Nvidia Corporation
Type	Public (NASDAQ: NVDA)
Founded	1993
Headquarters	2701 San Tomas Expressway Santa Clara, California USA, additional locations in Europe and Asia
Key people	Jen-Hsun Huang, Co-founder, President and CEO Chris Malachowsky, Co-founder, Nvidia Fellow, Senior Vice President, Engineering and Operations Jonah M. A public company usually refers to a company that is permitted to offer its registered securities ( Stock, bonds, etc The NASDAQ (acronym of National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American Stock exchange. Santa Clara California (ˌsæntəˈklærə founded in 1777 and incorporated in 1852 is a city in Santa Clara County, in the U The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Jen-Hsun "Jensen" Huang ((born February 17, 1963) is a Taiwanese-American entrepreneur and businessman President is a Title leaders of Organizations companies, Trade unions universities, and countries. A chief executive officer ( CEO) or chief executive is typically the highest-ranking corporate officer ( executive) or administrator Chris Malachowsky is an American computer scientist He received a B Alben, Vice President, GPU Engineering Debora Shoquist, Senior Vice President, Operations Dr Ranga Jayaraman, CIO
Industry	Semiconductors- Specialized
Products	Graphics processing units motherboard-chipsets
Revenue	▲$4. The chief information officer ( CIO) is a job title for the board level head of Information technology within an organization For other uses of this term see Industry (disambiguation An industry (from Latin industrius, "diligent industrious" A semiconductor' is a Solid material that has Electrical conductivity in between a conductor and an insulator; it can vary over that In Marketing, a product is anything that can be offered to a Market that might satisfy a want or need A motherboard is the central or primary Printed circuit board (PCB making up a complex electronic system such as a modern Computer or Laptop A chipset is a group of Integrated circuits or chips that are designed to work together and are usually marketed as a single product In business revenue or revenues is Income that a company receives from its normal business activities usually from the sale of goods and services 1 Billion USD (2007)
Net income	▲$797. The United States dollar ( sign: $; code: USD) is the unit of Currency of the United States; it has also been Net income is equal to the Income that a firm has after subtracting costs and Expenses from the total Revenue. 6 Million USD (2007)
Employees	over 4,985 (as of June 2008)
Website	www.nvidia.com

NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) (pronounced /ɪnˈvɪ.di.ə/), an American multinational corporation, specializes in the manufacture of graphics-processor technologies for workstations, desktop computers, and handheld devices. The United States dollar ( sign: $; code: USD) is the unit of Currency of the United States; it has also been Employment is a Contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. International holidays and commemorations June 8 - Dragon Boat Festival ( Traditional Chinese) June 9 - Shavuot A website (alternatively web site or Web site, a back-construction from the Proper noun World Wide Web) is a collection of Web pages The NASDAQ (acronym of National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American Stock exchange. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Multinational corporation ( MNC) or transnational corporation ( TNC) is a Corporation or enterprise that manages Production or delivers A workstation, such as a Unix workstation, RISC workstation or Engineering workstation, is a high-end Microcomputer A desktop computer is a Personal computer (PC in a form intended for regular use at a single location as opposed to a mobile Laptop or portable computer A mobile device (also known as cellphone device, handheld device, handheld computer, "Palmtop" or simply handheld) is a pocket-sized The company, based in Santa Clara, California, has become a major supplier of integrated circuits (ICs) used for personal-computer motherboard chipsets, graphics processing units (GPUs), and game-consoles. Santa Clara California (ˌsæntəˈklærə founded in 1777 and incorporated in 1852 is a city in Santa Clara County, in the U A motherboard is the central or primary Printed circuit board (PCB making up a complex electronic system such as a modern Computer or Laptop A chipset is a group of Integrated circuits or chips that are designed to work together and are usually marketed as a single product Notable product lines include the GeForce series for gaming and the Quadro series for graphics processing on professional workstations, as well as the nForce series of integrated motherboard-chipsets. GeForce is a Brand of PC graphics processor units (GPUs designed by Nvidia. The Nvidia Quadro series of AGP and PCI Express graphics-cards comes from the NVIDIA Corporation. This is a comparison of chipsets manufactured by Nvidia. NForce NForce2 NForce3 NForce4

Contents 1 Company history 2 Market history 2.1 Before DirectX 2.2 A fresh start 2.3 Ascendency: RIVA TNT 2.4 Market leadership: GeForce 2.5 Shortcomings of the FX series 2.6 GeForce 6 series and later 2.7 Market-share 3 Products 3.1 Graphics chipsets 3.2 Personal-computer platforms and chipsets 3.3 Documentation and drivers 3.4 Video-card manufacturers 4 See also 5 References 6 External links

Company history

The company's name, NVIDIA, combines an initial n — a letter often used for mathematical variables — and the root of video — which comes from Latin videre, "to see" — implying "the best visual experience". Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. The company-name appears entirely in upper-case ("NVIDIA") in company technical documentation, although marketing materials and other collateral show less brand-consistency.

The name NVIDIA suggests "envy" (Spanish envidia or in Latin, Italian, or Romanian invidia); and the GeForce 8 series uses the slogan "Green with envy". Italian ( or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 63 million people as a First language, primarily in Italy. Romanian or Daco-Romanian ( dated: Rumanian or Roumanian; self designation limba română, ˈlimba roˈmɨnə is a Romance In Roman mythology, Invidia was the sense of Envy or Jealousy, who might be personified for strictly literary purposes as a goddess a Roman equivalent The GeForce 8 Series is the eighth generation of NVIDIA 's GeForce graphics cards

Jen-Hsun Huang (the present CEO), Curtis Priem, and Chris Malachowsky co-founded the company in 1993 with venture-capital funding from Sequoia Capital. Jen-Hsun "Jensen" Huang ((born February 17, 1963) is a Taiwanese-American entrepreneur and businessman 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common Curtis R Priem is an American computer scientist He received a B Chris Malachowsky is an American computer scientist He received a B Sequoia Capital is a Venture capital firm founded by Don Valentine in 1972 ^[1]

In 2000 NVIDIA acquired the intellectual assets of its one-time rival 3dfx, one of the biggest graphics companies of the mid- to late-1990s. 3dfx Interactive was a company that specialized in the manufacturing of 3D Graphics processing units and later Graphics cards After dominating the field

On December 14, 2005, NVIDIA acquired ULI Electronics, which at the time supplied third-party Southbridge parts for chipsets to ATI, Nvidia's competitor. Events 1287 - St Lucia's flood: The Zuider Zee sea wall in the Netherlands collapses killing over 50000 people Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Acer Laboratories Incorporated (also known as Acer Labs Inc, and commonly known as ALi) is a major designer and manufacturer of integrated circuits for the personal The Southbridge, also known as the I/O Controller Hub ( ICH) in Intel systems (AMD VIA SiS and others usually A chipset is a group of Integrated circuits or chips that are designed to work together and are usually marketed as a single product In March 2006, Nvidia acquired Hybrid Graphics^[2] and on January 5, 2007, it announced that it had completed the acquisition of PortalPlayer, Inc. Hybrid Graphics Ltd often "Hybrid" was a graphics software technology company active from 1994 to 2007 in Helsinki, Finland. Events 1477 - Battle of Nancy: Charles the Bold is killed and Burgundy becomes part of France. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. PortalPlayer is a Fabless semiconductor company that supplies System-on-a-chip semiconductors firmware and software for personal media players. ^[3]

In December 2006 Nvidia, along with its main rival in the graphics industry AMD (which acquired ATI), received subpoenas from the Justice Department regarding possible antitrust violations in the graphics-card industry. For animal rights group see Justice Department (JD The United States Department of Justice ( DOJ) is a Cabinet department United States antitrust law is the body of Laws that prohibits anti-competitive behavior (monopoly and Unfair business practices. ^[4]

Forbes magazine named Nvidia its Company of the Year for 2007, citing the accomplishments it made during the said period as well as during the previous 5 years. Forbes is an American Publishing and media company Its flagship publication Forbes magazine is published bi-weekly ^[5]

In February 2008 NVIDIA acquired Ageia Technologies for an undisclosed sum. AGEIA, founded in 2002 was a Fabless semiconductor company. AGEIA invented PhysX – a Physics Processing Unit chip capable of performing Physics "The purchase reflects both companies['] shared goal of creating the most amazing and captivating game experiences", said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of Nvidia. "By combining the teams that created the world's most pervasive GPU and physics engine brands, we can now bring GeForce-accelerated PhysX to hundreds of millions of gamers around the world. " The press-release makes no mention of the acquisition-cost nor of specific products.

Also in February 2008, NVIDIA announced Nvision, an event relating to visual computing, scheduled to start on August 25 in San Jose. Events 1248 - The Dutch city of Ommen receives city rights and fortification rights from Otto III the Plans for Nvision include an attempt to achieve a Guinness World Record for the world's largest LAN party, and the finals for the Electronic Sports World Cup. Guinness World Records, known until 2000 as The Guinness Book of Records (and in previous U A LAN party is a temporary sometimes spontaneous gathering of people together with their computers which they network together primarily for the purpose of playing multiplayer The Electronic Sports World Cup is an international professional gaming championship

Market history

Before DirectX

Nvidia released its first graphics card, the NV1, in 1995. Nvidia NV1, manufactured by SGS-THOMSON Microelectronics under the model name STG-2000 was a multimedia PCI card released in 1995 and sold to retail as the Its design used quadratic surfaces, with an integrated playback-only sound-card and ports for Sega Saturn gamepads. In mathematics a quadric, or quadric surface, is any D -dimensional Hypersurface defined as the locus of zeros of a Quadratic The is a 32-bit Video game console that was first released on November 22 1994 in Japan, May 11 1995 in North America A gamepad, also called joypad or control pad, is a type of Game controller held in the hand where the digits (especially thumbs are used to provide input Because the Saturn also used forward-rendered quadratics, programmers ported several Saturn games to play on a PC with NV1, such as Panzer Dragoon and Virtua Fighter Remix. Panzer Dragoon is a Rail shooter released on the Sega Saturn in 1995, and later released on PC, and as an extra in Virtua Fighter is a 1993 Fighting game developed for the Sega Model 1 arcade platform by AM2, a development group However, the NV1 struggled in a market-place full of several competing proprietary standards.

Market interest in the product ended when Microsoft announced the DirectX specifications, based upon polygons. Microsoft DirectX is a collection of Application programming interfaces (APIs for handling tasks related to Multimedia, especially Game programming and Subsequently NV1 development continued internally as the NV2 project, funded by several millions of dollars of investment from Sega. NV2 was to be NVIDIA 's second graphics processor designed for consumer PC 3D accelerator add-in boards is a multinational Video game Software and Hardware development company and a former Home computer Sega hoped that an integrated sound-and-graphics chip would cut the manufacturing cost of their next console. However, Sega eventually realized the flaws in implementing quadratic surfaces, and the NV2 was never fully developed.

A fresh start

Nvidia's CEO Jen-Hsun Huang realized at this point that after two failed products, something had to change for the company to survive. He hired David Kirk, Ph.D. as Chief Scientist from software-developer Crystal Dynamics, a company renowned for the visual quality of its titles. Dr David Kirk PhD is NVIDIA 's Chief Scientist From June 1996 to January 1997 Dr Crystal Dynamics is an American Video game developer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. David Kirk turned Nvidia around by combining the company's experience in 3D hardware with an intimate understanding of practical implementations of rendering. 3D computer graphics (in contrast to 2D computer graphics) are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer

As part of the corporate transformation, NVIDIA abandoned proprietary interfaces, sought to fully support DirectX, and dropped multimedia-functionality in order to reduce manufacturing-costs. Nvidia also adopted the goal of an internal 6-month product-cycle. The future failure of any one product would not threaten the survival of the company, since a next-generation replacement part would always come available.

However, since the Sega NV2 contract remained secret, and since NVIDIA had laid off employees, it appeared to many industry-observers that Nvidia had ceased active research-and-development. Layoff is the temporary suspension or permanent Termination of employment of an Employee or (more commonly a group of employees for Business reasons So when Nvidia first announced the RIVA 128 in 1997, the specifications were hard to believe: performance superior to market leader 3dfx Voodoo Graphics, and a full hardware triangle setup engine. Released in late 1997 by Nvidia, the RIVA 128, or "NV3" was one of the first consumer graphics chips to integrate 3D acceleration in addition to traditional 2D and 3dfx Interactive was a company that specialized in the manufacturing of 3D Graphics processing units and later Graphics cards After dominating the field The RIVA 128 shipped in volume, and the combination of its low cost and high performance made it a popular choice for OEMs.

Ascendency: RIVA TNT

Having finally developed and shipped in volume the market-leading integrated graphics chipset, NVIDIA set itself the goal of doubling the number of pixel pipelines in its chip, in order to realize a substantial performance-gain. The pixel pipeline was a component within 3D accelerators, most prominently prior to DirectX 9 The TwiN Texel (RIVA TNT) engine which NVIDIA subsequently developed could either apply two textures to a single pixel, or process two pixels per clock-cycle. A texel, or tex ture el ement (also tex ture pi' xel) is the fundamental unit of texture space used in Computer graphics The RIVA TNT, codenamed NV4, is a 2D, Video, and 3D graphics accelerator chip for PCs that was manufactured by Nvidia. In Electronics and especially synchronous Digital circuits a clock signal is a signal used to coordinate the actions of two or more circuits The former case allowed for improved visual quality, the latter for doubling the maximum fill-rate. The fillrate usually refers to the number of pixels a Video card can render and write to video memory in a Second.

New features included a 24-bit Z-buffer with 8-bit stencil support, anisotropic filtering, and per-pixel MIP mapping. In Computer graphics, z-buffering is the management of image depth coordinates in three-dimensional (3-D graphics usually done in Hardware, sometimes in A Stencil buffer is an extra buffer, in addition to the Color buffer ( Pixel buffer) and depth buffer ( Z-buffering In 3D computer graphics, anisotropic filtering (abbreviated AF) is a method of enhancing the image quality of textures on surfaces that are at oblique In 3D computer graphics Texture filtering, MIP maps (also mipmaps) are pre-calculated optimized collections of bitmap images that In certain respects (such as transistor-count) the TNT had begun to rival Intel's Pentium processors for complexity. However, while the TNT offered an astonishing range of quality integrated features, it failed to displace the market leader, 3dfx's Voodoo 2, because the actual clock-speed ended up at only 90 MHz, about 35% less than expected. 3dfx Interactive was a company that specialized in the manufacturing of 3D Graphics processing units and later Graphics cards After dominating the field The Voodoo2 (or Voodoo² was a set of three Graphics processing units (GPU on a single board made by 3dfx.

NVIDIA responded with a refresh part: a die-shrink for the TNT architecture from 350 nm to 250 nm. A stock TNT2 now ran at 125 MHz, an Ultra at 150 MHz. Though the Voodoo 3 beat NVIDIA to the market, 3dfx's offering proved disappointing: it was not much faster and lacked features that were becoming standard, such as 32-bit color and textures of resolution greater than 256 x 256 pixels. Voodoo3 was a series of computer gaming video cards manufactured and designed by 3dfx Interactive. The range of Integer values that can be stored in 32 bits is 0 through 4294967295 or −2147483648 through 2147483647 using Two's complement encoding

The RIVA TNT2 marked a major turning-point for NVIDIA. The RIVA TNT2 was a 3D graphics chip manufactured by Nvidia starting in early 1999 They had finally delivered a product competitive with the fastest on the market, with a superior feature-set, strong 2D functionality, all integrated onto a single die with strong yields, that ramped to impressive clock-speeds. NVIDIA's six month cycle refresh took the competition by surprise, giving it the initiative in rolling out new products.

Market leadership: GeForce

The autumn of 1999 saw the release of the GeForce 256 (NV10), most notably bringing on-board transformation and lighting. The GeForce 256 was the first of Nvidia 's " GeForce " product-line It ran at 120 MHz; it implemented advanced video-acceleration, motion-compensation and hardware sub-picture alpha-blending; and had four pixel pipelines. The GeForce outperformed existing products — such as the ATI Rage 128, 3dfx Voodoo 3, Matrox G400 MAX, and RIVA TNT2 — by a wide margin.

Due to the success of its products, Nvidia won the contract to develop the graphics hardware for Microsoft’s Xbox game-console, which earned Nvidia a large $200 million advance. The GeForce3 ( Codenamed NV20) was Nvidia 's third-generation GeForce chip The Xbox is a sixth-generation Video game console produced by Microsoft Corporation. However, the project drew the time of many of Nvidia's best engineers. In the short term, this was of no importance, and the GeForce 2 GTS shipped in the summer of 2000. The GeForce2 ( codenamed NV15) was the second generation of GeForce Graphics cards by Nvidia Corporation.

The GTS benefited from the fact that Nvidia had by this time acquired extensive manufacturing experience with their highly integrated cores, and as a result they succeeded in optimizing the core for clock-speeds. The volume of chips produced by Nvidia also enabled it to bin-split parts, picking out the highest-quality cores for its premium range. As a result, the GTS shipped at 200 MHz. The pixel fill rate of the GeForce256 nearly doubled, and texel-fill rate nearly quadrupled because multi-texturing was added to each pixel pipeline. A texel, or tex ture el ement (also tex ture pi' xel) is the fundamental unit of texture space used in Computer graphics New features included S3TC compression, FSAA, and improved MPEG-2 motion compensation. S3 Texture Compression (S3TC (sometimes also called DXTn or DXTC) is a group of related Image compression Algorithms originally developed by In Digital signal processing, anti-aliasing is the technique of minimizing the distortion artifacts known as Aliasing when representing a high-resolution signal MPEG-2 is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information"

Shortly afterwards NVIDIA launched the GeForce 2 MX, intended for the budget and OEM market. It had two pixel-pipelines fewer, and ran at 165 MHz and later at 250 MHz. Offering strong performance at a mid-range price, the GeForce 2MX became one of the most successful graphics chipsets. The GeForce2 ( codenamed NV15) was the second generation of GeForce Graphics cards by Nvidia Corporation. Nvidia also shipped a mobile derivative called the GeForce2 Go at the end of 2000.

NVIDIA's success proved too much for 3dfx to recover its past market-share. 3dfx Interactive was a company that specialized in the manufacturing of 3D Graphics processing units and later Graphics cards After dominating the field The long-delayed Voodoo 5, the successor to the Voodoo 3, did not compare favorably with the GeForce 2 in either price or performance, and failed to generate the sales needed to keep the company afloat. The Voodoo 5 was the last and most powerful Graphics card line that 3dfx Interactive released With 3dfx on the verge of bankruptcy near the end of 2000, NVIDIA purchased most of 3dfx's intellectual property, (in dispute at the time)^[6], but also acquired anti-aliasing expertise, and about 100 engineers (but not the company itself, which filed for bankruptcy in 2002). In Digital signal processing, anti-aliasing is the technique of minimizing the distortion artifacts known as Aliasing when representing a high-resolution signal

NVIDIA developed the GeForce 3 which pioneered DirectX 8 vertex and pixel-shaders, and then refined it with the GeForce 4 Ti line. The GeForce3 ( Codenamed NV20) was Nvidia 's third-generation GeForce chip A shader in the field of Computer graphics is a set of software instructions which is used by the graphic resources primarily to perform rendering effects The GeForce4 ( Codenames below refers to the fourth-generation of GeForce -branded Graphics processing unit (GPU manufactured by Nvidia. The GeForce 2 was succeeded by the GeForce 4 MX. The GeForce4 ( Codenames below refers to the fourth-generation of GeForce -branded Graphics processing unit (GPU manufactured by Nvidia. Nvidia announced the GeForce 4 Ti, MX, and Go in January 2002, one of the largest releases in NVIDIA history. Cleverly, the chips in the Ti and Go series differed only in chip and memory clock-speeds. (The MX series lacked the pixel and vertex shader functionalities; it derived from GeForce 2 level hardware. )

Shortcomings of the FX series

At this point NVIDIA’s market position looked unassailable, and industry observers began to refer to Nvidia as the Intel of the graphics-industry. However, its major remaining rival ATI Technologies did stay competitive due to its Radeon which performed mostly on a par with the GeForce 2 GTS. The Radeon R200 is the second generation of Radeon graphics chips from ATI Technologies. Though ATI's answer to the GeForce 3, the Radeon 8500, came later to market and initially suffered from driver issues, the 8500 proved a superior competitor due to its lower price and greater potential. The Radeon R300 (introduced August 2002) is the third generation of Radeon graphics chips from ATI Technologies. NVIDIA countered ATI's offering with the GeForce 4 Ti line, though the Ti 4200's delayed rollout enabled the 8500 to carve out a niche. The GeForce4 ( Codenames below refers to the fourth-generation of GeForce -branded Graphics processing unit (GPU manufactured by Nvidia. ATI opted to work on its next-generation Radeon 9700 rather than on a direct competitor to the GeForce 4 Ti. The Radeon R300 (introduced August 2002) is the third generation of Radeon graphics chips from ATI Technologies.

During the development of the next-generation GeForce FX chips, many of Nvidia’s best engineers focused on the Xbox contract, developing a motherboard solution, including the API used as part of the SoundStorm platform. The GeForce FX or "GeForce 5" series ( Codenamed NV30) is a line of Graphics cards from the manufacturer Nvidia. The Xbox is a sixth-generation Video game console produced by Microsoft Corporation. SoundStorm was an advanced integrated 51 sound technology certification developed by Nvidia for the NForce2 platform based on the nForce audio processing NVIDIA also had a contractual obligation to develop newer and more hack-resistant NV2A chips, and this requirement further shortchanged the FX project. The GeForce3 ( Codenamed NV20) was Nvidia 's third-generation GeForce chip The Xbox contract did not allow for falling manufacturing costs as processor technology improved, and Microsoft sought to re-negotiate the terms of the contract, withholding the DirectX 9 specifications as leverage. As a result, NVIDIA and Microsoft relations, which had previously been very good, deteriorated. Both parties later settled the dispute through arbitration and the terms were not released to the public. However, the dispute was what prompted Nvidia to pass over developing a graphics solution for the succeeding Xbox 360, with ATI taking on that contract, while Nvidia decided to work on the Sony PlayStation 3 instead. The Xbox 360 is the second Video game console produced by Microsoft, and was developed in cooperation with IBM, ATI, and SiS.

Due to the Xbox dispute, no consultation with NVIDIA took place during the drawing up of the DirectX 9 specification, while ATI designed the Radeon 9700 to fit the DirectX specifications. The Radeon R300 (introduced August 2002) is the third generation of Radeon graphics chips from ATI Technologies. this development limited rendering color support to 24 bits floating point, and the whole development emphasized shader performance, the main expected focus of DirectX 9. Developers built the shader-compiler using the Radeon 9700 as the base card.

In contrast, NVIDIA’s cards offered 16- and 32-bit floating point modes, offering either lower visual quality (as compared to the competition), or slow performance. The 32-bit support made them much more expensive to manufacture, requiring a higher transistor count. Shader performance often remained at half or less of the speed provided by ATI's competing products. Having made its reputation by designing easy-to-manufacture DirectX-compatible parts, Nvidia had misjudged Microsoft’s next standard and paid a heavy price: as more and more games started to rely on DirectX 9 features, the poor shader performance of the GeForce FX series became ever more obvious. With the exception of the FX 5700 series (a late revision), the FX series lacked performance compared to equivalent ATI cards.

Nvidia started to become ever more desperate to hide the shortcomings of the GeForce FX range. It released a notable "FX only" demo called Dawn, but a hacked wrapper enabled it to run on a 9700, where it ran faster despite a perceived translation overhead. Dawn is both the name of Nvidia 's Technology demo and its main character constructed for performance by Jim Henson's Creature Shop. NVIDIA also began to include "optimizations" in their drivers to increase performance. While some users contended that increased real world gaming performance were valid, hardware review sites started to run articles showing how Nvidia’s driver auto-detected benchmarks, and produced artificially inflated scores that did not relate to real world performance. Often it was tips from ATI’s driver development team that lay behind these articles. As Nvidia’s drivers became ever more full of hacks and "optimizations," the legendary stability and compatibility also began to suffer. While Nvidia did partially close the gap with new instruction reordering capabilities introduced in later drivers, shader performance remained weak and over-sensitive to hardware-specific code compilation. NVIDIA worked with Microsoft to release an updated DirectX compiler, that generated GeForce FX specific optimized code.

Furthermore, GeForce FX devices also ran hot, because they drew as much as double the amount of power as equivalent parts from ATI. The GeForce FX 5800 Ultra became notorious for its fan noise, and acquired the nicknames "dustbuster" and "leafblower" - Nvidia jokingly acknowledged these accusations with a video, where the marketing team compares the cards to a Harley-Davidson. Harley-Davidson Motor Company ( formerly HDI is an American manufacturer of Motorcycles based in Milwaukee Wisconsin. ^[7] Although the quieter 5900 replaced the 5800 without fanfare, the FX chips still needed large and expensive fans, placing Nvidia's partners at a manufacturing cost disadvantage compared to ATI. As a result of Microsoft's actions, and the resultant FX series' weaknesses, NVIDIA quite unexpectedly lost its market leadership position to ATI.

GeForce 6 series and later

With the GeForce 6 series, Nvidia had clearly moved beyond the DX9 performance problems that plagued the previous generation. The GeForce 6 Series ( Codenamed NV40) is Nvidia 's sixth generation of GeForce graphics chipsets. The GeForce 6 series not only performed competitively where Direct 3D shaders were concerned, but also supported DirectX Shader Model 3. 0, while ATI's competing X800 series chips only supported the previous 2. 0 specification. This proved an insignificant advantage, mainly because games of that period did not employ extensions for Shader Model 3. 0. However, it demonstrated Nvidia's desire to design and follow through with the newest features and deliver them in a specific timeframe. What became more apparent during this time was that the products of the two firms, ATI and Nvidia, offered equivalent performance. The two firms traded blows in specific titles and specific criteria — resolution, image quality, anisotropic filtering/anti-aliasing — but differences were becoming more abstract, and the reigning concern became price-to-performance. The mid-range offerings of the two firms demonstrated the consumers' appetite for affordable, high-performance graphics cards, and it is now this price segment in which much of the firms' profitability is determined. The GeForce 6 series were released in a very interesting period: the game Doom 3 was just released where ATI's Radeon 9700 struggled at the OpenGL performance. In 2004, the GeForce 6800 performed excellently, while the GeForce 6600GT remained as important to Nvidia as the GeForce2 MX a few years previously. The GeForce 6600GT enabled users of the card to play Doom 3 at very high resolutions and graphical settings, which was thought to be highly unlikely considering its selling price. The GeForce 6 series also introduced SLI (which is similar to what 3dfx was using on the Voodoo 2). Scalable Link Interface ( SLI) is a brand name for a multi- GPU solution developed by Nvidia for linking two or more video cards together to produce A combination of SLI and the performance gain as a result returned Nvidia to market leadership.

The GeForce 7 series represented a heavily beefed-up extension of the reliable 6-series. The GeForce 7 Series is the seventh generation of Nvidia 's GeForce Graphics cards GeForce 7100 series The 7100 series was introduced The industry's introduction of the PCI Express bus standard allowed Nvidia to release SLI (Scalable Link Interface), a solution that employs two similar cards to share the workload in rendering. Not to be confused with PCI-X, a different bus architecture Peripheral Component Interconnect Express, officially abbreviated as PCI-E Scalable Link Interface ( SLI) is a brand name for a multi- GPU solution developed by Nvidia for linking two or more video cards together to produce While these solutions do not equate to double the performance, and require more electricity (two cards vis-à-vis one), they can make a huge difference as higher resolutions and settings are enabled and, more importantly, offer more upgrade flexibility. ATI responded with the X1000 series, and their own dual-rendering solution called "Crossfire". Sony chose Nvidia to develop the "RSX" chip used in the PlayStation 3 — a modified version of the 7800 GPU.

Nvidia released the 8-series chip towards the end of 2006, making the 8-series the first to support Microsoft's next-generation DirectX 10 specification. Microsoft DirectX is a collection of Application programming interfaces (APIs for handling tasks related to Multimedia, especially Game programming and The 8-series GPUs also featured the revolutionary Unified Shader Architecture, and Nvidia leveraged this to provide an additional functionality for its graphics cards: better support for General Purpose Computing on GPU (GPGPU). Unified Shader Model term is used to describe two similar but separate concepts Unified Shading Architecture and Unified Shader Model General-purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU also referred to as GPGP and to a lesser extent GP² is the technique of using a GPU, which typically handles A new product-line of "compute-only" devices called Nvidia Tesla emerged from the G80 architecture, and subsequently Nvidia also became the market leader of this new field by introducing the world's first C programming language API for GPGPU: CUDA. The Tesla GPU is NVIDIA's third brand of GPUs It's based on the G80 and Quadro and is NVIDIA's first dedicated tags please moot on the talk page first! --> In Computing, C is a general-purpose cross-platform block structured CUDA ( Compute Unified Device Architecture) is a Compiler and set of development tools that enable programmers to use a variation of C to

Nvidia released two models of the high-end 8-series (8800) chip: the 8800GTS (640MB) and the 8800GTX (768MB). Later, Nvidia released the 8800 Ultra (essentially an 8800GTX with a different cooler and higher clocks). All three of these cards derived from the 90nm G80 core (with 681 million transistors). The GTS model had 32 stream processors along with 4 ROPS disabled. In early 2007 Nvidia released the 8800GTS 320mb. This card basically comprised an 8800GTS 640, but with 320MB memory chips instead of 640.

In October 2007 Nvidia released the 8800GT. The 8800GT used the new 65nm G92 GPU and had 112 stream processors. It contained 512Mb of VRAM and operated on a 256bit bus. It had several fixes and new features that the previous 8800s lacked. Later in December 2007 Nvidia released the 8800GTS G92. It represented a larger 8800GT with higher clocks and all of the 128 stream processors of the G92 unlocked. Both the 8800GTS G92 and 8800GT have full PCI Express 2. 0 support.

In February 2008 Nvidia released the 9600-series chip, which supports Microsoft's DirectX 10 specification, in response to ATI's release of the Radeon HD3800 series. After March Nvidia released the GeForce 9800 GX2, which, roughly put, packs a dual GeForce 8800 GT into a single card.

Market-share

According to a survey^[8] conducted by Jon Peddie Research, a market-watch firm, in the third quarter of 2007, Nvidia occupied the top slot in the desktop graphic-devices market with a market share of 37. 9%. However, in the mobile space, it remained third with 22. 8% of the market. Overall Nvidia has maintained its position as the second-largest supplier of PC graphic shipments, which includes both integrated and discrete GPUs, with 33. 9% market share, their highest in many years, which puts them just behind Intel (38%).

According to the Steam hardware survey [1] conducted by the game-developer Valve, Nvidia had 62. Steam is a Digital distribution, Digital rights management, Multiplayer Valve Corporation is an American video game development company based in Bellevue Washington, USA that was founded in 1996, and made famous 06% of PC videocard market share (as of March 11, 2008). Events 1425 BC - Thutmose III, Pharaoh of Egypt, dies (according to the Low Chronology of the 18th Dynasty ATI had 30. 81% of the PC videocard market share. But this could relate to Valve releasing trial versions of The Orange Box to Nvidia graphics-card users, which link to the test. The Orange Box is a Video game compilation for Microsoft Windows, the Xbox 360, and the PlayStation 3.

Products

Nvidia's product-portfolio includes graphics-processors, wireless-communications processors, PC platform (motherboard core-logic) chipsets, and digital-media-player software. A chipset is a group of Integrated circuits or chips that are designed to work together and are usually marketed as a single product The Mac/PC user community arguably knows Nvidia best for its "GeForce" product-line, which not only offers a complete line of "discrete" graphics chips found in AIB (add-in-board) video cards, but also provides a core-technology in both the Microsoft Xbox game-console and nForce motherboards. Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational Computer technology Corporation, which rose to dominate the Home computer The Xbox is a sixth-generation Video game console produced by Microsoft Corporation. This is a comparison of chipsets manufactured by Nvidia. NForce NForce2 NForce3 NForce4

In many respects, Nvidia resembles its competitor ATI, because both companies began with a focus in the PC market, but later expanded their businesses into chips for non-PC applications. Nvidia does not sell graphics boards into the retail market, instead focusing on the development of GPU chips. The manufacturing of Nvidia chips, as a fabless semiconductor company occurs in the Taiwanese TSMC. A fabless semiconductor company specializes in the design and sale of Hardware devices implemented on Semiconductor Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited ( Traditional Chinese: 台灣積體電路製造股份有限公司 abbrev As part of their operations, both ATI and Nvidia do create "reference designs" (board schematics) and provide manufacturing samples to their board partners. Manufacturers of Nvidia cards include BFG, EVGA, PNY, and XFX. BFG Technologies is a privately held US -based supplier of premium 3D Video cards based on NVIDIA graphics technology EVGA is a company that primarily produces NVIDIA based consumer computer hardware PNY Technologies Inc is an American Computer hardware company established in 1985 XFX is a subsidiary of the Hong Kong -based Pine Technology Holdings Limited Group that specializes in the manufacture of Graphics cards based on ASUS, Gigabyte Technology and MSI exemplify manufacturers of both ATI and Nvidia cards. ASUSTeK Computer Incorporated (Asus () ( is a Taiwan -based multinational company that produces Motherboards Graphics cards Optical drives Gigabyte Technology ( is a Taiwan-based manufacturer of Computer hardware products best known for its Motherboards The company is publicly held and traded

December 2004 saw the announcement that Nvidia would assist Sony with the design of the graphics processor (RSX) in the Sony PlayStation 3 game-console. is a multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato Tokyo, Japan, and one of the world's largest Media conglomerates with The Graphics processing unit is a graphics chip design co-developed by NVIDIA As of March 2006, it is known that Nvidia will deliver RSX to Sony as an IP-core, and that Sony alone would be responsible for manufacturing the RSX. Under the agreement, Nvidia will provide ongoing support to port the RSX to Sony's fabs of choice (Sony and Toshiba), as well as die-shrinks to 65 nm. This is a departure from Nvidia's business arrangement with Microsoft, in which Nvidia managed production and delivery of the Xbox GPU through Nvidia's usual third-party foundry contracts. (Meanwhile, Microsoft has chosen to license a design by ATI and make their own manufacturing arrangements for Xbox 360's graphics hardware, as has Nintendo for their Wii console to succeed the ATI-based GameCube. The Xbox 360 is the second Video game console produced by Microsoft, and was developed in cooperation with IBM, ATI, and SiS. is a Multinational corporation headquartered in Kyoto Japan founded on The, often abbreviated as GCN, is Nintendo 's fourth home Video game console and is part of the sixth generation console era. )

On February 4, 2008, NVIDIA announced plans to acquire physics software producer AGEIA, whose PhysX physics engine program forms part of hundreds of games shipping or in development for PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, Wii, and gaming PCs. Events 211 - Roman Emperor Septimius Severus dies leaving the Roman Empire in the hands of his two quarrelsome sons 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common The Xbox 360 is the second Video game console produced by Microsoft, and was developed in cooperation with IBM, ATI, and SiS. ^[9] This transaction completed on February 13, 2008^[10] and efforts to integrate PhysX into the GeForce 8800's CUDA system began. Events 1258 - Baghdad falls to the Mongols, and the Abbasid Caliphate is destroyed 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common PhysX is a proprietary Realtime Physics engine Middleware SDK developed by NVIDIA (originally by Ageia, CUDA ( Compute Unified Device Architecture) is a Compiler and set of development tools that enable programmers to use a variation of C to ^{[11] [12]}

On June 2, 2008 Nvidia officially announced its new Tegra product-line . Events 455 - The Vandals enter Rome, and plunder the city for two weeks 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common NVIDIA Tegra is an all-in-one ( System-on-a-chip) processor architecture offered by NVIDIA that is designed for mobile devices such as Smartphones ^[13] These "computers on a chip" integrate CPU (ARM), GPU, northbridge, southbridge and primary memory functionality onto a single chip. Commentators opine that Nvidia will target this product at the smart-phone and mobile Internet device sector.

Graphics chipsets

• NV1 – Nvidia's first product, based on quadratic surfaces
• RIVA 128 and RIVA 128ZX – DirectX 5 support, OpenGL 1 support, Nvidia's first DirectX-compliant hardware
• RIVA TNT, RIVA TNT2 – DirectX 6 support, OpenGL 1 support; the series that made Nvidia a market-leader
• Nvidia GeForce - Desktop-graphics acceleration-solutions
• Nvidia Quadro – High-quality workstation solutions
• Nvidia Tesla - Dedicated GPGPU processing for High Performance Computing systems
• Nvidia GoForce – Media processors for PDAs, Smartphones, and mobile phones featuring nPower technology
• GPU for game consoles
  • Xbox GeForce 3 - class GPU (on an Intel Pentium III/Celeron platform)
  • PlayStation 3 - RSX 'Reality Synthesizer'

Personal-computer platforms and chipsets

• Nvidia nForce
  • nForce IGP (AMD Athlon/Duron K7 line)
  • nForce2 (AMD Athlon/Duron K7 line, SPP (system platform processor) or IGP (Integrated Graphics Platform) and MCP (Media and Communications Processor), also features SoundStorm)
  • nForce3 (AMD Athlon 64/Athlon 64 FX/Opteron, MCP only)
  • nForce4 (AMD Athlon 64/Athlon 64 X2/Athlon 64 FX/Opteron, MCP only;Intel Pentium 4/Pentium D, SSP + MCP)
  • nForce 500 (AMD Athlon 64 FX/Athlon 64 X2/Athlon 64/Sempron or Intel Core 2 Extreme/Core 2 Duo/Pentium 4/Celeron D/Pentium D)
  • nForce 600 (AMD Quad FX or Intel Core 2 Quad/Core 2 Extreme/Core 2 Duo/Pentium 4/Celeron D/Pentium D)
  • nForce 700 (Intel Core 2 and AMD Phenom)

Documentation and drivers

Main article: Graphics hardware and FOSS

Nvidia does not publish the documentation for its hardware, meaning that programmers cannot write appropriate and effective open-source drivers for Nvidia's products. Nvidia NV1, manufactured by SGS-THOMSON Microelectronics under the model name STG-2000 was a multimedia PCI card released in 1995 and sold to retail as the Released in late 1997 by Nvidia, the RIVA 128, or "NV3" was one of the first consumer graphics chips to integrate 3D acceleration in addition to traditional 2D and Microsoft DirectX is a collection of Application programming interfaces (APIs for handling tasks related to Multimedia, especially Game programming and OpenGL ( Open G raphics L ibrary is a standard specification defining a cross-language Cross-platform API for writing applications that produce The RIVA TNT, codenamed NV4, is a 2D, Video, and 3D graphics accelerator chip for PCs that was manufactured by Nvidia. The RIVA TNT2 was a 3D graphics chip manufactured by Nvidia starting in early 1999 GeForce is a Brand of PC graphics processor units (GPUs designed by Nvidia. The Nvidia Quadro series of AGP and PCI Express graphics-cards comes from the NVIDIA Corporation. The Tesla GPU is NVIDIA's third brand of GPUs It's based on the G80 and Quadro and is NVIDIA's first dedicated General-purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU also referred to as GPGP and to a lesser extent GP² is the technique of using a GPU, which typically handles High-performance computing (HPC uses Supercomputers and Computer clusters to solve advanced computing problems The NVIDIA GoForce line of chipsets used mainly in handheld devices such as PDA and Mobile phones. A smartphone is a Mobile phone offering advanced capabilities beyond a typical mobile phone often with PC -like functionality The Xbox is a sixth-generation Video game console produced by Microsoft Corporation. Pentium III variants Katmai The first Pentium III variant was the Katmai (Intel product code 80525 The Celeron brand is a range of X86 CPUs from Intel targeted at budget/value Personal computers ��with the motto "delivering great quality The Graphics processing unit is a graphics chip design co-developed by NVIDIA This is a comparison of chipsets manufactured by Nvidia. NForce NForce2 NForce3 NForce4 Innovations Dual Channel & GeForce2 MX IGP The nForce chipset introduced a dual-channel memory controller to the mainstream motherboard market doubling theoretical throughput Athlon is the brand name applied to a series of different X86 processors designed and manufactured by AMD. The AMD Duron was an X86 -compatible Computer processor manufactured by AMD. Development The nForce2 features two different southbridges the MCP and the MCP-T A Media Communications Processor (MCP is a type of processor designed specifically for the creation and distribution of Digital media. SoundStorm was an advanced integrated 51 sound technology certification developed by Nvidia for the NForce2 platform based on the nForce audio processing Features of the nForce3 When the Athlon 64 was launched the Nvidia nForce3 Pro150 and VIA K8T800 were the only two chipsets available The Athlon 64 is an eighth-generation AMD64 architecture Microprocessor produced by AMD, released on The Opteron is AMD 's X86 server processor line and was the first processor to implement the AMD64 Instruction set architecture (known Models nForce4/nForce4-4x nForce4 is the second evolutional MCP and incorporates both Northbridge and Southbridge on a single die The Athlon 64 is an eighth-generation AMD64 architecture Microprocessor produced by AMD, released on The Opteron is AMD 's X86 server processor line and was the first processor to implement the AMD64 Instruction set architecture (known The Pentium 4 brand refers to Intel 's line of single- core mainstream desktop and Laptop Central processing units (CPUs introduced The Pentium D brand refers to two series of Dual-core 64-bit X86 processors with the NetBurst Microarchitecture manufactured Specifications Support for NVIDIA SLI technology including Quad SLI (enabling the simultaneous use of four GPUs and SLI LinkBoost developments Sempron has been the marketing name used by AMD for several different entry level desktop CPUs using several different technologies and CPU socket The Core 2 brand refers to a range of Intel 's consumer 64-bit dual-core and 2x2 MCM quad-core CPUs with the X86-64 instruction set The Pentium 4 brand refers to Intel 's line of single- core mainstream desktop and Laptop Central processing units (CPUs introduced The Celeron brand is a range of X86 CPUs from Intel targeted at budget/value Personal computers ��with the motto "delivering great quality The Pentium D brand refers to two series of Dual-core 64-bit X86 processors with the NetBurst Microarchitecture manufactured AMD Chipsets nForce 680a SLI Specially made for the AMD Quad FX platform proposed by AMD providing a total of two CPUs and multiple graphic cards configuation The AMD Quad FX platform is an AMD platform targeted at enthusiasts which allows users to plug two Socket F Athlon 64 FX or 2-way Opteron The Core 2 brand refers to a range of Intel 's consumer 64-bit dual-core and 2x2 MCM quad-core CPUs with the X86-64 instruction set The Pentium 4 brand refers to Intel 's line of single- core mainstream desktop and Laptop Central processing units (CPUs introduced The Celeron brand is a range of X86 CPUs from Intel targeted at budget/value Personal computers ��with the motto "delivering great quality The Pentium D brand refers to two series of Dual-core 64-bit X86 processors with the NetBurst Microarchitecture manufactured AMD CPUs nForce 780a Codenamed MCP72XE motherboard GPU (mGPU DirectX 10 compliant The Core 2 brand refers to a range of Intel 's consumer 64-bit dual-core and 2x2 MCM quad-core CPUs with the X86-64 instruction set Phenom (pronounced as IPA/finɒm/ as in the word phenomenon) is the AMD desktop processor line based on the K10 ( not "K10h") microarchitecture Free and open source software (FOSS can be used with a variety of Graphics hardware, largely via the X Open source is a development methodology which offers practical accessibility to a product's source (goods and knowledge Instead, Nvidia provides its own binary GeForce graphics drivers for X.Org and a thin open-source library that interfaces with the Linux, FreeBSD or Solaris kernels and the proprietary graphics software. Linux is an operating system kernel used by a family of Unix-like Operating systems These are popularly termed Linux operating systems and FreeBSD is a Unix-like free Operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD branch through Solaris is a Unix -based Operating system introduced by Sun Microsystems in 1992 as the successor to SunOS. Proprietary software is Computer software on which the producer has set restrictions on use private modification copying, or republishing. NVIDIA also supports an obfuscated open-source driver that only supports two-dimensional hardware acceleration and ships with the X.Org distribution. Nvidia's Linux support has promoted mutual adoption in the entertainment, scientific visualization, defense and simulation/training industries, traditionally dominated by SGI, Evans & Sutherland and other relatively costly vendors. For other uses of this term see Industry (disambiguation An industry (from Latin industrius, "diligent industrious" Silicon Graphics Inc (commonly initialised to SGI, historically sometimes referred to as Silicon Graphics Computer Systems or SGCS) is a company Evans & Sutherland ( is a Computer firm involved in the Computer graphics field

Because of the proprietary nature of Nvidia's drivers, they continue to generate controversy within the free software communities. Free software or software libre is Software that can be used studied and modified without restriction and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified In biological terms a community is a group of interacting Organisms sharing an environment. Many Linux and BSD users insist on using only open-source drivers, and regard Nvidia's insistence to provide nothing more than a binary-only driver as wholly inadequate, when competing manufacturers like ATI and Intel offer excellent support and documentation for open-source developers. Open source is a development methodology which offers practical accessibility to a product's source (goods and knowledge ^[14] Because of the closed nature of the drivers, NVIDIA video cards do not deliver adequate features on several platforms and architectures, such as FreeBSD on the x86-64 architecture and the other BSD operating systems on any architecture. x86-64 is a Superset of the x86 instruction set architecture. Support for three-dimensional graphics acceleration in Linux on the PowerPC does not exist; nor does support for Linux on the hypervisor-restricted PlayStation 3 console. PowerPC is a RISC Instruction set architecture created by the 1991 Apple – IBM – Motorola alliance known as AIM While some users accept the Nvidia-supported drivers, many users of open-source software would prefer a better OOTB experience^[15] if given the choice.

X.Org Foundation and Freedesktop.org started the Nouveau project, which aims to develop free software drivers for Nvidia graphics cards by reverse-engineering Nvidia's current proprietary drivers for Linux. The XOrg Foundation is the organization holding the stewardship for the development of the X Window System. nouveau is an XOrg Foundation and Freedesktoporg project which was initially based on the obfuscated 2D-only free and open source "nv" Free software or software libre is Software that can be used studied and modified without restriction and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified In computing a device driver or software driver is a Computer program allowing higher-level computer programs to interact with a Hardware device Reverse engineering (RE is the process of discovering the technological principles of a device object or system through analysis of its structure function and operation Proprietary software is Computer software on which the producer has set restrictions on use private modification copying, or republishing. Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks

Video-card manufacturers

Nvidia does not manufacture video-cards, only the GPU chips. It does specify the speed and configuration for the chips, the video memory, and (most of the time) the design and layout, which it expects third-parties to follow. Each OEM assembles the cards under one of the following brand names:

• AOpen
• ASUS
• BFG (also under its 3D Fuzion brand)
• Biostar
• Chaintech
• Club 3D
• Creative Labs
• EVGA
• Foxconn
• Gainward
• GALAXY Technology
• Gigabyte
• Hewlett-Packard
• Inno3D
• Leadtek
• Micro-Star International (MSI)
• OCZ
• Palit
• POV
• PNY
• PowerColor
• XFX

See also

• ATI Technologies
• Cooler Master
• Comparison of ATI graphics processing units
• Comparison of Nvidia graphics processing units
• Matrox
• Nvidia Demos
• Video In Video Out (VIVO)

References

External links

• Nvidia.com – Corporate website
• nZone.com - Nvidia's gaming community site

Events 451 - The Battle of Chalons takes place in North Eastern France.

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