The GeForce 256, a GPU

Processing all the data

As most of you have probably figured out, the "GeForce 256" is the official name of the chip formerly known as the NV10. Dubbed a graphics processing unit (GPU), the GeForce 256's claim to fame is a "full-solutions package." By combining hardware-accelerated transformation and lighting to the well-established standards of triangle setup and rasterization, the GeForce 256 manages to accelerate the entire 3D graphics pipeline, from start to finish.

Nvidia's press release comes through with the hype:

"By delivering an order-of-magnitude increase in geometry processing power, dynamic lighting and real-time environment reflection capabilities, NVIDIA's GeForce 256 GPU will enable a whole new level of interactive content not previously possible. Developers can now harness the powerful new 3D medium to create rich, dynamic, and lifelike worlds and characters. Additionally, PCs powered by NVIDIA's GPU will be able to synthesize amazingly realistic environments with objects that behave according to complex physics and intelligent characters with lifelike personality."

By taking over the 3D duties from the CPU, the GeForce 256 really is a full graphics processor. At the simplest level, NVIDIA states that a GPU must be able to sustain at least 10 million triangles per second. How much does your average Pentium III handle? Reports as to sustained throughput varies, but it's nowhere close to 10 million, let alone the 15 million triangles NVIDIA claims.

More than just triangles

Of course, only accelerating triangle throughput would solve just half the problem. Today's games are built around the limitations of current hardware, and thus have relatively low polygon counts. By boosting the power of the pixel pipeline, the GeForce 256 keeps the high-resolution bottleneck open as well.

The NVIDIA GeForce 256's feature set includes:

256-bit 3D processor
Integrated geometry transform engine
Integrated dynamic lighting engine
Four-pixel rendering pipeline
480 million pixels per second fill rate
15 million triangles/s throughput
Cube-environment mapping using projective textures and vertex blending
Single-pass emboss and dot-product bump mapping
350MHz RAMDAC
2D resolution of 2048x1536 at 75Hz (their press release claims MHz)
AGP4X with Fast Writes
Up to 128MB RAM
OpenGL ICD for Windows98, NT4, 2000
Powerful HDTV motion compensation.
Full frame rate DVD to 1080i resolution.