Yes! I managed to find one of my first NVIDIA graphics cards in a box full of old graphics cards: a WinFast GeForce 256.
The GeForce 256 was the world’s first GPU… essentially thanks to the famous hardware T&L engine (Transform and Lighting). And the GeForce line was introduced with the GeForce 256.
Ok, honestly, with my first OpenGL 1.1 / 1.2 routines and small demos, I can’t remember if the GeForce 256 (with its 32MB of VRAM) was really faster than my previous graphics card, a Creative Labs CT6700 based on the Riva TNT (16MB of VRAM). Probably because of the first OpenGL driver in Detonator…
The good old days when NVIDIA released tech-demos for every new graphics card!
Happy birthday GeForce 256!!!
And look at the VGA cooler! The Raspberry Pi 5 could use it!
More on the GeForce 256 here: Game-Changer: How the World’s First GPU Leveled Up Gaming and Ignited the AI Era.
AI era… I don’t think in 1999 NVIDIA had AI in mind… but who knows.