GeForce 8800 series GPU technology code named “G80.”
NVIDIA Releases the first of DX10 video cards - the next big thing in video games?

Introduction

The day has finally arrived, the first DirectX 10, Shader Model 4.0 graphics hardware is here and NVIDIA is the first out of the gate. And this happens to be another hard-launch as we have come to expect from NVIDIA and its partners! Not only is NVIDIA introducing new hardware but it is a totally new architecture that was built with completely new ideas for supporting the next DirectX version.

DirectX

This type of event does not happen often. Microsoft’s DirectX releases have always been a big turning point in the graphics industry and the impact on the industry has grown with each release. The last major Microsoft DirectX upgrade was in December of 2002 when DirectX 9.0 was released for Windows. We’ve been utilizing DirectX 9 as the 3D API for Windows for four years. DirectX 9.0c was released in the interim with Shader Model 3.0 that supported the ability to run longer shaders, but it more allowed faster “wet and bumpy-looking” shaders than anything else.

The next version of DirectX is DirectX 10 also referred to as D3D10. DirectX 10 will be released alongside Windows Vista early in 2007. DirectX 10 will be Windows Vista only; you will not find it coming to Windows XP. To learn more about DirectX 10 please read our article: DirectX 10 & the Future of Gaming. Pay close attention to the benefits of using a Unified Architecture system as the 8800 GPU reflects how the API and the hardware are literally made for each other.

Where We’ve Been

The introduction of NVIDIA’s new GeForce 8 series GPUs can be likened to the release of the ATI Radeon 9700 Pro in the late summer-early fall of 2002. The ATI Radeon 9700 Pro was the first GPU to sport DirectX 9 Shader Model 2.0 capability before DirectX 9 was released. ATI stepped forward with this support while NVIDIA was spinning its wheels with DirectX 8 hardware. NVIDIA was late to the party with their first DirectX 9 GPU the GeForce FX series and for the DirectX 9 games of the time it turned out to be a flop, plain and simple. The GeForce FX series was loud, had shader image quality problems and was slow at DirectX 9 shader performance.

It was at this time that we had our revelation [HERE] [HERE] [HERE] that graphics were changing in a big way and the previous way of “benchmarking” was simply the wrong way to evaluate the current DirectX 9 video cards. It was time to stop looking at pure framerate and worrying about how many “pipelines” a video card has and start worrying about what the gameplay experience differences were between video cards. DirectX 9 ended up not only being an turning point for the graphics industry but also for us here at [H]ardOCP in the way we evaluated that hardware. “Reviews” were out and “evaluating the gaming experience” supplied by the hardware in question was in.

NVIDIA did redeem themselves a year later with the introduction of the GeForce 6 series GPUs. This new breed was a completely new architecture from the GeForce FX series and fixed all the problems with DirectX 9 Shader Model 2.0 shader performance and also introduced Shader Model 3.0 support as well as a little feature we’ve all come to enjoy now called High Dynamic Range (HDR) lighting. After the GeForce 6 series came the GeForce 7 series which further improved shader performance and added a few new features. NVIDIA has had a good run with the GeForce 6 and 7 series but now it is time for one GPU hardware vendor to step forward and take the reigns on DirectX 10, and NVIDIA is the one stepping up the plate and swinging hard.

Read all about it here, courtesy of hardocp.com:

-Eric