NV2
Encyclopedia
NV2 was to be NVIDIA
's second graphics processor designed for consumer PC 3D accelerator add-in boards. It was never completed.
's early efforts for a successor to the Saturn
, but was not actually used for Dreamcast because Dreamcast was designed later without Nvidia technology. NV2 was to have a similar architecture to NVIDIA's NV1
chip. NVIDIA grew closer to Sega after production of the NV1
and the NV1 graphics cards even had 2 Sega Saturn gamepad
ports integrated so that Saturn titles could be easily ported over to the NV1 cards and have an equal gameplay experience.
Unfortunately, Sega's opinion of quadratic rendering became tarnished because of challenges with Saturn development, and because game developers close to the company expressed that polygon rendering was the way to go for the future. NVIDIA's strong desire to stick with their maturing quadratic technology was a great cause of friction between Sega and NVIDIA. One part of the equation was undoubtedly that Sega's PC games division was growing at this time and a quadratic 3D game engine
would be very difficult to port over to a Direct3D
accelerator. Porting their console
and arcade game
s to PC was an easy way to increase sales of a title, assuming development costs for the cross-platform
port could be kept to a minimum. Suddenly NV2's chances of becoming the next console chip for Sega vanished and the PC 3D world was definitely entrenched in polygons by this time.
NV2 was never finished, although partially functional silicon had been completed. Because the demand was not there from Sega, and the PC market had drastically changed direction away from QTM due to the popularity of the polygon-based OpenGL
and DirectX
, NVIDIA abandoned further development and moved on to their full Direct3D accelerator, a.k.a. "NV3" or RIVA 128
.
NVIDIA
Nvidia is an American global technology company based in Santa Clara, California. Nvidia is best known for its graphics processors . Nvidia and chief rival AMD Graphics Techonologies have dominated the high performance GPU market, pushing other manufacturers to smaller, niche roles...
's second graphics processor designed for consumer PC 3D accelerator add-in boards. It was never completed.
Overview
The design was also part of SegaSega
, usually styled as SEGA, is a multinational video game software developer and an arcade software and hardware development company headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, with various offices around the world...
's early efforts for a successor to the Saturn
Sega Saturn
The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console that was first released by Sega on November 22, 1994 in Japan, May 11, 1995 in North America, and July 8, 1995 in Europe...
, but was not actually used for Dreamcast because Dreamcast was designed later without Nvidia technology. NV2 was to have a similar architecture to NVIDIA's NV1
NV1
Nvidia NV1, manufactured by SGS-THOMSON Microelectronics under the model name STG2000, was a multimedia PCI card released in 1995 and sold to retail as the Diamond Edge 3D. It featured a complete 2D/3D graphics core based upon quadratic texture mapping, VRAM or FPM DRAM memory, an integrated...
chip. NVIDIA grew closer to Sega after production of the NV1
NV1
Nvidia NV1, manufactured by SGS-THOMSON Microelectronics under the model name STG2000, was a multimedia PCI card released in 1995 and sold to retail as the Diamond Edge 3D. It featured a complete 2D/3D graphics core based upon quadratic texture mapping, VRAM or FPM DRAM memory, an integrated...
and the NV1 graphics cards even had 2 Sega Saturn gamepad
Gamepad
A gamepad , is a type of game controller held in two hands, where the digits are used to provide input. Gamepads generally feature a set of action buttons handled with the right thumb and a direction controller handled with the left...
ports integrated so that Saturn titles could be easily ported over to the NV1 cards and have an equal gameplay experience.
Unfortunately, Sega's opinion of quadratic rendering became tarnished because of challenges with Saturn development, and because game developers close to the company expressed that polygon rendering was the way to go for the future. NVIDIA's strong desire to stick with their maturing quadratic technology was a great cause of friction between Sega and NVIDIA. One part of the equation was undoubtedly that Sega's PC games division was growing at this time and a quadratic 3D game engine
Game engine
A game engine is a system designed for the creation and development of video games. There are many game engines that are designed to work on video game consoles and personal computers...
would be very difficult to port over to a Direct3D
Direct3D
Direct3D is part of Microsoft's DirectX application programming interface . Direct3D is available for Microsoft Windows operating systems , and for other platforms through the open source software Wine. It is the base for the graphics API on the Xbox and Xbox 360 console systems...
accelerator. Porting their console
Console game
A console game is a form of interactive multimedia used for entertainment. The game consists of manipulable images generated by a video game console, and displayed on a television or similar audio-video system. The game itself is usually controlled and manipulated using a handheld device connected...
and arcade game
Arcade game
An arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine, usually installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars, and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, and merchandisers...
s to PC was an easy way to increase sales of a title, assuming development costs for the cross-platform
Cross-platform
In computing, cross-platform, or multi-platform, is an attribute conferred to computer software or computing methods and concepts that are implemented and inter-operate on multiple computer platforms...
port could be kept to a minimum. Suddenly NV2's chances of becoming the next console chip for Sega vanished and the PC 3D world was definitely entrenched in polygons by this time.
NV2 was never finished, although partially functional silicon had been completed. Because the demand was not there from Sega, and the PC market had drastically changed direction away from QTM due to the popularity of the polygon-based OpenGL
OpenGL
OpenGL is a standard specification defining a cross-language, cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. The interface consists of over 250 different function calls which can be used to draw complex three-dimensional scenes from simple primitives. OpenGL...
and DirectX
DirectX
Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay,...
, NVIDIA abandoned further development and moved on to their full Direct3D accelerator, a.k.a. "NV3" or RIVA 128
RIVA 128
Released in late 1997 by Nvidia, the RIVA 128, or "NV3", was one of the first consumer graphics processing units to integrate 3D acceleration in addition to traditional 2D and video acceleration...
.