GeForce 3 series
The GeForce 3 (NV20) is the third-generation of NVIDIA's GeForce graphics processing units. Introduced in March 2001, it advanced the GeForce architecture by adding programmable pixel and vertex shaders, multi-sampling full-scene anti-aliasing and improved the overall efficiency of the rendering process.
The GeForce 3 family comprises 3 consumer models: the GeForce 3, the GeForce 3 Ti200 and the GeForce 3 Ti500. A separate professional version, with a feature-set tailored for computer aided design, was sold as the Quadro DCC. A derivative of the GeForce 3, known as the NV2A, is used in the Microsoft Xbox game console.
Programmable shaders and new features
Introduced three months after NVIDIA acquired 3dfx and marketed as the nFinite FX Engine, the GeForce 3 was the first Microsoft Direct3D 8.0 compliant 3D-card. Its programmable shader architecture enabled applications to execute custom visual effects programs in Microsoft Shader language 1.1. With respect to pure pixel and texel throughput, the GeForce 3 has four pixel pipelines which each can sample two textures per clock. This is the same configuration as GeForce 2 (not MX).
To take better advantage of available memory performance, the GeForce 3 has a hardware memory manager dubbed Lightspeed Memory Architecture (LMA). This is composed of several mechanisms that reduce overdraw, conserve memory bandwidth by compressing the z-buffer (depth buffer) and better manage the memory bus.
Other architectural changes include improvements to anti-aliasing functionality. Previous GeForce chips could perform only super-sampled anti-aliasing, a demanding process that renders the image at a large size internally and then scales it down to the end output resolution. GeForce 3 adds multi-sampling and Quincunx anti-aliasing methods, both of which perform significantly better. Finally, the GeForce 3's texture sampling units were upgraded to support 8-tap anisotropic filtering, compared to the previous limit of 2-tap with GeForce 2. With 8-tap anisotropic filtering enabled, distant textures can be noticeably sharper.
Performance
In terms of performance, the original GeForce 3 and the Ti200 sometimes lose to the GeForce 2 Ultra. This is because the GeForce 3 GPU has similar pixel and texel throughput per clock to the older chip and every model is clocked lower, meaning lesser fillrate. Although the new efficiency mechanisms of GeForce 3 improve per-clock performance, the GeForce 2 Ultra core is clocked 25% faster than the 200 MHz GeForce 3 and 43% faster than the 175 MHz GeForce 3 Ti200. It also has considerable memory bandwidth available to it, only matched by the GeForce 3 Ti500. However, the original GeForce 3 leads the GeForce 2 Ultra when anti-aliasing is enabled because of the new memory bandwidth / fillrate efficiency features and anti-aliasing improvements. In addition, GeForce 2 entirely lacks the ability to run DirectX 8 shader programs, meaning the GeForce 3 can render effects that the GeForce 2 can not. GeForce 3 Ti500 always outperforms the GeForce 2 series.
Product positioning
The GeForce 3 brand never included a low-end variant. Instead, the previous GeForce 2 and GeForce 2 MX cards were price-reduced to fill in segments below the top-end. For example, the GeForce 2 Ti and GeForce 2 MX400/MX200/MX100 respectively were positioned as mid-range and various low-end offerings.
NVIDIA refreshed the lineup in October 2001 with the release of the GeForce 3 Ti200 and Ti500. This coincided with ATI's releases of the top-line Radeon 8500 and mid-range Radeon 7500. The Ti500 has higher core and memory clocks (240 MHz core/250 MHz RAM) than the original GeForce 3 (200 MHz/230 MHz), and generally matches the Radeon 8500. The Ti200 was a cheaper card meant to compete in the mid-range segment. It is clocked lower (175 MHz/200 MHz) yet it surpasses the Radeon 7500 in speed and feature set outside of dual-monitor implementation.
Specifications
See also
Discontinued support
Nvidia has ceased driver support for GeForce 3 series.
Final Drivers Include:
- Windows 9x & Windows Me: 81.98 released on December 21, 2005; Download;
- (Products supported list also on this page)
Windows 95/98/Me Driver Archive
Windows XP/2000 Driver Archive