The first ever GeForce

What was the very first GeForce like? Let me tell you all about it!
Cards Tested:
-Riva TNT2 Ultra 32MB (150MHz core; 183MHz memory)
-GeForce 256 32MB (120MHz core; 166MHz memory)
-GeForce 256 64MB (120MHz core; 166MHz memory)
-GeForce DDR 32MB (120MHz core; 300MHz memory)
-GeForce DDR 64MB (120MHz core; 300MHz memory)
-Radeon 64MB SDR (155MHz core/memory)
-Radeon 32MB DDR (166MHz core; 333MHz memory)
-Radeon 64MB DDR (183MHz core; 366MHz memory)
Platform specs:
Athlon 64 X2 4400+ @ 2.8GHz
2GB OCZ EL Gold Ed. PC4000 @ 510MHz
ASRock 939Dual-SATA2
Creative Labs Audigy 2 ZS
Samsung 830 Series 128GB SSD
Windows XP Professional SP3
ATI: Catalyst 5.5
NVIDIA: Forceware 61.77
Intro Animation By Ken Gruca Jr - Inquire at [e-mail]!
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[@PixelPipes]

Thanks to everyone that's been watching and enjoying this video! Just a heads up, I only now realized that on the Serious Sam: The Second Encounter performance graph at 12:11, the Radeon DDR 64MB should say 36.1 fps, not 31.6. I do strive for accuracy so this difference is important to me, and I feel the need to clear that up. Don't forget you can check out our Pixel TALK Discord server for free, and chat with myself, Modzy from Cutting-Edge Retro, and Mike from F2FTech as well as hundreds of other members! discord.gg/m6xyBeD

[@lilyounggamer]

background music name?

[@PixelPipes]

The opening? It's the title music track to the 1997 Frogger remake by Hasbro Interactive

[@KretinoSantino]

Main problem of benchmark is timeperiod. Literally, at time ATI Radeon came out, GeForce 256 was on it's way out. GF2 ultra came out just days after Radeon 64MB DDR and did double or even triple FPS in the most important game of that period - Quake 3 Arena. And just like today, 20 years ago fanboys from losing camps tried to bend reality.

[@PixelPipes]

Indeed. I mainly included them for fun.

[@lilyounggamer]

@@PixelPipes when is your next vid coming out?

[@lazaredz6685]

I was just thinking the other day "Ah man, I hope he didn't quit". Glad to see that was wrong.

[@Web720]

Or worse...

[@lazaredz6685]

@@Web720 ... that also

[@GTXDash]

The Geforce 256 was my first 3D accelerater. I didn't realize back then just how historically important that card would be. I still have it and it is currently framed and on my wall for display

[@1pcfred]

I had a 3dfx Voodoo passthrough card. I have no idea where that card is now.

[@Fpvfixit]

i had tnt 2 but threw it away

[@klimbimbel6446]

My first 3D card was the Elsa Erazer TNT2 32 MB :D

[@leditsz143]

nice

[@bigfutus]

I had Riva 128 + Voodoo 1 and i wanted GF256 badly, but when i had finally the money, there was GF2 GTS already. Mine had the stupidest name ever, Creative Labs 3D Blaster Annihilator 2 :D

[@NainKaigo]

I remember my first 3D accelerator. It was a 3dfx Voodoo by Diamond put into an IBM Aptiva. My brother and I saved every penny from our summer job to buy it. That first upgrade began a lifelong journey in tech. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

[@GdotWdot]

Back when my older brother was buying our first PC in the late 90s, he got a defective Diamond-branded TNT for free. It didn't work with its dedicated drivers, only reference ones and while it almost didn't crash in Windows 98, in Windows Me it brought the system down so hard it caused file system corruption every single time. Still, getting a free GPU back when an up-to-date computer locally cost 8 months of wages meant you couldn't really complain.

[@joeyvdm1]

Welcome back bud. Whats it been? 10 months or so? Never mind, awesome to have you back, and with the OG Geforce and all. You da man👍

[@AshtonCoolman]

Whoa you're back! Nice to see you making videos again. A lot of us RETRO people deal with everything from ISA VGA to GTX 8800 series cards. Do you have plans on making 2D and early 3D (Riva 128/TNT/Geforce2) era content?

[@PixelPipes]

Nothing is off the table!

[@PJBonoVox]

Dude the amount of effort it must have taken to do all these benchmarks on cards that no-one will ever use is a commendable labour of love. Keep it up!

[@Urban_Flux]

ah my first ever graphics card, the TNT2..... happy days, still got it somewhere haha

[@noth606]

Phil Underhill plenty of people still use older hardware for various purposes from low end desktop computing to retro gaming. I would say for most people using a TNT2 Ultra of GeForce 256 a lot would probably be a bad thing as they are rare to find in working condition and expensive these days. I don't have those specific cards in my own collection but I do have a Voodoo 2 12mb and a Voodoo 5 that I definitely will be using when I get to that specific build. For the proper Quake experience of course :-). I have various retro setups with complete era correct hardware that I play games on but usually I set one up and play it for a few weeks to scratch the itch of playing some specific game and then I move on to something else until the itch for a game from that specific era hits again.

[@tycho7006]

@@noth606 That sounds cool! I'm hoping to put together a high end late 90s or year 2000 gaming PC build with a Voodoo 3 some day for some classic games that are kind of a pain to run on modern hardware and for that nostalgic feel

[@thedeadhp]

YESSSSS PIXEL PIPES WE MISSED YOU

[@RETROHardware]

Good to see you back in action.

[@registrazioniduemillaotton6030]

we want crossover episode!!!

[@wiliusundefined8666]

I'm super glad, you're finally back! I really missed you! BTW, I really enjoyed this video. One can clearly see, that you put a lot of effort into your videos. Your videos are beyond awesome. You definitely deserve more subscribers. I'm very pleased. Thank you sir!

[@kai990]

Great Video! Love how you actually talk about the card and its specs rather than just comparing benchmarks and talking about those.

[@SteelSkin667]

The Geforce DDR was only released two months after the Geforce 256, and the Radeon 7000 a mere 6 months after the GF256. It's amazing how fast technology progressed at the time.

[@deviantv1ral]

No kidding, we just got a voodoo 3 maybe been a year and my brother told me about the geforce. When I got to the store geforce 2 was out.

[@vBDKv]

3Dfx blew my mind. I bought a Matrox Mystique which was fine, but when I saw my classmate play Quake on a 3Dfx card, it just blew my mind. Everything was running butter smooth, even more so compared to my Matrox. I stuck with my first 3Dfx for quite a while, then finally upgrading to a 3Dfx Banshee which did not require a 2D card at all. Amazing :p I honestly cannot remember my first Geforce card, but it was probably the 256.

[@willl4575]

Hey man, great to see you making a video again thx I look forward to more, your channel is awesome and pretty unique ! Take care

[@yuri4281]

It was very exciting to see an update from you in my subscriptions and this video didn’t disappoint. I don’t know of anyone else who covers vintage pc gaming hardware with the style and quality that you do. Thank you for sharing.

[@santiagoibarra1137]

I watched quite few videos about the GeForce 256, but yours it's the best BY FAR. I'm so happy to discover this channel, subbed!

[@FullyBuffered]

Dude, 73K views!! Congrats, it's well deserved! :D

[@PixelPipes]

Thanks man!

[@snetmotnosrorb3946]

104 226 at the end of 17 May :)

[@thpe9607]

That parallax effect of display settings on top of the Windows background at 8:21. 🤌

[@JoseSanchez-xj3xn]

I just discovered your channel recently, and you punch well above your weight class for content quality and research. Looking forward to the day you have 100k subs and beyond!

[@kirbyswarp]

Production quality through the roof. Welcome back.

[@metti136]

Saab ❤

[@PistigriloXP]

Please, don’t stop making these incredible videos! Your work is awesome! Now I’d love to see a similar video talking about the first Radeon. Ok, you already showed us its performance, but I’d love to hear from you about the architecture like you did with GeForce here.

[@PixelPipes]

That was the first video I did under PixelPipes! It's a little cringy compared to my newer videos. kzbin.info/www/bejne/fpWsl5Z_dq9_i8k

[@Carstuff111]

It is great to see you back to making videos! I love watching these show down type videos of older hardware, and what these old graphics cards can really do when they have more than enough CPU to back them :)

[@foxxy46213]

Makes you think if these can do so much more with a modern CPU imagine what a modern GPU could do with a CPU from 20y later in the future.

[@SubOxyde]

I just discovered you and was a bit disheartened that I saw you weren't still making videos. I am extremely delighted to be wrong about that now. Absolutely love your content! Keep at it man!

[@lronMan88]

You’re back! 💪🏻😁 Man your content is real high quality. It’s like a time machine back to my childhood 😅 Keep up this awesome content, everything is perfect, voice, video editing and so on, hope to see more content next days 😄

[@kinbbink6435]

Amazing return to the channel mate, well done!

[@chrismisc7856]

Great video! I'm 37 and when I was a teen I worked at a local computer chain when these cards came out. As shown, the upgrade to a GeForce GPU was huge. Even better when the DDR option was released and we sold a TON of them. For the record, back in the day the TNT and TNT2 were great cards as well. My first GPU was a 3DFX VooDoo Banshee 16GB :-)

[@kustu]

16GB? Lol I think you meant 16MB.

[@Disobeyedtoast]

I just found you yesterday and today you upload a video for the first time in 10 months! Incredible timing!

[@FalconFour]

“None choked harder than the TNT2 Ultra, which screamed the entire time for the sweet release of death.” 12:40 Smashed that sub button 😂

[@daehxxiD]

So glad to see you are back! Your videos are extremely entertaining and make me feel like a little kid again, perusing all the different tech and gaming magazines and reading about all the cool stuff that is about to come out. The Geforce 256 was actually the first real GPU (haha) I got for myself. Even though I actually wanted a Voodoo all the time, my local shop talked me into it as he said it was "the future"; guess he was right!

[@danielsavodan9664]

Glad to see that you are back mate, I was worried that you were not coming back.

[@matthewdavidson7283]

dude love your content... so much nostalgia and cool trivia about something I obsessed about as a kid

[@PointlessGameBugs]

Finally, KZbin recommendations for once worked an delivered me this gem. Subbed!

[@mondskiez309]

And I'm still playing Star Wars Episode I: Racer in 2020 in Linux.. oh what joy..

[@JosselOzoryu]

I just find your channel, great content! I'm a big fan of this type of channels (like LGR, Druaga1, etc); and I see your followers are happy of you coming back. Lucky me I ended here on this video ~

[@Z0ku]

Great documentary about the history/start of the GPU! Good work, keep it coming!

[@cassandralyris4918]

Great to see you back. I was really surprised by the notification. The video was a fun romp down memory lane too.

[@mikesadorf]

Happy you’re back! Please keep the fantastic content coming!

[@StompySan]

I KNEW I recognized the song used in the into. Frogger. This was one of my first PC games I actually purchased with my own money.

[@PixelPipes]

Mine too! I ripped the song off my original disc!

[@DarthGamer00]

First time watcher here, I love the way you presented this video and how well put together it is. Also nice graphics card collection!

[@virtualtools_3021]

Glad you are back :D

[@yakskiis7426]

I found your content about a month ago, and was bummed to see no recent videos. Great to see you are back!

[@LeeMc007]

Hi, thanks for your video on the Geforce 256, you really do deserve more subs, there is some excellent material on your channel, keep them coming, the retro scene is growing all the time. Although I've seen this before I came back to it as I recently nabbed a 256 DDR card off everyone's favourite auction site for pence (badly listed) and other than a good clean and get the fan working again it's been great fun to play with, my collection is getting quite extensive now (though obviously not anything like your own) but is mostly earlier stuff from 96-03 era(the best era....of course), need to concentrate more on the ATI stuff now as that is lagging behind, I'll probably sell some of the cards I've got more than one of to fund that exercise. Thanks again, great retro channel.

[@LeeMc007]

Oh yeah, my first 3d accelerator was a Creative 3D Blaster PCI (Verite) which upgraded my Spackard Bell p100 system from the terrible Cirrus Logic on board graphics haha

[@jcfb1470]

Surprised to see a new video from you. Welcome back!

[@deviantv1ral]

Whoah just noticed this your first video in a while. Binged watched most of your content, i hope you make more. Cheers!

[@CiroAMD]

So happy you are back!

[@GSXone]

That credits beat though :) Love your channel. My very first graphics card was a rage128! Then I got a Geforce 2 MX200. Its been ATi since then.

[@dirkmirk767]

Good to see you back man, I was getting a bit worried that you out of the youtube space! Keep em coming!

[@RiasatSalminSami]

Nice you are back! I love your gpu videos.

[@Arivia1]

So glad you’re back! Hope you’re well and doing okay.

[@infinity2z3r07]

First of all, awesome video. Late 90s/early 2000s really was the golden age of PC gaming. Also I actually just started playing slavezero. Had no idea there was a benchmark!

[@PixelPipes]

The "benchmark" is just letting the intro of the game run while recording the fps with FRAPS or MSI Afterburner. Works quite well! (aside from the 1% lows being misread)

[@lemagreengreen]

I remember this card coming out at a time people were still clinging onto their Voodoo2's (often SLI) and Voodoo3's and it was pretty much the signal that Nvidia were going to be the way to go in the future. Many had already ditched the 3dfx cards for a TNT2Ultra since they came in AGP flavour and the Geforce 256 was definitely the card to suddenly own if you could afford yet another upgrade - felt like we did nothing but upgrade in the late 90s! I clung onto the TNT2Ultra until the Geforce2 GTS came out, it was a big jump in performance.

[@DFX2KX]

I remember walking into a Maximum PC sometime around 2000-2001, And Voodoo3 cards where stacked on the wall, but the Nvidia stuff was behind glass, with the newest card (I recall it being the Geforce 2, not sure which version exactly) being set up high like it was some sort of shrine. Mom quipped that she bet it was expensive, to which I confirmed that it was worth more then the IBM Aptiva I had at the time, monitor, keyboard, *working* zip drive and all.

[@GraveUypo]

i went from a voodoo2, to voodoo2 sli (when my brother bought his geforce2 gts) then geforce 2 gts. honestly, the pair of voodoo 2s were still more than adequate at the time. all i played was unreal tournament and even a single voodoo2 ran that great paired with my 700mhz atlhon, only in 16 bits and 640x480. the pair of voodoos allowed me to go to 800x600 (even 1024x768, but that had some image quality degradation that i can't remember exactly but i prefered 800x600 because of it) and the geforce let me get 1280x960

[@armorgeddon]

GeForce 256 was a joke for how much they cost plus they ran unstable on Super Socket 7 platforms by my experience. You also could not play any Glide-only game. Seriously until GeForce 2 you were much better of with 3dfx hardware in practice. GeForce 2 you could say was on par with V5 in regards to that. 3dfx's next gen would've had T&L also, so Nvidia being "the future" was not clear at all. Only the death of Glide was for sure since D3D became good enough.

[@TheGoonBong]

Love your content mate. Genuinely interesting and awesomely nostalgic.

[@cs188creations]

Love the fact you used Frogger: He's Back music for the intro. 😁

[@timmersoft]

Definitely keep this up Nathan. Very good quality video, hope to see more as you go through the history up to today's cards?

[@revnto7k]

Very cool video. Brings back memories.. Good memories! This was the glory days of PC building and tweaking for sure. I had a TNT2 Ultra, then a GeForce DDR, Then a GeForce2 GTS.. I went ATi for a while after that, and back to nVidia. I am back to AMD graphics again. Ah good times. Thanks for the effort, great way to spend 15 mins!

[@emp.splash]

Loved the video! Provides context and a bit of history to this card, and the suite of benchmarks includes some great titles from that era. Also, gotta say, I'm surprised to see that Radeon DDR 64MB doing so well in the tests.

[@PixelPipes]

Love the Radeon, but unfortunately its competition in 2000 was the GeForce2 GTS, and against that it was handily outmatched.

[@emp.splash]

@@PixelPipes Yeah, noticed that after looking it up and stumbling upon an older video of yours.

[@dave4shmups]

Fascinating video! Thanks for making it!

[@ericsalidbar1693]

great work! Definitely earned my sub!

[@roger.monitor]

It's good to see you back, great review !

[@mothmansmemeticwarehouse6478]

I missed this way too much! Glad you're back brother

[@pctechgaming1314]

Absolutely love your content and channel, glad to see your back in action. I found you channel a while back and loved it but then I realised you weren't posting anymore. I do similar content on my new channel as well as game lets play. Good to see your back :)

[@johnmorris1564]

Yes he's back !!! Thank you ! Please keep it up, I love your content! :D

[@TheGhost570]

thats nuts you were still able to find the cards and all the info on those cards good Job!

[@eljavisaenz]

so well explained man!!! thnx for your hard work

[@mdd1963]

Had a GF2 MX...great card, used it for a couple years...!

[@fhaarkas]

What a great trip down the memory lane. You earn a new sub.

[@PierreVonStaines]

I thought that intro was your actual back garden. So real. Wow.

[@s3vR3x]

very very well done video. i remember buying my geforce256 and being blown away. i still have it. always wondered what set it apart!

[@kallamamran]

Thanks for the nostalgic journey!

[@NOXXism]

This channel deserves soooooooo many more subscribers, it's only a matter of time!

[@AllboroLCD]

I love how you used UT 2004 as the stress tester! That was the actual game that forced me to upgrade my Elsa Erazor x2, which I still have thank gawd!

[@snetmotnosrorb3946]

A great game, tech wise at least, that is the link between the TCL era and the shading era. You could run it on a maxed out slot A machine.

[@ven412]

Just discovered you today and liked the content. Subbed. Hopefully you keep making videos on this stuff.

[@SargeantRho]

thanks for the informative video! i was curious about the beginning of gpu era!

[@gordonfreeman320]

Awesome video. Love your content.

[@retrogear]

Welcome back, Nathan. Great video as always!

[@ching-chenhuang8119]

Good to see you back!!!

[@Stermy57HW]

Great one man! Welcome back! In terms of raw power Radeon win hands down. This performance gap was present even on later gpu. Only in 2006 with G80 nvidia takes the first place.

[@ghostridertom]

Great Retro :-) My first GeForce was the 3 Titanium200 and man, that was lovely!!! Lasted a long time gaming for years.

[@Byokugen]

10 months of waiting Welcome back, great video!

[@JohnSmith-iu8cj]

Triple A content! Glad you’re back!

[@Bsodman]

Nice to have you back

[@mystical4442]

Glad to see you uploading again.

[@SPFycool]

Nice video and welcome back! I had a GF256 DDR 32MB in my first custom PC (Alienware pre-Dell). It was the beez-neez. Question though, is it difficult finding older GPU's with original HSF? All of my older cards pre-2005 have had the original fans seize/gunk up within a year or 2. Those tiny 40/50mm fans ran die quickly. I assume you need to oil the bearings in most of them?

[@LunarDelta]

I love that Android Assault music in the title card and elsewhere. Content was great too. Instant sub.

[@Space_Reptile]

Welcome back Mr.Pipes, glad to see you back in these trubling times

[@leathernluv]

Just the way I remembered it all. Fun video!

[@alexandar666]

I had one. Chagned out a Riva TNT. Brings back wonderful memories

[@muramasa24]

Great edits brother, awesome music selection too.

[@The65c02]

Great video. good to have you back

[@mszymcza]

Glad you're back

[@timdahl]

Cool vid! I still remember my first discreet card, the Geforce4 MX 440!

[@Quietruck]

Good to see you back Nathan.

[@CuttingEdgeRetro]

Its been a while old friend. glad to finally see the 256 video in the flesh. It was really good. although now im guessing prices of the Radeon DDR 64mb may sky rocket now :(

[@skyplonk]

Fantastic! Welcome back!

[@fabiolorefice1895]

Hey welcome back! Cool subject, the GeForce 256, indeed a ‘historical’ piece of hardware. Will we see more retro videocards perspectives again? What about the popular GeForce 4 4200Ti? Anyway, glad you are uploading again!

[@alensabanovic747]

Welcome back PP, We missed you, I hope you are doing well!

[@bighams69]

Yes! Thank you for being back!

[@jguo]

Great video! I actually had bought one of the earliest GeForce 256 with SD-RAM made by LeadTek. I remember running Q3A in SMP mode on a dual Celeron 400a (overclocked to 500MHz) system and Creative's SB Live for the sound. It was a dream to play games on that computer back in 2000. Also the machine was pretty good with my MATLAB work :p

[@pickelsvonbrine]

Holy shit he is back! Great job as always!

[@CostaOliveira]

Good night, I would like to congratulate you on the channel, with excellent content! I am also a hardware collector, and I finally managed to acquire a 256 ddr geforce, but in the "Quadro" version, it is about an Elsa II Pro model, with 64 MB of memory ... Is there any way to transform it into a geforce? Thanks for listening!

[@soniclab-cnc]

I had a couple of these. It was pretty awesome back then.