this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2024
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No it wasn't. Rendition had the Verite back in 1996 that was true 3D and 2D on the same single video card. At the same time as the Verite was the 3DFX Voodoo (released 1995), but it was 3D only and needed a second card for 2D. Rendition was also the only 3D accelerator natively supported by Quake.
Nvidia did indeed market it as the first GPU at the time. You can retroactively apply the term, but it didn't exist before then.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_processing_unit
Sony coined the term GPU in 1994 for what was in the Playstation.
Nvidia might have marketed it as the first GPU, but other companies had combined 2D/3D processors on a single chip marketed to consumers well before the GeForce, including Nvidia themselves with the Riva 128. The GeForce was the first product from Nvidia marketed as a GPU, but that doesn't mean it was the first product to market that was either called a GPU or not called that but still was one. It WAS the first to market with a T&L system (though Rendition had T&L on a chip first it never made it to market).