13 Years of Nvidia Graphics Cards
13 Years of Nvidia Graphics Cards
Nvidia’s history begins with the NV1 chip, sold by SGS-THOMSON Microelectronics as the STG-2000. That board included a 2D card, 3D accelerator, sound card, and a port for Sega Saturn game controllers—all on the same PCI board. The best-known of these cards is the famous Diamond Edge 3D, released two years after Nvidia’s inception.
The principal problem with the NV1 was in its management of 3D: it used quadratic texture mapping (QTM) instead of the technique used currently, which is based on polygons. DirectX appeared just after the card was released, and it used polygons, so the NV1 was a failure over the long term. Among the points worth mentioning are that the memory of the graphics card could be increased on certain models (from 2 MB to 4 MB) and that many of the games optimized were ported from the Saturn, since the card used a similar architecture.
| Date released | September 1995 |
| Card interface | PCI |
| Fillrate | 12 Mtexels/s |
| DirectX version | - |
| Memory Type | EDO/VRAM |
| Maximum memory | 4 MB |
| Memory clock frequency | 75 MHz |
| Memory bus | 64 bits |
| Maximum bandwidth | 0.6 GB/s |
| Maximum resolution | 600 x 1 200 / 15 bits |
| Video out | 1 x VGA |
| RAMDAC | 170 MHz |
The NV2 used the same rendering method and was never completed. It was to have been used in the Dreamcast console (which replaced the Saturn), but Sega finally chose a polygon-based technology (PowerVR) and Nvidia abandoned QTM in favor of polygon-based rendering with the NV3.
p.s. Great article, now lets see what Nvidia has in store for us in Q3/4!!
To make this a top of the line article, ya should include the Matrox Cards (Excelent in the early days), 3Dfx cards (V3000 and SLI V2 would still eat TNT2 in Image quality and performance), and last but not least (the sole survivor) ATI cards.
Now that would be a sight for sore eyes.
and then maybe an AMD and Intel one too =P
Thanks!
I owned a TNT back when I first went to college. Descent 2 was so great on it, as was Total Annihilation. Half-life wasn't half bad on it either. It couldn't hold a candle to a couple Voodoo2's in SLI, though
Hercules 3d Prophet (2mb!!)
Diamond Voodoo 2 (8mb)
3DFX Voodoo 3 3000 (16mb)
ATi 7500 Pro (64mb)
ATi 9800 Pro (128mb)
eVGA 8800 GT (640mb)
Western Digital Paradise MPEG (2MB) PCI - Buggy with IRQ conflicts
STB Voodoo2 (12MB) PCI
Matrox G200 (8MB) AGP - Unstable
TNT2 Ultra (32MB) AGP - What a disappointment, locked up on every game
3DFX Voodoo 4 4500(32MB) AGP
gForce 2 MX200 (32MB) AGP - NV4_display.dll BSOD all the time. JUNK
3DFX Voodoo 5 5500 (64MB) AGP and PCI
gForce 7800GS OC (256MB) AGP - NV4_display.dll BSOD 7 out of 10 times. Handicapped performance and over priced.
ATi X1950PRO (512MB) PCI-E and AGP
Ati HD3850 (512MB) PCI-E and AGP
ATi HD4850 coming soon.
On every Nvidia based card I purchased, I had to turn around and replace it with something else. I've learned my lesson to never purchase another Nvidia based product again.
i joke i kid