With GeForce 3, the company introduced programmable shader functionality into their 3D architecture, in line with the release of Microsoft's DirectX 8.0.

[1] It is compliant with Shader Model 2.0/2.0A, allowing more flexibility in complex shader/fragment programs and much higher arithmetic precision.

[5] The advertising campaign for the GeForce FX featured the Dawn, which was the work of several veterans from the computer animation Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.

Developers also had extensive access to Nvidia engineers, who helped produce code optimized for the company's products.

[8] Hardware based on the NV30 project didn't launch until near the end of 2002, several months after ATI had released their competing DirectX 9 architecture.

While the architecture was compliant overall with the DirectX 9 specification, it was optimized for performance with 16-bit shader code, which is less than the 24-bit minimum that the standard requires.

Based upon a revised GPU called NV35, which fixed some of the DirectX 9 shortcomings of the discontinued NV30, this product was more competitive with the Radeon 9700 and 9800.

[14] The 5900 Ultra performed somewhat better than the Radeon 9800 Pro in games not heavily using shader model 2, and had a quieter cooling system than the 5800.

The 5950 also featured a redesigned version of the 5800's FlowFX cooler, this time using a larger, slower fan and running much quieter as a result.

The 5700 provided strong competition for the Radeon 9600 XT in games limited to light use of shader model 2.

[16] In December 2003, the company launched the GeForce FX 5900XT, a graphics card intended for the mid-range segment.