RIVA TNT2
Encyclopedia
The RIVA TNT2 was a graphics processing unit
manufactured by Nvidia
starting in early 1999. The chip is codenamed "NV5" because it is the 5th graphics chip design by Nvidia, succeeding the RIVA TNT
(NV4). RIVA is an acronym for Real-time Interactive Video and Animation accelerator. The "TNT" suffix refers to the chip's ability to work on two texel
s at once (TwiN Texel). Nvidia removed RIVA from the name later in the chip's lifetime.
support, up to 32MB of VRAM, and a process
shrink from 0.35 μm
to 0.25 μm. It was the process shrink that enabled improved clock speeds (from 90 MHz to 150+ MHz), which is where the substantial performance improvement came from.
The TNT2 offered a higher quality feature-set than some of its competitors, pioneered by the RIVA TNT, such as 32-bit color in 3D and support for larger 2048×2048 px
textures. RIVA TNT2's competition included the 3dfx Voodoo2
, 3dfx Voodoo3
, the Matrox G400
, and the ATI Rage 128.
A low-cost version, known as the TNT2 M64, was produced with the memory interface reduced from 128-bit to 64-bit. Sometimes these were labeled "Vanta", continuing the Vanta name started with a value-oriented RIVA TNT-based product. This chipset outperformed the older RIVA TNT
while being less costly to produce. They proved quite popular in the OEM market, as most consumers simply assumed all TNT2 cards were the same.
Voodoo3
. What the Voodoo3
lacked when compared to the TNT2 was 32-bit color. This was the main selling point of the TNT2, while the main selling point of the Voodoo3
was the speed advantage it often had over the TNT2. The 3dfx Glide API
was still popular at this time, and frequently performed better than alternative renderers (such as Direct3D
and OpenGL
). Some games also had exclusive 3D features when used with Glide, including Wing Commander: Prophecy
.
The Voodoo3 and TNT2 also differ in that the Voodoo3 has a single dual-texturing pipeline (1x2), while the TNT2 has two single-texturing pipelines (2x1). This means that in games which only put a single texture on a polygon face at once, the TNT2 can be more efficient and faster. However, when TNT2 was launched, single-texturing was no longer used in most new games.
Falcon Northwest
, a veteran gaming PC company, and Guillemot, an international video card manufacturer, at one point cooperated to create the Falcon Northwest Special Edition Maxi Gamer Xentor32. It was a TNT2 Ultra card designed to operate at a record-breaking 195 MHz core and similarly impressive 235 MHz RAM. This was far and away the highest clocked TNT2 model released. The card used special extremely low latency (for the time) 4.3 ns
SDRAM
to achieve the high RAM clock speed. The regular Maxi Gamer Xentor32 came with the core clocked at 175 MHz and memory at either 183 MHz or 195 MHz, depending on which RAM chips the board arrived with.
The Creative
3D Blaster TNT2 Ultra came clocked at the standard 150 MHz core and 183 MHz RAM. However, Creative included a unique software package that allowed the user to run software that used 3dfx
's Glide
. This wrapper
, named Unified, was not as compatible with Glide games as real 3dfx hardware, but it was also the only card available other than a 3dfx card that could run Glide software. This Glide wrapper was very slow, not without issues, and was rather unstable. The main use of the wrapper was to allow 3D acceleration of games that only supported Glide 3D accelerators.
Hercules equipped their Dynamite TNT2 Ultra with faster-than-stock components, as well. The card came with a 175 MHz core clock and 200 MHz memory. The card lacked TV output, however.
ELSA's Erazor III came clocked at non-Ultra TNT2 rates but included "3D Revelator" shutter glasses. These glasses made games look as though they were coming out of the screen, and worked with both Direct3D and some OpenGL titles.
Graphics processing unit
A graphics processing unit or GPU is a specialized circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory in such a way so as to accelerate the building of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display...
manufactured by Nvidia
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...
starting in early 1999. The chip is codenamed "NV5" because it is the 5th graphics chip design by Nvidia, succeeding the RIVA TNT
RIVA TNT
The RIVA TNT, codenamed NV4, is a 2D, video, and 3D graphics accelerator chip for PCs that was manufactured by Nvidia. It was released in mid 1998 and cemented Nvidia's reputation as a worthy rival within the developing consumer 3D graphics adapter industry. The first RIVA TNT based card released...
(NV4). RIVA is an acronym for Real-time Interactive Video and Animation accelerator. The "TNT" suffix refers to the chip's ability to work on two texel
Texel (graphics)
A texel, or texture element is the fundamental unit of texture space, used in computer graphics. Textures are represented by arrays of texels, just as pictures are represented by arrays of pixels....
s at once (TwiN Texel). Nvidia removed RIVA from the name later in the chip's lifetime.
Overview
The TNT2 core is almost identical to its predecessor the RIVA TNT, however updates included AGP 4XAccelerated Graphics Port
The Accelerated Graphics Port is a high-speed point-to-point channel for attaching a video card to a computer's motherboard, primarily to assist in the acceleration of 3D computer graphics. Since 2004 AGP has been progressively phased out in favor of PCI Express...
support, up to 32MB of VRAM, and a process
Semiconductor fabrication
Semiconductor device fabrication is the process used to create the integrated circuits that are present in everyday electrical and electronic devices. It is a multiple-step sequence of photolithographic and chemical processing steps during which electronic circuits are gradually created on a wafer...
shrink from 0.35 μm
Micrometre
A micrometer , is by definition 1×10-6 of a meter .In plain English, it means one-millionth of a meter . Its unit symbol in the International System of Units is μm...
to 0.25 μm. It was the process shrink that enabled improved clock speeds (from 90 MHz to 150+ MHz), which is where the substantial performance improvement came from.
The TNT2 offered a higher quality feature-set than some of its competitors, pioneered by the RIVA TNT, such as 32-bit color in 3D and support for larger 2048×2048 px
Pixel
In digital imaging, a pixel, or pel, is a single point in a raster image, or the smallest addressable screen element in a display device; it is the smallest unit of picture that can be represented or controlled....
textures. RIVA TNT2's competition included the 3dfx Voodoo2
Voodoo2
The Voodoo2 was a set of three graphics processing units on a single chipset, made by 3dfx. It was released in February 1998 as a replacement for the original Voodoo Graphics chipset. The card ran at a chipset clock rate of 90 MHz and used 100 MHz EDO DRAM, and was available for the PCI interface...
, 3dfx Voodoo3
Voodoo3
Voodoo3 was a series of computer gaming video cards manufactured and designed by 3dfx Interactive. It was the successor to the company's high-end Voodoo 2 line and was based heavily upon the older Voodoo Banshee product. Voodoo3 was announced at COMDEX '98 and arrived on store shelves in 1999...
, the Matrox G400
Matrox G400
The G400 is a video card made by Matrox, released in September 1999. The graphics processor contains a 2D GUI, video, and Direct3D 6.0 3D accelerator...
, and the ATI Rage 128.
A low-cost version, known as the TNT2 M64, was produced with the memory interface reduced from 128-bit to 64-bit. Sometimes these were labeled "Vanta", continuing the Vanta name started with a value-oriented RIVA TNT-based product. This chipset outperformed the older RIVA TNT
RIVA TNT
The RIVA TNT, codenamed NV4, is a 2D, video, and 3D graphics accelerator chip for PCs that was manufactured by Nvidia. It was released in mid 1998 and cemented Nvidia's reputation as a worthy rival within the developing consumer 3D graphics adapter industry. The first RIVA TNT based card released...
while being less costly to produce. They proved quite popular in the OEM market, as most consumers simply assumed all TNT2 cards were the same.
Product comparisons
The main competitor to the TNT2 was the 3dfx3dfx
3dfx Interactive was a company that specialized in the manufacturing of 3D graphics processing units and, later, graphics cards. It was a pioneer in the field for several years in the late 1990s until 2000 when it underwent one of the most high-profile demises in the history of the PC industry...
Voodoo3
Voodoo3
Voodoo3 was a series of computer gaming video cards manufactured and designed by 3dfx Interactive. It was the successor to the company's high-end Voodoo 2 line and was based heavily upon the older Voodoo Banshee product. Voodoo3 was announced at COMDEX '98 and arrived on store shelves in 1999...
. What the Voodoo3
Voodoo3
Voodoo3 was a series of computer gaming video cards manufactured and designed by 3dfx Interactive. It was the successor to the company's high-end Voodoo 2 line and was based heavily upon the older Voodoo Banshee product. Voodoo3 was announced at COMDEX '98 and arrived on store shelves in 1999...
lacked when compared to the TNT2 was 32-bit color. This was the main selling point of the TNT2, while the main selling point of the Voodoo3
Voodoo3
Voodoo3 was a series of computer gaming video cards manufactured and designed by 3dfx Interactive. It was the successor to the company's high-end Voodoo 2 line and was based heavily upon the older Voodoo Banshee product. Voodoo3 was announced at COMDEX '98 and arrived on store shelves in 1999...
was the speed advantage it often had over the TNT2. The 3dfx Glide API
Glide API
Glide is a 3D graphics API developed by 3dfx Interactive for their Voodoo Graphics 3D accelerator cards. Although it originally started as a proprietary API, it was later open sourced by 3dfx. It was dedicated to gaming performance, supporting geometry and texture mapping primarily, in data...
was still popular at this time, and frequently performed better than alternative renderers (such as 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...
and 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...
). Some games also had exclusive 3D features when used with Glide, including Wing Commander: Prophecy
Wing Commander: Prophecy
Wing Commander: Prophecy is the fourth direct sequel in Chris Roberts' Wing Commander science fiction space combat simulator franchise of computer games. The game was released in 1997, produced by Origin Systems and distributed by Electronic Arts...
.
The Voodoo3 and TNT2 also differ in that the Voodoo3 has a single dual-texturing pipeline (1x2), while the TNT2 has two single-texturing pipelines (2x1). This means that in games which only put a single texture on a polygon face at once, the TNT2 can be more efficient and faster. However, when TNT2 was launched, single-texturing was no longer used in most new games.
Variants
Falcon Northwest
Falcon Northwest is a personal computer manufacturing company located in Medford, Oregon, USA which was founded in 1992 by its current president, Kelt Reeves. The company began its existence focusing on high-end systems for Flight Simulation...
, a veteran gaming PC company, and Guillemot, an international video card manufacturer, at one point cooperated to create the Falcon Northwest Special Edition Maxi Gamer Xentor32. It was a TNT2 Ultra card designed to operate at a record-breaking 195 MHz core and similarly impressive 235 MHz RAM. This was far and away the highest clocked TNT2 model released. The card used special extremely low latency (for the time) 4.3 ns
Nanosecond
A nanosecond is one billionth of a second . One nanosecond is to one second as one second is to 31.7 years.The word nanosecond is formed by the prefix nano and the unit second. Its symbol is ns....
SDRAM
SDRAM
Synchronous dynamic random access memory is dynamic random access memory that is synchronized with the system bus. Classic DRAM has an asynchronous interface, which means that it responds as quickly as possible to changes in control inputs...
to achieve the high RAM clock speed. The regular Maxi Gamer Xentor32 came with the core clocked at 175 MHz and memory at either 183 MHz or 195 MHz, depending on which RAM chips the board arrived with.
The Creative
Creative Technology
Creative Technology Ltd. is a Singapore-based global company headquartered in Jurong East, Singapore. The principal activities of the company and its subsidiaries consist of the design, manufacture and distribution of digitized sound and video boards, computers and related multimedia, and personal...
3D Blaster TNT2 Ultra came clocked at the standard 150 MHz core and 183 MHz RAM. However, Creative included a unique software package that allowed the user to run software that used 3dfx
3dfx
3dfx Interactive was a company that specialized in the manufacturing of 3D graphics processing units and, later, graphics cards. It was a pioneer in the field for several years in the late 1990s until 2000 when it underwent one of the most high-profile demises in the history of the PC industry...
's Glide
Glide API
Glide is a 3D graphics API developed by 3dfx Interactive for their Voodoo Graphics 3D accelerator cards. Although it originally started as a proprietary API, it was later open sourced by 3dfx. It was dedicated to gaming performance, supporting geometry and texture mapping primarily, in data...
. This wrapper
Adapter pattern
In computer programming, the adapter pattern is a design pattern that translates one interface for a class into a compatible interface...
, named Unified, was not as compatible with Glide games as real 3dfx hardware, but it was also the only card available other than a 3dfx card that could run Glide software. This Glide wrapper was very slow, not without issues, and was rather unstable. The main use of the wrapper was to allow 3D acceleration of games that only supported Glide 3D accelerators.
Hercules equipped their Dynamite TNT2 Ultra with faster-than-stock components, as well. The card came with a 175 MHz core clock and 200 MHz memory. The card lacked TV output, however.
ELSA's Erazor III came clocked at non-Ultra TNT2 rates but included "3D Revelator" shutter glasses. These glasses made games look as though they were coming out of the screen, and worked with both Direct3D and some OpenGL titles.
Competing chipsets
- 3dfx Voodoo2Voodoo2The Voodoo2 was a set of three graphics processing units on a single chipset, made by 3dfx. It was released in February 1998 as a replacement for the original Voodoo Graphics chipset. The card ran at a chipset clock rate of 90 MHz and used 100 MHz EDO DRAM, and was available for the PCI interface...
- 3dfx Voodoo3Voodoo3Voodoo3 was a series of computer gaming video cards manufactured and designed by 3dfx Interactive. It was the successor to the company's high-end Voodoo 2 line and was based heavily upon the older Voodoo Banshee product. Voodoo3 was announced at COMDEX '98 and arrived on store shelves in 1999...
- Matrox G400Matrox G400The G400 is a video card made by Matrox, released in September 1999. The graphics processor contains a 2D GUI, video, and Direct3D 6.0 3D accelerator...
- ATI Rage 128ATI RageThe ATI Rage is a series of graphics chipsets offering GUI 2D acceleration, video acceleration, and 3D acceleration. It is the successor to the Mach series of 2D accelerators.-3D RAGE :...
- S3 Graphics Savage4S3 SavageSavage was a product-line of PC graphics chipsets designed by S3.-Savage 3D:At the 1998 E3 Expo S3 introduced the first Savage product, Savage3D. Compared to its ViRGE-derived predecessor , Savage3D was a technological leap forward...