Chapter 428 The Tear-Jerking Thor and the Proud Leather-Clad Swordsman

The first project Li Xiaofan visited with Academician Ni was NVIDIA.

In November last year, Li Xiaofan's Singapore-based Yifan Holdings made its first investment of US$1 million and acquired 10% of Nvidia's equity.

In May this year, Singapore Yifan Holdings and Yifan No. 1 Venture Capital Fund jointly invested in the NVIDIA project again.

In this financing in May, after several rounds of negotiations between the two parties, the final post-money valuation of the Nvidia project was US$40 million.

This time, Singapore Yifan Holdings once again invested US$5 million, and Yifan No. 1 Venture Capital Fund invested US$10 million, each acquiring 12.5% ​​and 25% of the equity.

As a result, Yifan Holdings' first investment of 10% was diluted to 6.25%. Adding the 12.5% ​​this time, Yifan Holdings finally held a total of 18.75% of the shares in the NVIDIA project.

After Huang Renxun, a leather-clad swordsman who was already in trouble, received this 15 million US dollars in funding, the team members felt like they had been given a shot of chicken blood. They were so energetic that they redoubled their efforts in research and development day and night, greatly accelerating their efforts. The development speed of third-generation graphics chips.

After Li Xiaofan, Academician Ni and other teams took their seats in the NVIDIA conference room, everyone exchanged greetings.

Huang Renxun saw that Academician Ni was also Li Xiaofan's partner, and the conference room was filled with his own people, so he smiled and took out a chip marked "nVIDA-RIVA128" on the surface and said to Li Xiaofan:

"Director Li and Academician Ni, I would like to report to you that this is the third generation NV3 graphics card chip that our company will release in the third quarter. We now name it RIVA128. The sample you are seeing now is from Texas Instruments TI. OEM for our tape-out..."

After Li Xiaofan took over the chip from Huang Renxun, he couldn't put it down and said in surprise:

"Jason, that's great. The release time of RIVA128 is much faster than expected!"

In the previous life, this NVIDIA RIVA 128 chip would not be released until the end of this year. It started NVIDIA's graphics card series based on the NV3 graphics core and opened NVIDIA's true path to glory.

Huang Renxun smiled and said: "Hey, Director Li, our team can't live up to your expectations. After all, you spent 16 million US dollars on us, and we must give an explanation to your investors!"

Then, Huang Renxun continued to introduce proudly:

"Dr. Li, the Riva 128 we are about to launch is a 128-bit 2D and 3D accelerated graphics core chip. We use a 0.35 micron production process in the design. The core frequency is 60MHz. There is a single-material processing unit inside. The pixel pipeline, which means that it can process one single texture pixel per clock cycle, the current maximum pixel fill rate is s pixels per second.”

"The biggest highlight of this Riva 128 chip is that the geometry processor can perform 500 million floating-point operations per second and generate 1.2 million triangles. All triangles are generated by the built-in hardware triangle processing engine..."

After listening to Huang Renxun’s professional introduction, Li Xiaofan asked him a question:

"Jason, how does the performance of our Riva 128 chip compare with the current mainstream Voodoo graphics chip?"

When Li Xiaofan first invested in NVIDIA in November last year, on the 6th of that month, 3dfx released the landmark Voodoo chip to the world.

The original meaning of voodoo is a mysterious religion "Voodoo", but in the computer field, it represents a series of famous graphics 3D acceleration chips launched by 3dfx company.

After Voodoo was launched at the end of last year, it shocked the world and became the 3D chip with the highest market share in the world. Its market share in graphics cards is as high as 85%.

Voodoo adopts the form of a daughter card and is used in conjunction with the 2D display of the main card. The specialized 3D chip can provide better 3D performance at the same development cost.

The current 3dfx company and Voodoo graphics card are at their most glorious moment.

Compared with the current giant 3dfx, the current NVIDIA company has almost no reputation. The NV2 product it developed was disliked by Japan's Sega, and it was once on the verge of poverty and bankruptcy.

Therefore, when Huang Renxun's team received two rounds of investment from Li Xiaofan, they were flattered.

Huang Renxun proudly said to Li Xiaofan:

"Director Li, although our current RIVA 128 may be slightly weaker in 3D graphics quality compared to the current mainstream Voodoo graphics chip. However, our RIVA 128 chip is far superior in high-performance 2D/3D acceleration. Far more than Voodoo! And after mass production in the future, our RIVA 128 will be very cheap and the price/performance ratio will be much higher than Voodoo. I am confident that our RIVA will be better than Voodoo. After the 128 product is launched, which OEM manufacturers will like it, because for OEM manufacturers, they don’t care about the difference in graphics quality, they are most concerned about cost!”

Because the current Voodoo graphics card is in a seller's market, the retail price was once as high as about US$200. But because there are no competitors in the market, OEM manufacturers and end users can only accept it silently. Especially for gamers, this graphics card is too important!

In his previous life, Li Xiaofan remembered that after returning to China in 1998, he became obsessed with a game called "Quake II" that was very popular at the time. This game is an epoch-making first-person shooter released by ID Software in the winter of 1997.

Li Xiaofan still remembers that he spent more than 1,000 yuan at the computer market in Xujiahui, Shanghai, to buy a voodoo1 graphics card and installed it. When he saw the dark tunnel walls illuminated from near to far by fireballs shot from pistols, he I almost shed tears!

After installing the 3dfx graphics card and rendering the "Quake II" game, it looks like two different things. The gap between the mosaic and light and shadow of the static image is not small, and the gap is even greater when it is moving.

So when Li Xiaofan saw for the first time that the walls of the pitch-black tunnel in the game were illuminated from near to far by the fireballs fired from the pistol, he was so excited that he almost cried!

There is also a Need For Speed ​​II game that also supports 3dfx graphics cards. Li Xiaofan remembers that after installing the voodoo1 graphics card, there was a scene in which a large number of wild bees directly hit the front windshield after exiting the tunnel, which was very realistic!

Later, Li Xiaofan never encountered the huge shock of seeing the realistic picture after installing the voodoo1 graphics card. Later, the PS2 did not have it, and neither did the Xbox360...

Therefore, after you have played a game with a graphics card, you will never go back. The importance of graphics cards to gamers is self-evident!

Li Xiaofan has also done some research on the Singapore computer market before. Currently, 3dfx uses chip licensing. It does not have a graphics card factory of its own and authorizes other manufacturers to produce. The best 3dfx graphics card currently recognized is the Diamond graphics card from the United States, which is expensive and high-quality, followed by the Elsa graphics card from Germany, and the Creative graphics card from Singapore. The cheapest ones are those off-brand graphics cards from Taiwan... …

Huang Renxun also added:

"Director Li, what's more important is that our RIVA 128 chip supports Microsoft's Direct 3D standard. This means that we will fight in the same trench with Microsoft and will receive support from Microsoft in the future!"

After listening to Huang Renxun's introduction, Li Xiaofan was a little excited. The successful early development of the RIVA 128 chip has at least added a zero to Nvidia's overall valuation!