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Market history
Before DirectX


NVIDIA NV1


Nvidia released its first graphics card, the NV1, in 1995. Its design used quadratic surfaces, with an integrated playback-only sound card and ports for Sega Saturn gamepads. Because the Saturn also used forward-rendered quadratics, programmers ported several Saturn games to play on a PC with NV1, such as Panzer Dragoon and Virtua Fighter Remix. However, the NV1 struggled in a marketplace full of several competing proprietary standards.
Market interest in the product ended when Microsoft announced the DirectX specifications, based on polygons. Subsequently NV1 development continued internally as the NV2 project, funded by several millions of dollars of investment from Sega. Sega hoped that an integrated chip with both graphics and sound capabilities would cut the manufacturing cost of the next Sega console. However, Sega eventually realized the flaws in implementing quadratic surfaces, and the NV2 project never resulted in a finished product.


A former Nvidia logo, in use until 2006



Nvidia CorporationTypePublic (NASDAQ: NVDA)IndustrySemiconductors — SpecializedFounded1993Founder(s)Jen-Hsun Huang
Chris Malachowsky
Curtis PriemHeadquartersSanta Clara, California, U.S.Area servedWorldwideKey peopleJen-Hsun Huang (President & CEO)
Chris Malachowsky (Nvidia Fellow; Senior Vice President, Engineering & Operations)
Jonah M. Alben (VP, GPU Engineering)
Debora Shoquist (SVP, Operations)
Dr. Ranga Jayaraman (CIO)ProductsGraphics processing units
ChipsetsRevenue $3.326 billion (2010)Operating income $98.945 million (2010)Net income $67.987 million (2010)Total assets $3.586 billion (2010)Total equity $2.665 billion (2010)Employees5,700 (as of January 2009[update])Websitehttp://nvidia.com
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