I Got The First GPU Ever Made! (Now Have First Laptop GPU)

[Gizmo j]

It's called the geforce 256

Here is the first laptop GPU, the GeForce2go.

 

[Gizmo j]

 

[sdifox]

I had a GeForce 256 but it wasn't the first gpu ever. I had a CGA card for my Turbo XT

 

[VirtualLarry]

I had an NV-1, the first discrete graphics processor (not yet called GPU) that Nvidia produced.

Edit: It used Quadratic patches, not triangles, and was not initially compatible with Direct3D.

 

[lxskllr]

I think I might have one laying around, but I can't remember.

 

[IronWing]

I used a Number 9 Revolution graphics card but I didn't own it. I owned a Hercules graphics card.

Edit: I think I also used a Number 9 Imagine card in the 1990s.

 

[manly]

I still have an Orchid Voodoo 3D card in an ancient Pentium tower. It hasn't been fired up in ages, but probably still works. Wonder if it has any collectors value yet. Short answer seems to be yes; is this for real?

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Some of us will recall these early cards were pass-through and had to be physically connected to your existing 2D video adapter. Some variants (such as Orchid) used a mechanical switch that makes a clicking sound when it switches from 2D to 3D mode.

 

[Iron Woode]

no, you didn't.

I still have my first GPU:

ATI 3D Rage Pro Turbo PCI

 

[Hans Gruber]

I had a Geforce 256 in a Dell Pentium 3 700mhz machine in the year 2000.

 

[NutBucket]

Wiki says that is far from the first GPU.

 

[crashtech]

Just from memory, it was one of the first high performing video cards to integrate 2D and 3D, but obviously not the 1st GPU.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Just from memory, it was one of the first high performing video cards to integrate 2D and 3D, but obviously not the 1st GPU.

The GeForce 256 was the first single-chip consumer (there were multi-chip workstation openGL cards before then) card to integrate 2D, 3D rasterization, and hardware transform and lighting. And subsequently coined the term "GPU".

It was not the first hardware-assisted "graphic accellerator".

 

[lxskllr]

Yea, that didn't sound right to me, and I didn't care enough to research it. Semantics.

 

[VirtualLarry]

ATI called theirs, "VPU".

 

[Red Squirrel]

I have this GPU in a box somewhere that used extended ISA slots, pretty sure it's much older. It's a Trident I think. I'd have to dig it up to double check.

 

[brianmanahan]

It's called the geforce 256


View attachment 81340

that card was amazing

i got one as a replacement for my s3 virge and the difference was crazy

 

[igor_kavinski]

i got one as a replacement for my s3 virge and the difference was crazy

The only thing worse than the S3 was stuff from SiS and probably the Intel i740. My first decent GPU after the Voodoo3 2000 AGP was the Geforce 2 MX 400 (128-bit). Then the Geforce 3 Ti 200. Then Radeon 9500 (or maybe 9600. ATI DX9 demos were awesome!). After that, Geforce 9600 GT (which I still have), Geforce 560 Ti (yup. I saved a lot of money by going console only in the intervening period), Geforce 1060 3GB, Radeon RX 580, Titan Maxwell 12GB, Geforce 3090 and Radeon RX 6800.

 

[crashtech]

S3 cards were ubiquitous in the 90's, as far as 2D went they did the job. I didn't notice them being worse than Cirrus Logic chips of the same era. All that mattered then was having enough memory to display the colors and resolution desired, it was the extra memory that was $$$.

 

[KMFJD]

Mayne was way better at this...

 

[brianmanahan]

Mayne was way better at this...

but was he casiotech-level?

 

[Hans Gruber]

The only thing worse than the S3 was stuff from SiS and probably the Intel i740. My first decent GPU after the Voodoo3 2000 AGP was the Geforce 2 MX 400 (128-bit). Then the Geforce 3 Ti 200. Then Radeon 9500 (or maybe 9600. ATI DX9 demos were awesome!). After that, Geforce 9600 GT (which I still have), Geforce 560 Ti (yup. I saved a lot of money by going console only in the intervening period), Geforce 1060 3GB, Radeon RX 580, Titan Maxwell 12GB, Geforce 3090 and Radeon RX 6800.

You are forgetting the great Ati Radeon 9700pro and 9800pro. The 8800GT was also legendary.

My Geforce 256 died within less than a year. Dell sent me a Geforce 2 to replace it. Big improvement over the GeForce256.

 

[VashHT]

I think I still have my voodoo 3 somewhere, first discrete graphics card I had that we put in our Pentium 2 computer we had.

 

[dank69]

You are forgetting the great Ati Radeon 9700pro and 9800pro. The 8800GT was also legendary.

My Geforce 256 died within less than a year. Dell sent me a Geforce 2 to replace it. Big improvement over the GeForce256.

I had an 8800GTX that had to be baked back to life a couple of times. I bought it because it was one of the only cards that could drive 1600p (Dell 3007WFP-HC, another legend).

 

[Jon-T]

A long time ago the term GPU did not exist. Nvidia marketing coined the term GPU to emphasize that their chip was the first of a new generation that riveled the importance of the CPU. It was the first to be called a GPU a marketing term we all accepted

 

[purbeast0]

I think I still have my voodoo 3 somewhere, first discrete graphics card I had that we put in our Pentium 2 computer we had.

I have 2 of these as well that I use regularly. They are in 2 of my arcade games.