The Nvidia NV1, manufactured by SGS-Thomson Microelectronics under the model name STG2000, was a multimedia PCI card announced in May 1995 and released in November 1995. It was sold to retail by Diamond as the Diamond Edge 3D. The NV1 featured a complete 2D/3D graphics core based upon quadratic texture mapping, VRAM or FPM DRAM memory, an integrated 32-channel 350 MIPS playback-only sound card, and a Sega Saturn compatible joypad port. As such, it was intended to replace the 2D graphics card, Sound Blaster-compatible audio systems, and 15-pin joystick ports, then prevalent on IBM PC compatibles. Putting all of this functionality on a single card led to significant compromises, and the NV1 was not very successful in the market. A modified version, the NV2, was developed in partnership with Sega for the Sega Dreamcast, but ultimately dropped. Nvidia's next stand-alone product, the RIVA 128, focussed entirely on 2D and 3D performance and was much more successful. History Several Sega Saturn games were converted to NV1-compatible formats on the PC such as Panzer Dragoon and Virtua Fighter Remix. However, the NV1 struggled in a market place full of several competing proprietary standards, and was marginalized by emerging Triangle polygon-based 2D/3D accelerators such as the low-cost S3 Graphics ViRGE, Matrox Mystique, ATI Rage, and Rendition Vérité V1000 among other early entrants. It ultimately did not sell well, despite being a promising and interesting device. NV1's biggest initial problem was its cost and overall quality. Although it offered credible 3D performance, its use of quadratic surfaces was anything but popular, and was quite different than typical polygon rendering. The audio portion of the card received merely acceptable reviews, with the General MIDI receiving lukewarm responses at best (a critical component at the time due to the superior sound quality produced by competing products). The Sega Saturn console was a market failure compared to Sony's PlayStation or Sega's earlier Sega Genesis, and so the unique and somewhat limiting support of these gamepads was of limited benefit. Nvidia, by integrating all of these usually separate components, raised their costs considerably above what they would have been if the card had been designed solely for 3D acceleration. During the NV1's release timeframe, the transition from VLB/ISA (486s) to PCI (Pentiums and late model 486 boards) was taking place, and games often used MIDI for music because PCs were still generally incapable of large-scale digital audio playback