You're correct on most points there. The Permedia was one of the earliest cards with OpenGL support and yes, there was a variant with an optional geometry chip, the Permedia NT. It pretty well does what it sounds like it would and offloads geometry calculations from the host CPU (much akin to the T&L capabilities of the GeForce 256). That said, image quality and memory management are horrible on these cards for 3D gaming. Textures will just drop out and there are artifacts galore. Additionally, the geometry engine isn't really much faster than a high end CPU of the era (again, much like the GeForce) so don't go out of your way to hunt down an NT. They are cheap and fun to tinker with though, just make sure your expectations aren't "a faster Rendition V1000".

DrAnthony wrote on 2025-05-22, 17:32:

You're correct on most points there. The Permedia was one of the earliest cards with OpenGL support and yes, there was a variant with an optional geometry chip, the Permedia NT. It pretty well does what it sounds like it would and offloads geometry calculations from the host CPU (much akin to the T&L capabilities of the GeForce 256). That said, image quality and memory management are horrible on these cards for 3D gaming. Textures will just drop out and there are artifacts galore. Additionally, the geometry engine isn't really much faster than a high end CPU of the era (again, much like the GeForce) so don't go out of your way to hunt down an NT. They are cheap and fun to tinker with though, just make sure your expectations aren't "a faster Rendition V1000".

ah thanks for the info. while the permedia is not so popular as the permedia2, cards with the glint delta chip seems more common than those without.