The first big difference of note is the so-called Vertex Shader, which you will recall from our preview makes up one half of the named features in NVIDIA’s “nfiniteFX Engine”. The Vertex Shader is the real workhorse of the GeForce 3, executing within the GPU special programs for each vertex of an object or a complete frame.

If you’re wondering what a vertex actually is, think of the fairly logical way 3D scenes appear in, say, Quake III Arena. Everything is made up of tiny triangles, and vertices are the corners of those triangles. Each vertex carries data about its position within the scene, colour, texture coordinates and various other pieces of information. All of this is pumped into and out of the GeForce 3’s GPU, where the Vertex Shader does its work.