Digital Foundry Retro

The Story of GeForce 256 - The Original 'GPU' (7x3)

:

Content sponsored by Nvidia. In this DF Retro special, we revisit the original GPU - the Nvidia GeForce 256. First released in 1999 in an age of phenomenal progress in the graphics space, the GeForce 256 was promoted as the first 'Graphics Processing Unit' - or GPU. In addition to state-of-the-art performance, GeForce 256 also brought about new features such as hardware transform and lighting and full DirectX 7 support. John Linneman shares his perspective on the hardware and also talks to Phil Scott - now Nvidia's Director of EMEA developer relations, but back in 1999, a developer working on the exciting new range of PC graphics accelerators.