GeForce 256 - Performance and Value

Performance and Value

GeForce 256 offered exceptional 3D performance that surpassed existing graphics cards. Compared to previous high-end 3D game accelerators, such as 3dfx Voodoo3 3500 and Nvidia RIVA TNT2 Ultra, GeForce provided up to a 50% or greater improvement in frame rate in some game titles (ones specifically written to take advantage of the hardware T&L) when coupled with a very slow budget CPU. Support of the full Direct3D 7 API also assured the card of a strong future, unlike its initial Direct3D 6 based competition. The GeForce 256 was supported in games up until approximately 2006, in games such as Star Wars: Empire at War.

However, without broad application support at the time, critics pointed out that the T&L technology had little real-world value. Initially, it was only somewhat beneficial in certain situations in a few OpenGL-based 3D first-person shooter titles, most notably Quake III Arena. Benchmarks using low budget CPUs like the Celeron 300A would give favourable results for the GeForce 256, but benchmarks done with faster CPUs such as the Pentium II 300 would give better results with some older graphics cards like the 3dfx Voodoo 2. 3dfx and other competing graphics card companies pointed out that a fast CPU could more than make up for the lack of a T&L unit. Software support for hardware T&L was not commonplace until several years after the release of the first Geforce. Early drivers were buggy and slow, while 3dfx cards enjoyed efficient, high speed, mature Glide API and/or MiniGL support for the majority of games. Only after the GeForce 256 was replaced by the GeForce 2, and ATI's T&L-equipped Radeon was also on the market, did hardware T&L become a widely-utilized feature in games.

The GeForce 256 was also quite expensive for the time and it didn't offer tangible advantages over competitors' products outside of 3D acceleration. For example, its GUI and video playback acceleration were not significantly better than that offered by competition or even older Nvidia products. Additionally, some GeForce cards were plagued with poor analog signal circuitry that caused display output to be blurry.

As CPUs became faster, the GeForce 256 showed that the disadvantage of hardware T&L is that if a CPU is fast enough, it can perform T&L functions faster than the GPU, thus making the GPU a limit to rendering performance. This changed the way the graphics market functioned, encouraging shorter graphics card lifetimes, and placing less emphasis on the CPU for gaming.