| NVIDIA RIVA 128 | | Codename(s) | NV3 | | Created | 1997 | | High-end GPU | RIVA 128, ZX | | Direct3D and Shader version | Direct3D 5.0 | Released in late 1997 by NVIDIA, the RIVA 128, or "NV3", was one of the first generation of integrated consumer 3D chips. Following the less successful "NV1" accelerator, it was the first product to gain NVIDIA widespread consumer recognition. It was also a major change in technological direction for NVIDIA. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...
The High Level Shader Language (HLSL) is a shader language developed by Microsoft for use with DirectX, and is very similar to Cg. ...
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) (pronounced ) is an American corporation specializing in the manufacture of GPU technologies for video cards, graphics cards, workstations, desktop computers, handhelds and more. ...
NVIDIA's "NV1" chip had been designed for a fundamentally different type of rendering technology, called quadratic texture mapping, a technique not supported by Direct3D. The RIVA 128 was designed to accelerate Direct3D to the utmost extent possible. At the time, it was viewed as being lower-quality than the industry-leading 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics chipset because of questionable texture filtering, but had the advantage of being a combined 2D/3D graphics chip, that did not require a separate 2D card for screen output. This made it a lower-cost OEM-friendly solution. Additionally, the chip supported higher 3D resolutions than the Voodoo (800x600 or 960x720, up from 640x480 pixels). This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...
3dfx Interactive was a company which specialized in the manufacturing of cutting-edge 3D graphics processing units and, later, graphics cards. ...
In computer graphics, texture filtering is the method used to determine the texture color for a texture mapped pixel, using the colors of nearby texels (pixels of the texture). ...
RIVA 128 was one of the early AGP 2X parts, giving it some more marketing headroom by being on the forefront of interface technology. It was also compatible with PCI. This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...
64-bit PCI expansion slots inside a Power Macintosh G4 The Peripheral Component Interconnect, or PCI Standard (in practice almost always shortened to PCI) specifies a computer bus for attaching peripheral devices to a computer motherboard. ...
The RIVA 128 supported 4 MB of RAM on a 128-bit bus, giving it an edge over several of its peers using 64-bit data paths to memory. It had a single pixel pipeline capable of 1 pixel per clock when sampling one texture (no multitexturing). The chip was limited to a 16-bit (Highcolor) pixel format and a 16-bit Z-buffer. RIVA 128's 2D capability was seen as impressive for its time and was competitive with even high-end 2D-only graphics cards in both quality and performance.[1][2] ReBoot character, see Megabyte (ReBoot). ...
Random access memory (usually known by its acronym, RAM) is a type of data storage used in computers. ...
Highcolour (or Hicolour, Highcolor, Hicolor, Thousands on a Macintosh) graphics is a method of storing image information in a computers memory such that each pixel is represented by two bytes. ...
Z-buffer data In computer graphics, z-buffering is the management of image depth coordinates in three-dimensional (3-D) graphics, usually done in hardware, sometimes in software. ...
In early 1998, NVIDIA released a refreshed version, the RIVA 128 ZX, which supported up to 8 MB of memory. The next major chip from NVIDIA would be the RIVA TNT. The RIVA TNT (For TwiN Texel) was a 3D graphics chipset manufactured by NVIDIA. It was released in late 1998 and cemented NVIDIAs reputation as the chief rival of then industry leader 3dfx. ...
Quality
RIVA 128-equipped STB Velocity 128 AGP RIVA 128 was scorned for its poor texture filtering and strange rendering bugs. First off, the chip does not support trilinear filtering. To compound matters, the chip used a buggy method of automatically generating mip-maps that caused major issues with some games. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 591 pixelsFull resolution (978 × 722 pixel, file size: 178 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) STB Velocity 128 (NVIDIA RIVA 128) AGP card. ...
Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 591 pixelsFull resolution (978 × 722 pixel, file size: 178 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) STB Velocity 128 (NVIDIA RIVA 128) AGP card. ...
In 3D computer graphics texture mapping, MIP maps (also mipmaps) are pre-calculated, optimized collections of bitmap images that accompany a main texture, intended to increase rendering speed and reduce artifacts. ...
With initial drivers, RIVA 128 used per-polygon mip-mapping instead of the much higher quality, but more demanding, per-pixel variety. This caused the different texture detail levels to "pop" into place as the player moved through a game and approached each polygon, instead of allowing a seamless gradual per-pixel transition. This was especially true with the very low-polygon-count scenes of the day. NVIDIA eventually released drivers which allowed a per-pixel mode.
NV3's bilinear filtering was actually "sharper" than the then-hugely popular 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics. It didn't blur textures nearly as much as Voodoo, but it did cause a sort of noise instead because of a lower-fidelity filtering algorithm. This was preferable to some people over the quite blurry Voodoo filtering, however. There were also problems with noticeable seams between polygons.
Drivers were, for a significant portion of the card's life, rather rough. Not only were the aforementioned Direct3D issues apparent, but the card lacked good OpenGL support.[1] With RIVA 128, NVIDIA began their quest for top-quality OpenGL support and eventually RIVA 128 was quite a capable OpenGL performer. One disadvantage was that many games during RIVA 128's lifetime used 3Dfx's proprietary Glide API. Only 3Dfx cards can accelerate Glide. Glide was a proprietary 3D graphics API developed by 3dfx used on their Voodoo graphics cards. ...
Like the competing RagePRO, RIVA 128 was never able to accelerate the hugely popular Unreal engine in Direct3D mode due to missing hardware features. It was possible to use the OpenGL renderer, but unfortunately OpenGL support was quite slow and buggy in the original Unreal Engine. Performance in Quake III Arena, a game using an engine more advanced than Unreal Engine 1, was quite good due to the engine being better optimized for OpenGL. Unreal is a first-person shooter computer game developed by Epic Games and published by GT Interactive (now owned by Atari) on May 22, 1998. ...
OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a standard specification defining a cross-language cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 3D computer graphics (and 2D computer graphics as well). ...
Quake III Arena or Quake 3, abbreviated as Q3A or Q3, is a multiplayer first-person shooter computer and video game released on December 2, 1999. ...
Performance The performance was relatively strong compared to other combined 2D/3D solutions, surpassing even the Voodoo in some DirectX benchmarks. Microsoft DirectX (Direct eXtension) is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. ...
Competing chipsets
Matrox Electronic Systems Ltd is a Canadian company based in Dorval, Quebec, which produces video card components and equipment for personal computers. ...
3dfx Interactive was a company which specialized in the manufacturing of cutting-edge 3D graphics processing units and, later, graphics cards. ...
The Voodoo2 chip The Voodoo 2 was a GPU made by 3dfx. ...
The ATI Rage is a series of graphics chipsets offering 2D GUI acceleration, video acceleration, and 3D acceleration. ...
The Virtual Reality Graphics Engine (ViRGE) graphics chipset was one of the first 2D/3D accelerators designed for the mass market. ...
Savage was a product-line of PC graphics chipsets designed by S3. ...
Rendition was a maker of 3D graphics chipsets in the mid- to late-90s. ...
PowerVR is the division of the digital computing company Imagination Technologies (formerly VideoLogic) which designs the IP for the visual processing part of their business. ...
See also This table contains general information about NVIDIAs GPUs and videocards based on official NVIDIA specifications. ...
References - ^ a b STB VELOCITY 128 REVIEW (PCI), Rage's Hardware, February 7, 1998.
- ^ Review AGP Graphic Cards, Tom's Hardware, October 27, 1997.
External links - Dimension 128 - The last bastion of RIVA 128 information.
- NVIDIA's RIVA 128 FAQ
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