Back in 1999, the world of entertainment was a very different place. Instead of firing up an app on a smart TV to find a movie to watch, you had to jump into a car and head to a video store to rent a VHS tape – where you had one night to watch and then return it.
In PC gaming, shooters and strategy games reigned supreme with Quake III Arena, Unreal Tournament, and Age of Empires II. Modern 3D graphics, as we know them today, emerged with advanced 3D animation, texture effects, lighting, and more. It was only a few years earlier when rendering anything more than simple low-resolution polygons was extremely difficult.
The late 1990s was an impressive time for real-time 3D rendering, and it marked the arrival of the world’s first GPU with the GeForce 256 – where the 256 refers to the ‘256-bit QuadPipe Rendering Engine’ of the NV10 chip’s four 64-bit pixel pipelines. The integration of the transform and lighting hardware into the GPU, as opposed to relying on the CPU to perform these calculations, led to the GeForce 256 becoming the world’s first GPU.
In-game visuals and technology have advanced dramatically over the past 25 years. In 2024, we have AI-powered DLSS rendering and advanced ray tracing, delivering movie-like visuals. Still, something strikes a deep chord when you see footage of retro PC games running on a classic GeForce 256 rig.
NVIDIA is celebrating 25 years of the GPU that “laid the foundation for an AI-driven future.” If you’ve been gaming on a PC for even half of that time, watch NVIDIA’s very cool video above. And to celebrate, be sure to enter NVIDIA’s latest giveaway: retro beige-looking PCs that look like they’ve been ripped from the 1990s – except they’ve got GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER GPUs inside.
There’s this eMachines rig from PcjunkieMods.
And this awesome-looking HP Pavilion-inspired rig from Peachietech.
For a deep dive into the tech and history of the GeForce 256, watch Digital Foundry’s GeForce 256 25th Anniversary Special, where host Alex Battaglia brings NVIDIA staff to discuss the iconic GPU. A panel that includes the GeForce 256’s Chier Architect John Montrym.