New NVIDIA GPU Breaks One Billion Pixels Per Second Barrier
GeForce2 Ultra Delivers Industry’s Best Performance and Visual Quality
SANTA CLARA, CA — August 14, 2000 — NVIDIA® Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA) announced today the most powerful 3D graphics processing unit (GPU) ever produced, the GeForce2 Ultra™. Once again, NVIDIA sets new standards for performance and quality by combining the award-winning GeForce2 architecture with its fully compatible driver architecture and its cutting-edge memory subsystem to deliver the industry’s fastest GPU. The previous leader was NVIDIA’s GeForce2 GTS™.
“NVIDIA’s core strategy is to deliver a breakthrough product every six months, doubling performance with each generation at a rate of essentially Moore’s Law cubed,” said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of NVIDIA. “Our unique ability to innovate at this staggering pace is one of the key elements of our competitive advantage. Our consistency has made it possible for our partners to rely on our architecture and roadmap. GeForce2 Ultra exemplifies our commitment to help our partners build innovative and winning products.”
“We are pleased to be joining NVIDIA as the launch partner for GeForce2 Ultra,” said Steven Mosher, vice president of Creative Labs. “Creative expects to be the first to provide this groundbreaking technology to users worldwide.”
The GeForce2 Ultra has been in volume production for over 30 days. The first GeForce2 Ultra-based add-in cards will be available from Creative Labs in September. Other companies shipping GeForce2 Ultra-based boards include: ELSA, Guillemot, and Hercules, with more add-in-card manufacturers and tier one OEM announcements to come soon.
Raw Graphics Horsepower
The GeForce2 Ultra provides the stunning graphics consumers have come to expect from NVIDIA. Its transform and lighting engines provide over 31 million sustained triangles per second. Its advanced rendering subsystem provides an unprecedented fill rate of up to one billion pixels per second, and two billion texels per second – two to three times the pixel processing power of any graphics processor at any price. The GeForce2 Ultra renders razor-sharp, crystal-clear 2D graphics, even at taxing resolutions as high as 2048 x 1536, in 32-bit color.
GeForce2 Ultra is the world’s first product to ship with 230 MHz (460 MHz effective) DDR memories, producing an astounding 7.36 GB per second of bandwidth — futher proof of NVIDIA’s ongoing leadership of the high-speed memory systems critical for high-performance graphics applications.
GeForce2 Ultra takes full advantage of NVIDIA’s Detonator 3 (D3) unified driver architecture (UDA). The D3 driver is backward and forward compatible with past, present, and future NVIDIA GPUs, as well as top-to-bottom compatible with all currently manufactured versions of NVIDIA’s graphics processors. This greatly simplifies system administration. For example, you could remove an NVIDIA TNT2™ from a system and replace it with a GeForce2 Ultra without changing the graphics software driver. Only NVIDIA offers this level of total compatibility.
Significant 3D features of the GeForce2 Ultra include:
- Second generation transform and lighting engines
- NVIDIA Shading Rasterizer (NSR) multi-operation per-pixel rendering engine
- 64MB of ultra-high-speed (460 MHz) double data rate frame buffer memory
- AGP 4X with Fast Writes support
- Full support for Microsoft® DirectX® and SGI OpenGL®
- Optimal performance for current and future CPUs from Intel® and AMD™
The GeForce2 Ultra includes the NVIDIA Shading Rasterizer (NSR), an unprecedented technology that enables advanced per-pixel shading capabilities. The NSR allows per-pixel control of color, shadow, light, reflectivity, emissivity, specularity, gloss, dirt, and other visual and material components used to create amazingly realistic objects and environments. Another key feature of GeForce2 Ultra is its High-Definition Video Processor (HDVP), which enables a variety of crystal-clear HDTV solutions when combined with a mainstream CPU and a low-cost DTV receiver. The HDVP allows mainstream high-performance processors to support all 18 Advanced Television Standards Committee (ATSC) formats with a simple, cost-effective DTV receiver card.
Several highly anticipated titles that are available now or within the next 30 to 45 days take advantage of the breakthrough features and performance of GeForce2 Ultra, including:
- Real Myst
- PacMan 3D
- Sacrifice
- Black & White
- Colin McRae Rally 2
- Sydney 2000
- Giants
- Rune
- Q3A – Team Arena
- Far Gate
- Warbirds III
- MDK2
All of these titles take full advantage of the transform and lighting engines found in all NVIDIA GPUs — from the original GeForce 256 through the GeForce2 Ultra.
NVIDIA Products
The first 3D graphics semiconductor company to deliver a complete top-to-bottom family of 3D solutions, NVIDIA gives developers the advantage of a unified driver architecture across all implementations. NVIDIA’s single-chip GPUs enable high-frame-rate 3D graphics, benchmark-winning 2D graphics, and high-definition digital video processing for unequaled visual realism and real-time interactivity. Optimized for both Microsoft Direct3D and OpenGL APIs, the NVIDIA product line currently includes:
- NVIDIA Quadro2 Pro™ and Quadro2 MXR™ for the professional workstation, digital content creation, and MCAD markets. The Quadro2 Pro is the fastest workstation graphics solution available for the engineering professional. The Quadro2 MXR provides cost-effective, advanced workstation capabilities and offers the revolutionary TwinView™ display architecture for the mainstream professional. Both include features such as second generation transform and lighting and per-pixel shading.
- NVIDIA GeForce2 Ultra™, GeForce2 GTS™, and GeForce 256™ graphics processing units (GPUs) for the PC enthusiast market. The GeForce2 Ultra is the world’s fastest GPU, providing enthusiasts the ultimate gaming platform with unprecedented geometry processing power and per-pixel shading features. Its predecessor, GeForce2 GTS, is a second generation GPU with radical per-pixel shading features and incredible performance. The GeForce 256 processor is the product that started the GPU revolution.
- NVIDIA GeForce2 MX™ GPU for the corporate desktop market. The GeForce2 MX offers Digital Vibrance Control™, TwinView display options, and a patented unified driver — making it the ultimate graphics solution for the corporate user. It leverages the GeForce2 GTS architecture, including features such as second generation transform and lighting and per-pixel shading, yet is priced at one-third of the cost of the original GeForce 256 GPU. The rich feature set, combined with its low cost, makes GeForce2 MX truly a GPU for the masses.
- NVIDIA TNT2™ Pro for the performance PC market. The TNT2 Pro features NVIDIA’s award-winning, fourth-generation, 128-bit 3D architecture that has garnered more than 400 industry awards.
- NVIDIA Vanta™, Vanta LT, and TNT2 M64 for the commercial and corporate mainstream PC markets. Also based on the original award-winning NVIDIA TNT2 architecture, these processors offer low-cost, high-performance choices for business and entertainment applications.
- Aladdin TNT2™ for the sub-$1000 PC market. The first truly integrated graphics chipset; Aladdin TNT2 redefines the possibilities for the lowest cost platforms.
