section_path: History/First graphics accelerator
section_name: First graphics accelerator
paragraph_text: First graphics accelerator
  
  Nvidia's first graphics accelerator, the NV1, was designed to process quadrilateral primitives (forward texture mapping), a feature that set it apart from competitors, who preferred triangle primitives. 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. As a result, the NV1 failed to gain traction in the market.
  
  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.
  
  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".
  
  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. By the time the RIVA 128 was released in August 1997, Nvidia had only enough money left for one month's payroll. 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." Huang began internal presentations to Nvidia staff with those words for many years.
  
  Nvidia sold about a million RIVA 128 units within four months, and used the revenue to fund development of its next generation of products. In 1998, the release of the RIVA TNT helped solidify Nvidia's reputation as a leader in graphics technology.