1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,600 NVIDIA is currently worth over $1 trillion, so it might surprise you to know that their first 2 00:00:05,600 --> 00:00:12,240 ever product was a total flop. This is the NV1, a chip released all the way back in 1995 as part of 3 00:00:12,240 --> 00:00:17,280 a PCI card called the Edge 3D from hardware manufacturer Diamond. As you've probably already 4 00:00:17,280 --> 00:00:22,640 guessed, the NV1 was an early graphics processor that also included audio processing and joystick 5 00:00:22,640 --> 00:00:27,120 support. Back in the mid 90s, it wasn't super common to have all these functions on one card, 6 00:00:27,200 --> 00:00:32,640 but NVIDIA believed the convenience of an all-in-one solution would make the NV1 a compelling buy. 7 00:00:32,640 --> 00:00:39,520 But perhaps what made the NV1 even more special was the early relationship between NVIDIA and Sega. 8 00:00:39,520 --> 00:00:45,040 At the time, Sega wanted to make the games on its spiffy new Saturn console available on PC, 9 00:00:45,040 --> 00:00:50,080 and NVIDIA jumped at the chance to make that a reality. Although the NV1 didn't support common 10 00:00:50,080 --> 00:00:56,720 gaming APIs of the day like OpenGL and 3DFX's Glide, it did share some common elements with 11 00:00:56,720 --> 00:01:02,160 the graphics chip inside the Sega Saturn. Most importantly, the fact that they both rendered 12 00:01:02,160 --> 00:01:06,720 quadrilaterals as the basic shape for primitives. But what the heck does that mean? 13 00:01:06,720 --> 00:01:11,520 Well, when a graphics chip draws a frame of a video game, the shapes you see are built up from 14 00:01:11,520 --> 00:01:16,560 simple polygons in a mesh. After this mesh is built, textures, lighting, and other effects are 15 00:01:16,560 --> 00:01:22,720 applied to create a realistic looking scene. But in most games, triangles serve as the basic 16 00:01:22,720 --> 00:01:27,120 polygon building blocks, not quadrilaterals. This might seem like a small distinction, 17 00:01:27,120 --> 00:01:32,000 but it actually ended up being a huge factor in the NV1's eventual fate. 18 00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:36,400 Back in the mid-90s when I had frosted tips, the video game industry had not yet settled 19 00:01:36,400 --> 00:01:41,600 on one type of polygon as a full-fledged industry norm. Quadrilaterals, or quads, 20 00:01:41,600 --> 00:01:46,000 were used in the Saturn and the NV1 because they had some real advantages over triangles. 21 00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:50,800 They made it a little easier to model curved surfaces since a shape with four points can 22 00:01:50,800 --> 00:01:55,520 be expressed in three dimensions, and because developers knew that the Saturn NV1 used quads, 23 00:01:55,520 --> 00:01:59,120 they could account for this when programming textures. More specifically, 24 00:01:59,120 --> 00:02:03,920 they helped the Saturn avoid some of the weird texture warping issues that one of its main 25 00:02:03,920 --> 00:02:07,520 competitors, the original PlayStation, would eventually become infamous for. 26 00:02:07,520 --> 00:02:12,880 But even with these advantages, quads had the major downside of being more computationally 27 00:02:12,880 --> 00:02:17,280 expensive than the simpler triangles, which always lay in one plane because of, you know, 28 00:02:17,280 --> 00:02:21,280 the laws of mathematics. This inherent complexity also made it trickier to map 29 00:02:21,280 --> 00:02:25,120 typical game textures onto quads, so if developers weren't already coding their 30 00:02:25,120 --> 00:02:29,920 games using quadrilaterals, they didn't have much incentive to do so just so the game would 31 00:02:29,920 --> 00:02:37,040 run on the NV1. Aside from this major architectural issue, the NV1's many things in one design 32 00:02:37,040 --> 00:02:42,560 wasn't exactly much of a hit. Its 2D performance, an important metric back in 1995, 33 00:02:42,560 --> 00:02:46,560 wasn't particularly good, and the audio capabilities didn't impress either. 34 00:02:46,560 --> 00:02:50,320 It's like one of those all-in-one printers that's painfully taught us that a multifunctional 35 00:02:50,320 --> 00:02:55,120 design doesn't matter much if all those functions kind of suck. Despite the NV1's struggles, 36 00:02:55,120 --> 00:03:01,440 NVIDIA planned to release an improved version called the NV2. But by this time, the DirectX API, 37 00:03:01,440 --> 00:03:06,160 basically a software tool for game developers, was starting to take hold in the market. 38 00:03:06,160 --> 00:03:12,240 And guess what? It was based around triangles, rather than quads. I guess that's kind of a 39 00:03:12,880 --> 00:03:17,840 NVIDIA did eventually release DirectX drivers for the NV1, but they were slow and buggy. 40 00:03:17,840 --> 00:03:22,640 Basically, the drivers were just a software emulation layer, since the NV1 itself had no 41 00:03:22,640 --> 00:03:27,440 actual native hardware support for DirectX. This marked the end of any real chance for a 42 00:03:27,440 --> 00:03:32,800 graphics chip optimized for quads, so the NV2 was canned before it ever saw the light of day, 43 00:03:32,800 --> 00:03:37,360 and NVIDIA was forced to significantly change its strategy. In fact, the NV2 was pegged for 44 00:03:37,360 --> 00:03:41,840 use in the Sega Dreamcast, which could render triangles or quads, but that didn't happen 45 00:03:41,840 --> 00:03:46,960 given the NV1's failure, and the fact that Saturn didn't do so hot in the console space either, 46 00:03:46,960 --> 00:03:51,680 partly due to the Saturn's quad-only architecture limiting the platform's appeal for third-party 47 00:03:51,680 --> 00:03:56,720 developers. With all that, NVIDIA shifted to a triangle-based architecture for its next product, 48 00:03:56,720 --> 00:04:03,520 the Riva 128, which was focused squarely, or triangularily, on DirectX support. The Riva lineup 49 00:04:03,520 --> 00:04:08,640 was much more successful and established NVIDIA as a legit player in the PC hardware industry. 50 00:04:08,640 --> 00:04:13,040 Setting the stage for the original GeForce chips release in 1999. 51 00:04:13,040 --> 00:04:16,320 So thanks for watching guys, if you liked this video, hit like, hit subscribe, and hit us up in 52 00:04:16,320 --> 00:04:20,720 the comments section with your suggestions for topics that we should cover in the future.