GeForce 256 Launched this Day in 1999

reading computer shopper and PC Gamer in 6th grade :)

I recall Nvidia stock won me a stock market competition across different schools... if only I wasn't 12...

Edit, I had a diamond monster fusion voodoo banshee and was playing Turok

My first nvidia card was a Geforce 2 ultra from Evga that I won in a contest that I forgot I had entered, best surprise ever
 
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I remember a buddy of mine working for Software etc! when they launched these..They were $599 IIRC there. Well SW etc had a policy that if someone purchased HW and then returned it, it was written off and destroyed once a month..His manager was cool, and would always make sure he was "off" on the day of the HW destruction so he had no idea what went on during those days. He did this because he knew the employees would swap out the good HW with some old junk cards which were then destroyed and reported to corporate as a write off. Needless to say my buddy comes walking into our Computer Repair and Networking class and couldn't wait to share with everyone how cool his Geforce 256 was. I am still slightly bitter about that day since I had the best HW in the class at the time.
 
Working for one of the fabs that made that. Which also made the 3dFX chips, too. I left soon after to work for an ISP, which was really fun.

I was playing on an old TNT. My Dad had the TNT2 Ultra before upgrading to the GF256.
 
I would of been in 5th grade, and I hated school, so I don't remember anything.

Edit: I just double checked my math. 5th grade. Definitely don't remember that shit.
 
Yeah, I had been going mad buying GPUs to try and get everything as smooth as possible.
Voodoo2 8MB, another 12MB in SLI, Voodoo Banshee (I was bored), i740, TNT, TNT2...
More money than sense then.
 
In 1999 I think I had a Voodoo 3-3000 AGP. Quake 3 at 1024x768 was bad ass.
 
bought one a week later as it was faster then my voodoo 5 5500..may have been my voodoo 3 .. all i know is i wanted the 32 meg card ..and at the computer show the guy screwed up and gave me a 64 meg card ,, i ran out of the show with it once i saw that >lol

still have the card and box too ASUS made great cards ..even back then

fan on the GPU is melted ..so i reinstalled my V 5 5500 on that ole win 98 system
 
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ccityinstaller said:
I remember a buddy of mine working for Software etc!
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Software Ect. was an awesome store! Picked up my Creative Geforce 2 Annihilator Pro there, which I still use from time to time. Great store before the cancer as we know as Gamestop swallowed them up.

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1999, I was gaming on a Diamond Viper 770 (TNT2). Never got a Geforce 256, did get a Geforce 2 however.
 
Man that brings back memories. I was going to get one but then ended up getting a Geforce 2 MX.
 
Haha, I remember all of those cards. My first nVidia card was a Riva 128, actually, which was pre TNT, which was pre Geforce. Went from the Riva 128 to a series of Voodoo cards, a Banshee, then Voodoo3 3500 TV, then a Voodoo5 5500...
 
lol i still have a working diamond monster riva tnt card 16 meg ..i miss diamond cards when they were amazing when win 95 shipped
 
I have a habit of running my hardware into the ground firmly. Had some old crap ati cards in the beginning. Rage 2 and a rage pro I think. They sucked.

I ended up with a voodoo 2000 pci and overclocked it to the speed of the 3500. I ended up skipping the geforce 256 and even the gf2's. That old v3 lasted me into college (02/03) until I finally replaced it with a radeon 9000 pro.

I kept that until I got a gf 7900gt...yes I'm a cheap sob.
 
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I remember swapping out my Voodoo 5500 card for a Geforce 2. Could not believe the performance out of a card that was so tiny compared to the Voodoo (which barely fit in my full tower case). Sold the Voodoo 5500 in the HardFourms!
 
I was probably camping some stupid rare spawn in EQ to get something ultimately wildly disappointing which made me question life choices. That happened a lot in EQ1.
 
conscript said:
Man, I miss the days...I feel like I built a computer right around that time but decided to be a contrarian and used a Matrox G400 instead
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I do and don't. It was a more exciting time for sure, but I had much less disposable income then, and the second you dropped that last component into your new build, you could almost audibly hear the tick-tock down to rapid obsolescence begin.
 
Yup, remember being scared as hell how much force was required to push it into the slot and that I was going to break the coolest piece of computer hardware I'd ever bought.

Felt awesome playing GL Quake and trying to get transparent water...ZolQuake modded rune Quake server ftw!
 
I replaced my sli'ed voodoo 2's and matrox 2d card with one of those, there been no looking back ever since.
 
SeymourGore said:
Those years were all about Starsiege Tribes.
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Damn straight. Back in the days when [5150] ruled the roost - before eSports was a thing. Leagues were small and highly competitive even back then. Mid-Air disc shots, Sonic the Hedgehog-fast flag routes, having to lead your snipe shots a mile wide to hit your target.

I rocked my onboard graphics card for the longest time. Then went to a Voodoo 3 PCI (Not PCI Express). OpenGL blew my mind like the best in Las Vegas.

This thread is all about the good trips.

What about the bad trips like downloading a 5 MB file over 30 minutes or more. Or when your parents decided they needed the phone more so all your IRC / Napster / Kazaa / DirectConnect got kicked off?



But those were the good days of AMD vs Intel. AMD hitting 1 Ghz first (If I remember correctly) was also mind-shattering.

I'm really glad I grew up during these times. The times the internet was much more free and 'innocent'. Now we're fighting to keep the internet as open as possible. Slowly though, I feel that Chinese-like firewall will slowly creep up country by country, one small step by one step that we don't foresee as being a threat.
 
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I think i had a Voodoo 2 at the time...it replaced a Diamond Monster 3D. 3Dfx was glorious for short time, GL Quake and Tomb Raider with 3Dfx patch....ah, the end of big pixels.
 
Nvidia always claim they coined the term "gpu", am i the only one that can recall that term floating around years previous to geforce? Pretty sure "gpu" was already being used by people to describe voodoo etc. I remember amd trying to steer away from saying "gpu" and instead saying "vpu" but that didn't last long.

Had a 256 ddr, those were the days when you didn't have to have a heatsink the size of a small house along with a hairdryer for a fan bolted onto your card to keep the fucker "cool".
 
conscript said:
Man, I miss the days...I feel like I built a computer right around that time but decided to be a contrarian and used a Matrox G400 instead
Click to expand...

I did that but specifically because of EMBM

Then went to a Radeon 8500.
 
OMG yes! I got one for Christmas, one of the most awesome things my Dad ever did for me and was the talk of the town. Totally didn't expect it. We had the exact same canopus 3d cards to be able to play EQ Beta! Man those were the LAN days, Q1, AHL, so many great games back then, I played a hundred hours a week no shit. Anything and everything I could get my hands on. A lot of shareware, demos, which I so hope come back. These devs think they deserve 60$ right off the bat, hell no son you gotta earn it! The computer store I bought 600$ of SIPPs from is still in business, which is awesome. I stop by there all the time, now though to reminisce mostly lol, those were good days though. Actually having to wait for stuff to come out and not getting all these leaks/rumors every day.
 
What was I doing on this day in 1999? I was probably getting laid.
 
Krenum said:
Software Ect. was an awesome store! Picked up my Creative Geforce 2 Annihilator Pro there, which I still use from time to time. Great store before the cancer as we know as Gamestop swallowed them up.

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1999, I was gaming on a Diamond Viper 770 (TNT2). Never got a Geforce 256, did get a Geforce 2 however.
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I was on a v550 and skipped the expensive 256 and upgraded to a Guillemot (remember them?) GF2 pro, the one that could Oc to ultra specs.

SeymourGore said:
Those years were all about Starsiege Tribes.
Click to expand...

Hell yeah, I was in Tribes on the Renegades_base mod. Played a million hours of that with some friends on a party line (spoiled kids these days with the many chat apps) and a cable modem on a certain Celeron 333 processor. Those were the days.
 
Kranium said:
I was on a v550 and skipped the expensive 256 and upgraded to a Guillemot (remember them?) GF2 pro, the one that could Oc to ultra specs.
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Those Guillemot Prophet II Pro's were killer! My buddy had one. They fetch a pretty penny on Ebay now if you have one with the original box & accessories.
 
Pre-Voodoo, I had the PowerVR m3D. Seeing Unreal in hardware 3D vs. software 3D was amazing. Low framerate, but still amazing.
 
Ur_Mom said:
Pre-Voodoo, I had the PowerVR m3D. Seeing Unreal in hardware 3D vs. software 3D was amazing. Low framerate, but still amazing.
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I wish graphics & video cards now days gave me the same awe, wonder & excitement that they did back in those days. Maybe its nostalgia, but those days were something special for PC gaming a 3D Graphics.
 
I remember wanting a Diamond Monster 3D for my first real self bought and installed video card...then the Canopus Total 3D came out, and that became my first self bought and installed video card and i bought this huge CRT second hand on Ebay shortly after that to game at 16x12.
 
Krenum said:
I wish graphics & video cards now days gave me the same awe, wonder & excitement that they did back in those days. Maybe its nostalgia, but those days were something special for PC gaming a 3D Graphics.
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You had a lot of new improvements, not just speed. From 3D hardware to T&L and making water looking great to bump mapping .... Each new one brought new features that improved the visuals a whole lot. When I saw that water in Unreal, it was so real looking. Ripples and stuff. It was great. Morrowind was another one that blew me away when I went to a 9700Pro. Just looked so real at the time.

Now, it's just more speed. The game engine can use the GPU so well, there really isn't much more to add. I thought PhysX was going to be the next big thing, but I was way off on that one. Excellent idea, just not implemented well. Physics in games is improving, but I want atmosphere. Dust, wind blowing trees, paper and cloth moving right. Not just a texture of clothing, but a body underneath with clothing on top where it moves independently. So much potential.
 
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