ELSA Expands VICTORY Erazor line with NVIDIA TNT based 3D Graphics Accelerator

June 15, 1998 -- ELSA Inc. today announced that the company will expand its ELSA VICTORY Erazor line of high performance graphics accelerators with the introduction of NVIDIA Corporation's new RIVA TNT 3D processor technology, targeting the performance segment of the PC graphics market.

"NVIDIA's RIVA TNT coupled with ELSA's superior driver technology will provide an unbeatable combination for the mainstream PC market," said Thomas Neubert VP of sales and marketing. "ELSA's world-class workstation graphics technology and expertise will now be available for consumer and desktop systems."

The powerful new RIVA TNT from NVIDIA Corporation, with a TwiN Texel processing engine, integrates a dual-pixel 32-bit color pipeline with 24-bit Z-buffer, 8-bit stencil buffer and per-pixel precision. RIVA TNT can apply two textures to a single triangle while processing two pixels per clock cycle to yield twice the pixel fill rate. With an unparalleled fill rate of 250 million pixels-per-second, the RIVA TNT can render up to 8 million triangles per second and a 250MHz RAMDAC, to drive the most extreme resolutions, color depths and ergonomic refresh rates up to 1600 x 1200 x 32bpp @ 85Hz.

"NVIDIA's RIVA 128 was one of a new class of 3D accelerators that raised the bar in 1997, opening people's eyes to the availability of leading-edge 3D performance in a mainstream product," said Andy Fischer, senior analyst with Jon Peddie Associates of Tiburon, CA. "With the RIVA TNT, NVIDIA appears to be establishing a pattern of taking a big step forward in 3D capabilities while maintaining mass market appeal. We are expecting a new chapter to unfold with the TNT's reach beyond DirectX to OpenGL applications, and ELSA's expertise in this area is likely to be a significant differentiator for the company."

ELSA's next-generation ELSA VICTORY Erazor is expected to set new standards for 2D and 3D graphics performance and quality in the mainstream market. Featuring the RIVA TNT, ELSA's next generation VICTORY Erazor provides a 128-bit graphics pipeline to the frame buffer interface and support up to 16MB of frame buffer memory and AGP 2X high speed interconnect, resulting in a powerful solution for traditional 2D software to 3D intensive games and DVD titles.

The ELSA VICTORY Erazor will be optimized for Microsoft's PC '98 and Direct3D, including the DirectX 6.0. The outstanding DirectX support of the ELSA VICTORY Erazor ensures superb multimedia quality across a wide range of graphical applications from traditional 2D software to 3D intensive games and DVD titles. In addition to full optimization for DirectX 5.0/6.0 and Windows 98, ELSA provides full support for an OpenGL ICD (Installable Client Driver) for Microsoft^® Windows 95^® and Microsoft^® Windows NT^®.

"ELSA exacting professional standards for performance and quality led them to choose the RIVA 128 product last year," said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of NVIDIA. "Today's announcement of the new RIVA TNT based Erazor product endorses the performance and quality standards of NVIDIA's latest 3D processor."

NVIDIA Information

NVIDIA Corporation designs, develops, markets and sells high-performance 3D processors for personal computers. NVIDIA has been recognized as one of the hottest semiconductor companies in Upside Magazine's December 1997 article titled "Mr. Hot Chips '97" and was honored as The Most Respected Private Fabless Company by the Fabless Semiconductor Association (FSA) in November 1997. NVIDIA is a privately held company with venture financing. Corporate headquarters are in California: NVIDIA Corporation, 1226 Tiros Way, Sunnyvale, CA 94086. (408) 617-4000. http://www.nvidia.com.

ELSA Information

ELSA Inc. is a subsidiary of ELSA AG, a stock company based in Aachen, Germany. Founded in 1980, ELSA has built a world-class reputation in high-performance 2D and 3D graphics solutions in addition to a wide ranging ISDN and videoconferencing product family.

The ELSA logo is a registered trademark of ELSA AG. All names mentioned may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.