alt Hacker NewsTo the best of my recollection, the GeForce 256 was the first one that was marketed as a “GPU” and began to popularize that term in the industry.
Specifically because it did transformation and lighting calcs in (non-programmable until GeForce 3) hardware, instead of in software on the main CPU.
Yes, NVIDIA made 3D accelerators before the GeForce line. I have many of them in my collection. But (IIRC) it did not market them as “GPUs”. That term wasn’t really used yet.
Replies
glimshe • today at 4:37 PM
Got it. Well, to be honest the marketing distinction isn't terribly interesting. But it would still be cool to see how the early GPUs (even if not called that) evolved.
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theandrewbailey • today at 4:54 PM
> (non-programmable until GeForce 3) hardware
I think the term you're looking for is fixed-function hardware.
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"The GeForce 256, which nVidia calls the world's first graphics processing unit, will be the successor to its TNT 2 line of graphics chips." https://web.archive.org/web/20241023155821/https://money.cnn...