New NVPerfHUD™ 4 Performance Analysis Tool Offers Advanced Debugging, Visualization and Profiling Capabilities for GPU-Based Software Development

For further information, contact:

Kelly Dove
NVIDIA Corporation
(512) 401-4514
kdove@nvidia.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

SANTA CLARA, CA—June 21, 2006—NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA), the worldwide leader in programmable graphics processor technologies, today announced the NVPerfHUD 4 performance analysis tool, a robust profiling and visual debugging heads-up display (HUD) program for Direct3D applications supporting Microsoft DirectX 9.0c and Windows XP on select NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs). Recently surveyed GPU software developers using NVPerfHUD 4 experienced an average performance improvement of 35% and found an average of 11 rendering bugs.¹

Part of the NVPerfKit 2 suite of performance tools for software and game development, NVPerfHUD 4 allows developers to quickly debug and profile applications by using data from the application, driver, API, and GPU.

"NVPerfHUD 4 has instantly become one of our primary tools for performance analysis, optimization, and art testing," said Richard Sim, graphics programmer at Relic Entertainment. "Just when I thought NVPerfHUD couldn't get any better, NVIDIA came up with even more useful features - notably the Frame Profiler Mode - which add a whole new level to graphics performance analysis on the PC."

"With NVPerfHUD 4, game developers have unparalleled insight into the GPU's inner workings," said John Vifian, director of developer relations at NVIDIA. "Developers can access the software's powerful analysis features, which are similar to those used by NVIDIA engineers, to uncover rendering errors and performance problems within their applications. The NVPerfHUD tool's unparalleled debugging, visualization and profiling capabilities make it a 'must have' solution for any game development pipeline."

Major new enhancements to NVPerfHUD 4 include:

• Frame Profiler Mode—Provides automated performance analysis using GPU performance counters; automatically running a series of tests to sort and list the most expensive render states and draw calls. Graphs such as draw-call duration, unit bottlenecks, double-speed z/stencil, pixel counts, and others are also provided.
  
  
• Unit Utilization Graphs—Shows the vertex assembly, vertex shader, pixel shader, and raster operations workloads within the Performance Dashboard.
  
  
• Playback Speed Adjustment—Simplifies finding frames to debug and profile by pausing or changing the playback speed of an application—from 1/8th speed to 6x speed—within the Performance Dashboard.
  
  
• Enhanced User Interface—Includes updated GUI elements, configurable graphs, and automatic graph scaling.

NVPerfHUD 4 supports Microsoft DirectX 9.0c and Windows XP on NVIDIA® GeForce® 7 Series GPUs, NVIDIA GeForce 6 Series GPUs and NVIDIA Quadro® FX or more recent GPUs; older GPUs are supported with reduced functionality.

The NVPerfHUD 4 performance analysis tool is currently available for download at http://developer.nvidia.com/NVPerfHUD and the NVPerfKit 2 suite of performance tools is available for download at http://developer.nvidia.com/NVPerfKit.

¹ In a recent survey, more than 100 NVPerfHUD 4 users reported an average performance speed improvement of 34.8% by using NVPerfHUD 4 to tune their applications. These users also reported that NVPerfHUD 4 helped them find an average of 11 rendering bugs during development. Results were obtained from individuals using a variety of system configurations and applications. Individual results may vary.

NVIDIA Corporation
NVIDIA Corporation is the worldwide leader in programmable graphics processor technologies. The Company creates innovative, industry-changing products for computing, consumer electronics, and mobile devices. NVIDIA is headquartered in Santa Clara, California and has offices throughout Asia, Europe, and the Americas. For more information, visit www.nvidia.com.

Certain statements in this press release including, but not limited to, the features, benefits, uses and performance of NVPerfHUD 4, the new enhancements to NVPerfHUD 4 and the role of NVPerfHUD 4 in the game development pipeline are forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause results to be materially different than expectations. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, software defects, changes in customer preferences or product uses, changes in software and game development, market adoption of a competitive technology, slower than anticipated adoption of new standards or technology, the impact of competitive products and pricing alternatives, changes in industry standards and interfaces and other risks detailed from time to time in the reports NVIDIA files with the Securities and Exchange Commission including its Form 10-Q for the period ended April 30, 2006. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date hereof. NVIDIA disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements.