DOS Days

nVidia GeForce 256

The initial release of nVidia's game-changing card arrived in October 1999, and it came with SDR RAM manufactured by Samsung.

Released October 1999
Bus AGP 4x
Chipset nVidia NV6
Standards Hercules, MDA, CGA, EGA, VGA, SVGA
Memory 32 MB of SDR or DDR RAM
Ports 15-pin DSUB (video out)
RAMDAC (Integrated)
Part # (Varies by card manufacturer)
FCC ID (Varies by card manufacturer)
Price $199 (SDR versions), $249 (DDR versions)
See Also nVidia RIVA 128

The initial release of nVidia's game-changing card arrived in October 1999, and it came with SDR RAM manufactured by Samsung. In December of that same year, nVidia upgraded GeForce 256 to have DDR RAM provided by Hyundai or Infinion.

nVidia GeForce 256-based cards include:

  • ASUS AGP-V6600 Deluxe (SDR memory)
  • ASUS AGP-V6800 Deluxe (DDR memory)
  • ELSA GLoria II Quadro SDR (SDR memory)
  • Guillemot /Hercules 3D Prophet SDR (SDR memory)
  • Creative Labs 3D Blaster Annihilator CT-6960 (SDR memory)
  • Creative Labs 3D Blaster Annihilator Pro CT-6970 (DDR memory)

I conducted a full review of the Creative 3D Blaster Annihilator Pro in March 2025, which also included performance comparisons with another GeForce 256-based card in my collection, an ASUS V6600 Deluxe which has SDR RAM.

 

Board Revisions

I have no information on the various board revisions for the GeForce256.

 

Competition

 

In the Media

"The GeForce 256 is the first graphics chip to include transform and lighting (T&L) engines in its core design. T&L engines take a huge amount of load away from the CPU since the geometry calculation is performed locally, leaving it free to concentrate on other things. The GeForce 256 also incorporates S3's texture compression, allowing huge textures to be squeezed to a managable size, improving the image quality without a loss of speed. Strangely, nVidia has chosen not to include hardware environment bump mapping on the chip, leaving the Matrox G400 as the only card supporting this DirectX feature.

It's impressive that nVidia is so far ahead of the competition with the GeForce 256, but as with any piece of hardware, it's only as good as the software that runs on it. Unfortunately, there's no software that supports T&L yet, partly due to the fact that DirectX 7 is required. Even the 3DMark benchmarking suite doesn't support T&L yet. That said, T&L is definitely the future of 3D graphics cards, so don't be surprised if every new card released supports this feature."     Personal Computer World, December 1999

 

Setting it Up

I have no configuration information for the GeForce256.


Downloads

Operation Manual
(missing)

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Original Utility Disk
(missing)

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VGA BIOS ROM
(missing)

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Windows 95/98 Ref Driver
Version 3.68, 30 Dec 1999

For TNT, TNT2, and Geforce 256 / 256 DDR cards

Windows 95/98 Reference Driver
Version 4.12.01.0377, 8 Feb 2000

For TNT, TNT2, Vanta, GeForce256 and Quadro cards.

Windows 95/98 Reference Driver
Version 5.32, 26 Jun 2000

For TNT, TNT2, GeForce256 / 256 DDR and Geforce 2 cards.

Windows 95/98 Reference Driver
Version 8.05, 5 Jul 2001

For TNT, TNT2, GeForce256 / 256 DDR and Geforce 2 and 3 cards.

Windows 9x Reference Driver
Version 12.41, 16 May 2001

For TNT, TNT2, GeForce256 / 256 DDR and Geforce 2, and 3 cards.

Windows 9x Reference Driver
Version 23.11, 29 Nov 2001

For TNT, TNT2, GeForce256 / 256 DDR and Geforce 2, and 3 cards.

Windows 9x Reference Driver
Version 29.42, 3 May 2002

For TNT, TNT2, GeForce256 / 256 DDR and Geforce 2, 3, and 4 cards.

Windows 9x Reference Driver
Version 30.82, 16 Jul 2002

For TNT, TNT2, GeForce256 / 256 DDR and Geforce 2, 3, and 4 cards.

Windows 9x/ME Reference Driver
Version 41.09, 18 Nov 2002

For TNT, TNT2, GeForce256 / 256 DDR and Geforce 2, 3, and 4 cards.

Windows 9x Reference Driver
Version 45.23, 28 Jul 2003

For TNT, TNT2, GeForce256 / 256 DDR and Geforce 2, 3, 4 and FX5xxx cards.

Windows 9x Reference Driver
Version 56.64, 3 Mar 2004

For TNT, TNT2, GeForce256 / 256 DDR and Geforce 2, 3, and 4 cards.

Windows 9x/ME Reference Driver
Version 61.76, 12 Jul 2004

For TNT, TNT2, GeForce256 / 256 DDR and Geforce 2, 3, 4 and FX5xxx cards.

Windows 9x/ME Reference Driver
Version 66.94, 5 Nov 2004

For TNT, TNT2, GeForce256 / 256 DDR and Geforce 2, 3, 4 and FX5xxx cards.

Windows 9x/ME Reference Driver
Version 71.84, 24 Feb 2005

For TNT, TNT2, GeForce256 / 256 DDR and Geforce 2, 3, 4 FX5xxx and 6xxx cards.

PowerStrip
Version 2.78, 13 Nov 2000

Third-party utility to adjust graphics card settings. Runs under Windows 95, 98, 2000 and NT.

 

More Pictures


Creative Labs 3D Blaster Annihilator Pro (1999)