Timeline Tuesday 31 August 1999

Events on Tuesday 31 August 1999 1

• 1999 GeForce 256 — the first GPU Nvidia releases the GeForce 256 on 31 August 1999, coining the term GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) to describe a chip that handles geometry and lighting calculations previously performed by the CPU. The GeForce 256 delivers dramatic gaming performance improvements and establishes Nvidia's GeForce brand as the leading gaming GPU line. The GPU concept — a massively parallel processor for visual computation — will prove one of the most consequential hardware innovations of the 21st century.