GeForce 3 turns 25, the iconic GPU that powered DOOM 3, Morrowind, and Max Payne

NVIDIA's GeForce 3 was introduced way back in February 2001 and is widely considered a milestone release not only for PC gaming but also for video game graphics, as it introduced programmable pixel and vertex shaders (in DirectX 8.0) and what would become the standard for anti-aliasing before DLSS arrived on the scene several years later.

And this past weekend, the GPU series celebrated its 25th anniversary, with NVIDIA's GeForce team presenting a little trip down memory lane on social media and Twitch, showcasing some 2001-era GeForce 3 hardware playing some of the games that would define that era of PC gaming, graphics, and GeForce hardware.

If you're wondering why the arrival of programmable shaders was a game-changer, it all comes down to the unprecedented level of hardware control it offered developers and artists. Basically, lighting and rendering effects could now be calculated at a per-pixel level, adding texture and realism to objects in ways that hadn't been seen before.

From the jaw-dropping (for the time) water effects in The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, the impressive lighting in AquaNox, DOOM 3's first-of-its-kind real-time, per-pixel lighting, to making things like grass and fur achievable in several titles. It's also the technology that helped usher in Remedy's acclaimed Max Payne, with its dynamic environments with real-time reflections.

In fact, when the GeForce 3 was unveiled back in 2001, at the Macworld Conference & Expo in Tokyo no less, Steve Jobs brought id Software's John Carmack on stage to showcase DOOM 3 for the first time. And yeah, the per-pixel lighting blew everyone away.

As groundbreaking as the GeForce 3 was, its NV20 graphics processor was built using a 150nm process. Fast forward 25 years, and the GeForce RTX 50 Series is currently being built using an astronomically more advanced 4nm process. And with that, and the arrival of neural rendering and technologies like DLSS, per-pixel lighting has paved the way for real-time ray-tracing and even full path tracing.

Still, there's no denying that this little trip down memory lane has us all wanting to jump straight into DOOM 3 and the original Max Payne.