NVIDIA And Microsoft Jointly Promote New 3D Standards At Game Developers Conference

SANTA CLARA, CA — March 8, 2000 — Continuing its commitment to drive new 3D graphics standards for the desktop PC, NVIDIA™ Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA) today announced its premier sponsorship of the Microsoft Windows® DirectXTM Developer Day. Microsoft's DirectX Developer Day provides developers with critical technical information regarding the DirectX API's (Application Programming Interface) next generation features. The event will be held at the Game Developer Conference on Wednesday, March 8th from 8:00AM to 6:00PM at the San Jose Convention Center.

"By consistently delivering products that are performance optimized for each new generation of DirectX, and by offering external developer programs aimed at fine tuning Direct3D applications, NVIDIA's support has been key to the success and adoption of DirectX," said Ted Hase, Group Program Manager for DirectX at Microsoft Corporation. "NVIDIA and Microsoft are committed to providing developers with the powerful tools they need to create rich, dynamic, lifelike 3D worlds and characters."

NVIDIA is sponsoring the event as part of its campaign, targeted at 3D software developers, to substantially raise the image quality in new 3D titles by leveraging the use of advanced 3D features, such as transform and lighting, bump mapping, texture compression and multi-texturing effects.

"NVIDIA has become the premier content development platform for the PC game industry," said Dan Vivoli, senior vice president of marketing at NVIDIA. "By working strategically with Microsoft, we are able to align our development efforts so that our products provide developers with the most powerful gaming platform in the entertainment industry."

The one-day Microsoft Windows DirectX Developer Day will offer various tracks pertaining to PC multimedia extensions found in DirectX, including Direct3D, DirectMusic and DirectSound. As the premier sponsor of the event, NVIDIA will co-present three separate discussions in the Direct3D track of the seminar. Direct X 7.0a is the latest version of Microsoft's popular multimedia API enabling developers to write software for a wide variety of multimedia hardware including graphics, audio and input devices. This is the most coverage of DirectX planned for any Microsoft conference in 2000. For more information, please visit the DirectX Developer Day website at http://www.gdconf.com/2000/directx.html.

NVIDIA Products The first 3D graphics semiconductor company to deliver a complete top-to-bottom family of 3D graphics solutions, NVIDIA gives developers the advantage of one unified driver and one architecture across all implementations. The proven graphics architecture and massive gate counts translate into stunningly realistic, high-performance results. NVIDIA single-chip processors enable high-frame-rate 3D graphics, benchmark-winning 2D graphics, and VGA and video acceleration for unequaled visual realism and real-time interactivity. Optimized for both Direct3D™ and OpenGL® APIs, the NVIDIA products currently include: NVIDIA GeForce 256™ for the PC enthusiast market. The world's first graphics processing unit, GeForce 256 delivers an order-of-magnitude increase in geometry processing power and enables unmatched access to interactive content. NVIDIA Quadro™ for professional workstations, digital content creation, and MCAD markets. The Quadro processor integrates the revolutionary QuadEngine™ architecture for optimized transform and lighting functions. NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 for the performance PC market. The RIVA TNT2™ and RIVA TNT2 Pro™ feature NVIDIA's award-winning, fourth-generation, 128-bit 3D architecture that has garnered more than 400 industry awards. NVIDIA Vanta™, and RIVA TNT2 M64™ for the commercial PC markets. Also based on the award-winning RIVA TNT2 architecture, these processors offer low-cost, highly integrated choices for entry-level add-in card and motherboard applications. NVIDIA Aladdin TNT2™ for the sub-$1000 PC market. The first truly integrated, core-logic GPU, Aladdin TNT2 redefines the possibilities for the lowest-cost platforms.

About NVIDIA The computing industry recognizes NVIDIA as the global leader in advanced graphics processing technology for mainstream platforms, awarding the company the most awards in the history of the PC industry. The unmatched breadth of the NVIDIA product family enables gripping multimedia experiences for the entire desktop computer market from workstations to internet-enabled appliances. In use by large corporations, small- to medium-sized businesses, and home-based consumers, NVIDIA products are the solutions of choice for the top PC OEMs, add-in card designers, and system builders worldwide. NVIDIA graphics processors deliver superior performance and crisp visual quality for PC based applications such as manufacturing, science, e-business, entertainment, and education. For more information, please visit the Company's web site at http://www.nvidia.com