From Voodoo to GeForce: The Awesome History of 3D Graphics
Try to imagine where 3D gaming would be today if not for the
graphics processing unit, or GPU. Without it, you wouldn't be trudging
through the jungles of Crysis in all its visual splendour, nor would you
be fending off endless hordes of fast-moving zombies at high
resolutions. For that to happen, it takes a highly specialized chip
designed for parallel processing to pull off the kinds of games you see
today, the same ones that wouldn't be possible on a CPU alone. Going
forward, GPU makers will try to extend the reliance on video cards to
also include physics processing, video encoding/decoding, and other
tasks that where once handled by the CPU.
It's pretty amazing when you think about how far graphics technology
has come. To help you do that, we're going to take a look back at every
major GPU release since the infancy of 3D graphics. Join us as we
travel back in time and relive releases like 3dfx's Voodoo3 and S3's
ViRGE lineup. This is one nostalgic ride you don't want to miss!
S3 ViRGE
A virgin in the 3D graphics arena, S3 in 1995 thrust itself into
this new territory with its ViRGE graphics series. Playing on the hype
surrounding virtual reality a decade and a half ago, ViRGE stood for
Virtual Reality Graphics Engine and was one of the first 3D GPUs to
take aim at the mainstream consumer. While nothing compared to today’s
offerings, early 64-bit ViRGE cards came with up to 4MB of onboard
memory, and core and memory clock speeds of up to 66MHz. It also
supported such features as Bilinear and Trilinear texture filtering,
MIP mapping, alpha blending, video texturing mapping, Z-buffering, and
other 3D texture mapping goodies.
Ironically, those same ‘cutting edge’ features took a toll on the
ViRGE silicon resulting in underwhelming 3D performance. In some cases,
performance was so bad that users could obtain better results with the
CPU, causing the ViRGE to be affectionately dubbed the first 3D
decelerator. Ouch.
Fun Fact: Just how far has graphic cards come in the past 15
years? Enough so that we've seen the S3 ViRGE selling for as little as
$0.45 in the second-hand market.
Model: ViRGE
Date Released: 1995
Interface: PCI
Shader Model: N/A
DirectX: 6
Manufacturing Process: 0.35 micron
Core Clockspeed: 66MHz
Memory Bus: 64-bit
Model: ViRGE VX
Date Released: 1995
Interface: PCI
Shader Model: N/A
DirectX: 6
Manufacturing Process: 0.5 micron
Core Clockspeed: 50MHz
Memory Bus: 64-bit
Model: ViRGE GX Date Released: 1997 Interface: PCI Shader Model: N/A DirectX: 6 Manufacturing Process: 0.35 micron Core Clockspeed: 66MHz Memory Bus: 64-bit
Model: ViRGE DX Date Released: 1997 Interface: PCI Shader Model: N/A DirectX: 6 Manufacturing Process: 0.35 micron Core Clockspeed: 66MHz Memory Bus: 64-bit
Model: ViRGE GX2
Date Released: 1998
Interface: PCI
Shader Model: N/A
DirectX: 6
Manufacturing Process: 0.35 micron
Core Clockspeed: 66MHz
Memory Bus: 64-bit
ATI Rage 3D and Rage II
Well before Radeon ever became synonymous with ATI, the
Canadian-based graphics chip maker was best known for its 3D Rage line.
Released in 1995, the original Rage 3D didn't have a whole going for
it, such as slow EDO RAM, a 32-bit memory bus, and a max memory of just
2MB.
A year later ATI released the Rage II, and while the upgrades seem
minor on paper, performance was significantly improved. The new chipset
traded in 2MB of EDO memory for up to 8MB of SDRAM and widened the bus
to 64-bit, while also increasing the core clockspeed from 40MHz to
60MHz.. Support for DVD playback was also added, and the Rage II.
Model: Rage II
Date Released: 1995
Interface: PCI
Shader Model: N/A
DirectX: 5
Manufacturing Process: 0.25 micron
Core Clockspeed: 25-60MHz
Memory Clockspeed: 66-83MHz
Memory Bus: 64- bit
Rendition Verite 1000
Headquartered in Mountain View, CA, Rendition emerged in the mid
1990s as a fabless semiconductor manufacturer whose goal was to compete
in the high-end videocard market. Throughout the company's tenure,
Rendition managed to get a leg up on the competition by working with
John Carmack to develop the first 3D-accelerated version of Quake
(VQuake, or Verite-accelerated Quake).
VQuake was designed to take advantage of the Verite 1000 chipset,
which was launched in 1996. A year prior, Carmack stated "Verite will
be the premier platform for Quake." The card came capable of bilinear
filtering, perspective correcting, and a basic pipeline configuration
of 1/1/1 (textures/pixels/Z).
Poor 2D performance proved problematic for the board, as did
programming for the Verite. It was the latter which Carmack would later
say led to iD's decision to move away from proprietary APIs to OpenGL.
Model: Verite 2100
Date Released: 1996
Interface: PCI
Shader Model: N/A
DirectX: 2
Manufacturing Process: 0.5 micron
Core Clockspeed: 25MHz
Memory Bus: 64-bit
3dfx Voodoo1
Like a modern day Greek Tragedy, the rapid rise and untimely demise
of 3dfx can best be described as a wild roller-coaster ride that most
enthusiasts wish would have never ended. And in a way, it didn't, as
3dfx had a tremendous hand in shaping the 3D market as we know it
today. But every good story needs a beginning, and this one starts with
the original Voodoo card, or otherwise known as the Voodoo1, released
in 1996.
The Voodoo1 launched 3D gaming into the limelight, even if the
add-in card's implementation was less than graceful. While other
videocards fused both 2D and 3D functionality onto a single board, the
Voodoo1 concentrated solely on 3D and lacked any 2D capabilities. This
meant consumers still needed a 2D graphics card for day to day
computing, which would be connected to the Voodoo1 via a VGA
pass-through cable. Only when a compatible 3D videogame was detected
would the Voodoo1 then wake out of its slumber and flex its gaming
muscle.
It's hard to imagine such a design being successful today, but
consumers were willing to cope with the costly inconvenience at the
time because the Voodoo1 put every other available 3D card in a
headlock and gave them a noogie.
Voodoo1: No Shader Model, DX3 support, 0.5 micron, PCI, 50MHz core, 64-bitModel: Voodoo1
Date Released: 1996
Interface: PCI
Shader Model: N/A
DirectX: 3
Manufacturing Process: 0.5 micron
Core Clockspeed: 50MHz
Memory Clockspeed: 50MHz
Memory Bus: 64-bit
Transistors: 1 million
Source MAXIMUMPC