Editing Nvidia (section)

=== First graphics accelerator ===
Nvidia's first graphics accelerator, the [[NV1]], was designed to process [[quadrilateral]] [[Geometric primitive|primitives]] ([[forward texture mapping]]), a feature that set it apart from competitors, who preferred triangle primitives.<ref name="Witt" /> However, when [[Microsoft]] introduced the [[DirectX]] platform, it chose not to support any other graphics software and announced that its [[Direct3D]] API would exclusively support triangles.<ref name="Witt" /><ref name="Peddie">{{cite news |last1=Peddie |first1=Jon |date=September 23, 2019 |title=Nvidia's RIVA 128 |url=https://www.electronicdesign.com/technologies/embedded/article/21131077/jon-peddie-research-nvidias-riva-128 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240119155034/https://www.electronicdesign.com/technologies/embedded/article/21131077/jon-peddie-research-nvidias-riva-128 |archive-date=January 19, 2024 |access-date=December 5, 2023 |work=Electronic Design}}</ref> As a result, the NV1 failed to gain traction in the market.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kim |first=Tae |title=The Nvidia Way: Jensen Huang and the Making of a Tech Giant |date=2024 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company, Incorporated |isbn=978-1-324-08672-7 |edition=1st |location=}}</ref>

Nvidia had also entered into a partnership with [[Sega]] to supply the graphics chip for the [[Dreamcast]] console and worked on the project for about a year. However, Nvidia's technology was already lagging behind competitors. This placed the company in a difficult position: continue working on a chip that was likely doomed to fail or abandon the project, risking financial collapse.<ref name="wsj cohen 2024">{{Cite news |last=Cohen |first=Ben |date=May 18, 2024 |title=The 84-Year-Old Man Who Saved Nvidia |url=https://www.wsj.com/business/nvidia-stock-jensen-huang-sega-irimajiri-chips-ai-906247db |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20240518101129/https://www.wsj.com/business/nvidia-stock-jensen-huang-sega-irimajiri-chips-ai-906247db |archive-date=May 18, 2024 |work=The Wall Street Journal}}</ref>

In a pivotal moment, Sega's president, [[Shoichiro Irimajiri]], visited Huang in person to inform him that Sega had decided to choose another vendor for the Dreamcast. However, Irimajiri believed in Nvidia's potential and persuaded Sega's management to invest $5 million into the company. Huang later reflected that this funding was all that kept Nvidia afloat, and that Irimajiri's "understanding and generosity gave us six months to live".<ref name="wsj cohen 2024" />

In 1996, Huang laid off more than half of Nvidia's employees—thereby reducing headcount from 100 to 40—and focused the company's remaining resources on developing a graphics accelerator product optimized for processing triangle primitives: the [[RIVA 128]].<ref name="Witt" /><ref name="Peddie" />  By the time the RIVA 128 was released in August 1997, Nvidia had only enough money left for one month's payroll.<ref name="Witt" /> The sense of impending failure became so pervasive that it gave rise to Nvidia's unofficial company motto: "Our company is thirty days from going out of business."<ref name="Witt" /> Huang began internal presentations to Nvidia staff with those words for many years.<ref name="Witt" />

Nvidia sold about a million RIVA 128 units within four months,<ref name="Witt" /> and used the revenue to fund development of its next generation of products.<ref name="Peddie" /> In 1998, the release of the [[RIVA TNT]] helped solidify Nvidia's reputation as a leader in graphics technology.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Fulton |first=Kane |date=2015-07-20 |title=19 graphics cards that shaped the future of gaming |url=https://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/19-graphics-cards-that-shaped-the-future-of-gaming-1289666 |access-date=2024-09-03 |website=TechRadar |language=en}}</ref>