 7days of party, totally scary af
I just missed the Geforce 256, upgrading from a Voodoo 3 to an MX 200. The Ti 4600 I got after that might be the greatest GPU I've ever had. The raw power it could bring to bear on games of the time felt amazing compared to what I was used to.
Wonderful video, thanks Alex and everyone involved
Remember helping my cousin set up his Pc in 2002 I was 4 and was helping him with the CPU and RAM. Don’t remember the specs but the the process is something I can’t forget. On my 9th Pc build and while some aspects of PC building back then are now outdated it’s fun looking at the old PC Gamer magazines from the early 2000s
my first card was a Nvidia Riva TNT2 for playing GLQuake 🙂
The GeForce 256 was barely faster than the TNT2 at release and was much more expensive. Still, had to have one. :D And in less than a year it became much faster, especially in the new games. Unreal Tournament, Quake III, Half-Life. Those were the best days of my life.. ;) I still have a GeForce 256 SDR in my P3 PC and it still work flawlessly! Great video!
My friend got the Geforce 256 which impressed me so much that I started to save up for the Geforce 2 MX
Awesome video , really nice from nvidia team for the collaboration
I'm sitting here watching this presentation and it just doesn't feel right hearing the 256 called the first "GPU." I remember the excitement of getting my first Voodoo card or before that an ATI Mach. The 256 was long after that. If it was was truly the first product to be called a "GPU"... then it was the first Graphical Processing Unit in name only.
The term "GPU" was coined by Sony in reference to the 32-bit Sony GPU (designed by Toshiba) in the PlayStation, released in 1994. This seems to be the usual DF NV fanboyism.
Exactly! I mean Nvidia cards are nice and all, but this felt more like a marketing video than a true recap of "the first GPU" @@Arcona
You people really cant possibly be this slow!!!!.... You must be trolling!!!
@@TTOOS Lol, what are you talking about? I'm not sure how old you are but for a large part of the audience the 256 isn't going to feel anything like the first GPU. Even by definition, there were several that came years beforehand, 2D and 3D both. If you were old enough to be there, the title is incredibly wrong (and now clearly labeled "Sponsored")
@@zachstraw8832 Okay your slow..... Enjoy⭐
My first ever graphics card was the Geforce 3 Ti 200 I believe it was named. Great card back in the day paired with my Athlon x2 3800plus with 4 GB of ram. Oh man that Windows XP and "Internet explorer has encountered an problem and most be closed" were the times.
My first Nvidia card was the Riva 128 back in 1997. Almost 30 years ago. Crazy to think about it.
Wonder how long before Alex gets an offer from Team Green?