I tried to find the information and the best I could find is this better than average discussion/podcast on the history of Nvidia.
They briefly touch on the chip emulation software that they felt they desperately needed to get back into the game after the NV1 was relegated.
The NV3 (Riva 128) was designed rapidly (six months) with the use of their what I called their super computer - a cluster of PCs or workstations most likely - running the proprietary chip emulation software. This advantage continued on further evolution of Nvidia hardware generations.
IIRC the chip emulation startup was started by a university friend of Jensen. The podcast says they failed later which is unfortunate.
https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/nvidia-the-gpu-company-1993...