NVIDIA Releases 3090, Which Legendary Graphics Card From 21 Years Ago Is It Commemorating?

NVIDIA released the new RTX 30 series products early this morning Beijing time. The previous promotional content has repeatedly mentioned the major release 21 years ago. This article will review the important moments that NVIDIA experienced around 1999 21 years ago.

In the early morning of September 1, Pacific Time, NVIDIA CEO Huang Renxun continued to launch new products in the kitchen. The performance of the three RTX 30 series graphics cards released this time all exceeded the previous generation flagship products.

The new GPU adopts the latest Ampere architecture and integrates up to 28 billion transistors. The performance of RTX 3090 even reflects the characteristics of a nuclear bomb. The new product is expected to be released in mid-September.

What did it mean to NVIDIA 21 years ago?

Before this conference, NVIDIA did a lot of publicity. First, John Fenno (NVIDIA Global Marketing Director) published a 21-day countdown blog on the official blog. "Tonight I'm Gonna Game Like It's 1999!"**.

This article, which reviewed the development of computers and games at the time, specifically mentioned "1999 was a crazy year, and every day was exciting."

Also invited netizens to**#UltimateCountdown (Final Countdown)**Use the hashtag to review the wonderful memories of the past 21 years on various social media platforms.

So what did 1999, 21 years ago, mean to NVIDIA that required such a grand commemoration?

Kick out the dominant Voodoo2

NVIDIA Riva TNT2 takes over the 80% market

The story first goes back to the year before 1999 - 1998, when 3dfx's legendary card Voodoo2 was just released and was at its peak in the gaming graphics card market.

At that time, a Pentium 2 with two Voodoo2s was simply the top-of-the-line gaming computer, similar to today's high-end civilian configurations such as 9900K+2080Ti.

NVIDIA released Riva TNT (core codenamed NV4) that year, aiming to double the performance of Voodoo2. However, due to the fact that the 0.25-micron process was not yet mature, its overall performance was slightly lower than that of Voodoo2.

But at this time,NVIDIA realized the importance of drivers and started writing drivers for the Riva TNT series, which won praise for its higher frequency and process, which was later known as 「Detenator Driven Detenator」.

In April 1999, NVIDIA released Riva TNT2. The detonator driver not only solved the compatibility issues between the graphics card and various platforms, but also improved the performance by 30%.

At the same time, 3fdx released Voodoo3, which had little improvement. TNT2 took this opportunity to quickly seize the market, while 3dfx gradually withdrew from the stage due to various complex problems and was eventually acquired by NVIDIA.

The world's first GPU: GeForce 256 is released

Establishing hegemony in the computer graphics industry

On August 31, 1999, NVIDIA released the GeForce 256, the ancestor of the GeForce series and the world's first GPU.

An important point about this epoch-making graphics card is that it supports hardware T&L (coordinate transformation and light source processing).

In games, 3D graphics are achieved through complex 3D coordinate and light source change calculations, but ordinary graphics cards do not have T&L functions.

Before the emergence of GPU, this part was handled by the CPU. After GeForce256 supported hardware T&L, it separated the CPU from heavy computing tasks, greatly improved the running speed of the game, and completely solved the bottleneck of insufficient CPU processing capacity when running many games at that time.

The GeForce 256 graphics core is manufactured using a 0.22 micron process and has a 256-bit display architecture with 4 pixel pipelines, each of which has 4 pixel units and 1 texture unit.

The triangle generation rate is 15 million per second and the pixel generation rate is 480 million per second.It has 23 million transistors, more than the Pentium 3.

Its rendering capabilities far exceeded those of graphics cards of the same level or even higher at the time, such as Riva TNT2, ATI Rage 128, 3dfx Voodoo 3, and Matrox Millennium G400 MAX.

The GeForce 256 was priced at around RMB 2,000 and quickly took over the market once it was released.This year's launch event is scheduled for September 1st, which is very close to the release date of GeForce 256 that year.

Profit of US$150 million, listed on NASDAQ

In early 1999, NVIDIA sold its 10 millionth graphics card, with full-year profits reaching $150 million, and was officially listed on the NASDAQ.

When NVIDIA was officially issued, its market value was only 230 million US dollars, but now its market value has reached 340 billion US dollars.

This year was indeed the most critical year for NVIDIA to dominate the market, defeat competitors, and establish its dominant position.

1999-2020, 21 years of sentimental Easter eggs

In the 21 years from 1999 to now, NVIDIA has experienced twists and turns, doubts, peaks, and victories of all sizes, defeated its competitors, and seized the leading position in the market.

The official sentiment podcast mentioned at the beginning *"Tonight I'm Gonna Game Like It's 1999!"*In the book, he recalled the daily life of game players around 1999, and also counted the important works that influenced the game market during that period.

The blog also featured an illustration by artist Rachid Lotf***(Original image: http://suo.im/6gHXLu)***, taking users back to the summer around the turn of the millennium:

Today, NVIDIA's battlefield is not just the gaming industry, it has also expanded to areas such as autonomous driving, high-performance computing, medical care, and construction. It has created huge commercial success and led the industry to continue to innovate.

But NVIDIA always remembers that 21 years ago, it was the countless pairs of eyes staring at the screen, immersed in the game, and the smoothly running game masterpieces that accompanied NVIDIA to reach all the milestones in 1999 and ushered in the millennium together.

Pu Shu's "New Boy" also reflects the development of electronic products before the millennium:

Yes, I see sunshine everywhere, happiness is floating over the city

The new world comes like a dream, making me feel warm

Is your old pocket watch still ticking? Are your old leather shoes still wearable?

Here is a Future brand cigarette, don't you want to try it?

Tomorrow morning, I guess the sun will be bright

I want to clean myself up and sell all the old things

Oh, how nice it is, come on, Pentium computer

Let them think for me, wear new clothes and get a new haircut

Relax Windows 98 and dress up

18 is heaven, our life is as sweet as candy

Wear new clothes, get a new haircut, and relax. Windows 98

There will be no more pain on the road ahead, how cool our future will be

BABAWOWO, go forward on your way

Guess what gift the future will give you, BABAWOWO

Throw away your old schoolbag, OHMY, INTERNATIONAL

Cool, PLAY BOY

Note: Pu Shu's original version is a paid membership track, and is restricted from joining WeChat articles

Content reference:

– NVIDIA blog

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/news/nvidia-geforce-ultimatecountdown/

– GeForce 256 Press Release

https://pressreleases.responsesource.com/news/3992/nvidia-launches-the-world-s-first-graphics-processing-unit-geforce-256/

– Video: White TV_GPU 20th Anniversary Special

– Video: Geek Bay_How did N card rise?

– **Poster Annotation Consultant:**Zhihu@Wang Yahui

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