The GeForce 256, a revolutionary and iconic piece of hardware that debuted over two decades ago in 1999 but remains fondly remembered by tech enthusiasts as being the world’s first GPU, has officially turned 25 years old, according to a new blog post that NVIDIA shared last week, one that discusses how the graphics card “leveled up gaming” and “ignited the AI era.” Manuel Guzman, software QA at NVIDIA, has also marked the occasion on X, tweeting an image that shows how green team celebrated the GPU’s anniversary with several tubs of green popcorn. A “celebrating GeForce 256” video that includes some classic footage, as well as a detailed look at the GPU from Digital Foundry, can be found below.
Before there were CUDA cores, there were popcorn cores. pic.twitter.com/L8B5oLTzFj
— Manuel Guzman (@ManuelGuzman) October 10, 2024
The release of NVIDIA’s GeForce 256 twenty-five years ago today, overlooked by all but hardcore PC gamers and tech enthusiasts at the time, would go on to lay the foundation for today’s generative AI. The GeForce 256 paired beautifully with breakthrough titles such Unreal Tournament, one of the first games with realistic reflections, which would go on to sell more than 1 million copies in its first year.