October 11, 1999; 24 years ago (October 11, 1999) (SDR) December 13, 1999; 24 years ago (December 13, 1999)[1] (DDR)
Codename
NV10
Architecture
Celsius
Fabrication process
TSMC 220 nm (CMOS)
Cards
Mid-range
GeForce 256 SDR
High-end
GeForce 256 DDR
API support
DirectX
Direct3D 7.0
OpenGL
OpenGL 1.2.1 (T&L)
History
Predecessor
RIVA TNT2
Successor
GeForce 2 series
Support status
Unsupported
The GeForce 256 is the original release in Nvidia's "GeForce" product line. Announced on August 31, 1999 and released on October 11, 1999, the GeForce 256 improves on its predecessor (RIVA TNT2) by increasing the number of fixed pixel pipelines, offloading host geometry calculations to a hardware transform and lighting (T&L) engine, and adding hardware motion compensation for MPEG-2 video. It offered a notably large leap in 3D PC gaming performance and was the first fully Direct3D 7-compliant 3D accelerator.
The chip was manufactured by TSMC using its 220 nm CMOS process.[2] There are two versions of the GeForce 256 – the SDR version released in October 1999 and the DDR version released in mid-December 1999 – each with a different type of SDRAM memory. The SDR version uses SDR SDRAM memory from Samsung Electronics,[3][4] while the later DDR version uses DDR SDRAM memory from Hyundai Electronics (now SK Hynix).[5][6]
^IGN staff (December 13, 1999). "News Briefs". Archived from the original on September 1, 2000. Retrieved October 1, 2020.
^Singer, Graham (April 3, 2013). "History of the Modern Graphics Processor, Part 2". TechSpot. Retrieved July 21, 2019.
^"NVIDIA GeForce 256 SDR". VideoCardz.net. Retrieved July 10, 2019.
^"K4S161622D Datasheet". Samsung Electronics. Retrieved July 10, 2019.
^"NVIDIA GeForce 256 DDR". VideoCardz.net. Retrieved July 10, 2019.
^"HY5DV651622 Datasheet" (PDF). Hynix. Retrieved July 10, 2019.
The GeForce256 is the original release in Nvidia's "GeForce" product line. Announced on August 31, 1999 and released on October 11, 1999, the GeForce 256...
successor to the GeForce256. The GeForce 2 family comprised a number of models: GeForce 2 GTS, GeForce 2 Pro, GeForce 2 Ultra, GeForce 2 Ti, GeForce 2 Go and...
clock compared to GeForce256. Later, Nvidia released the GeForce2 MX (NV11), which offered performance similar to the GeForce256 but at a fraction of...
The GeForce 6 series (codename NV40) is the sixth generation of Nvidia's GeForce line of graphics processing units. Launched on April 14, 2004, the GeForce...
The GeForce 9 series (also known as the GeForce 9000 series) is the ninth generation of Nvidia's GeForce line of graphics processing units, the first of...
The GeForce 8 series is the eighth generation of Nvidia's GeForce line of graphics processing units. The third major GPU architecture developed by Nvidia...
series was released to replace the older Geforce 6200 series. Features In addition to the standard GeForce 7 series features, the 7300 series supports...
2015. "GeForce GTX780 Ti. Specifications". Geforce.com. Archived from the original on 12 December 2015. Retrieved 11 December 2015. "Nvidia GeForce GTX 780...
with the GeForce GTX 580. Its direct competitor was AMD's Radeon HD 6000 series; they were launched approximately a month apart. The Nvidia Geforce 500 series...
2022. Nvidia. "GeForce GT 1030 | GeForce". geforce.com. Archived from the original on May 20, 2017. Retrieved May 17, 2017. "NVIDIA GeForce GT 1030 DDR4...
The GeForce 30 series is a suite of graphics processing units (GPUs) designed and marketed by Nvidia, succeeding the GeForce 20 series. The GeForce 30...
The GeForce 40 series is a family of graphics processing units developed by Nvidia, succeeding the GeForce 30 series. The series was announced on September...
The GeForce 4 series (codenames below) refers to the fourth generation of Nvidia's GeForce line of graphics processing units (GPUs). There are two different...
The GeForce 600 series is a series of graphics processing units developed by Nvidia, first released in 2012. It served as the introduction of the Kepler...
related to GeForce FX series. Nvidia: Cinematic Computing for Every User ForceWare 81.98 drivers, Final Windows 9x/ME driver release Geforce 175.19 drivers...
The GeForce 700 series (stylized as GEFORCE GTX 700 SERIES) is a series of graphics processing units developed by Nvidia. While mainly a refresh of the...
GeForce". geforce.com. Archived from the original on December 6, 2015. Retrieved June 11, 2014. "GeForce GTX 860M - Specifications - GeForce". geforce.com....
transistors of the NVIDIA GeForce256. Despite this low level of complexity, it was marketed as being similar to NVIDIA's GeForce256 series. Savage 2000 supported...
EMBM was not supported by several competitors such as NVIDIA's GeForce256 through GeForce 2, which only supported the simpler Dot-3 BM, but was available...
its Nvidia stock for $15 million. In late 1999, Nvidia released the GeForce256 (NV10), its first product expressly marketed as a GPU, which was most...
2016; Download GeForce 8 series GeForce 9 series GeForce 200 series GeForce 300 series GeForce 400 series GeForce 500 series GeForce 600 series Nvidia...
completely different bus. SGI's Nvidia-based VPro line included the VPro V3 (Geforce256), VPro VR3 (Quadro), VPro V7 (Quadro2 MXR), and VPro VR7 (Quadro2 Pro)...