GeForce 256

The GeForce 256- series, often referred to simply as GeForce, was the first series of GPUs the manufacturer Nvidia GeForce called and was presented on 31 August 1999. She was the direct successor of the TNT2 and had one of the first series a graphics processor with hardware T & L unit.

GPUs

Within the GeForce 256 series is only a graphics processor used, the NV10. Compared to the NV5 chip that is used on the previous series, Riva TNT2, it offers twice as many rendering pipelines. Together with a smaller manufacturing process, it was Nvidia thus possible to achieve a high filling rate in almost twice as TNT2 -like clock frequencies. In addition, the NV10 offers the option to be used with DDR memory, which increases the memory throughput significantly.

But the main feature of the GeForce 256 series is the newly added Transform- and- Lighting - unit (T & L ), a type of specialized, integrated co-processor that has the purpose to shift calculations on the object geometry from the CPU to the GPU. In previous graphics cards only finished this polygon and texture data only had to be rendered and output received. The T & L unit will now remove more load on the CPU by changes in the geometry (Transform ) and the lighting of the world ( Lighting) can be communicated via commands from the graphics card now - the CPU saves ideally a lot of time, whereby the power increases. This innovation was initially transposed hesitant, but laid the foundation for geometry and lighting calculations using shaders, which found its way into the later generations of graphics cards.

Model data

Note:

• The specified clock rates are the established recommended by Nvidia or. However, the final determination of the clock rates in the hands of the respective graphics cards manufacturers. Therefore, it is quite possible that there are graphics cards models or will be having different clock speeds.