Thanks AC of NVmax. He has sent me an email letting me know of a Geforce4 Technology Preview he has written up after Nvidia removed the NDA agreement status disallowing such facts until today!
Here is a blurb: It"s over a year since NVIDIA announced its previous flagship model; the GeForce 3 - a product known throughout as the leading graphical accelerator in the world. In 3D terms the GeForce 3 was, and still is more advanced than most developers can handle. Not only did the GeForce 3 offer raw power but it allowed developers to explore creatitivity beyond anything previously thought possible, thanks to the nFiniteFX engine.
At the GeForce 3 launch many questioned how appropiate the product was. There was no denying that it was simply brilliant - but there was also no doubt denying that software supporting the GeForce 3 features was somewhat lacking. It took over a year for developers to catch up and in that time many stayed with the GeForce 2 and Ultra series. It was only with price reductions and the introduction of the GeForce 3 ti200 that many began to switch over.