Question Did anyone here actually get a Vanta back in the 90's?

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igor_kavinski

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Jul 27, 2020

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• Dec 29, 2024

• #1

https://www.reddit.com/r/retrocomputing/comments/1bsb80u/i_benchmark_and_overclocked_the_8mb_nvidia_vanta

44 years into my life and I'm just finding out that there was a Vanta. Must have been totally crap coz I never saw a review, an ad or even a box!

 

Tup3x

Golden Member

Dec 31, 2016

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• Dec 29, 2024

• #2

I'm pretty sure one of my friend had one (pre-built Compaq). I wondered why game ran so much worse than on my TNT 2 Pro.

 

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ToTTenTranz

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Feb 4, 2021

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• Dec 30, 2024

• #3

Tup3x said:

I'm pretty sure one of my friend had one (pre-built Compaq). I wondered why game ran so much worse than on my TNT 2 Pro.

Click to expand...

Because its memory bus was cut in half to 64bit vs the 128 on the TNT2 models and it used slower memory. Also, the chip was clocked quite a bit lower.

 

Tup3x

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Dec 31, 2016

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• Dec 30, 2024

• #4

ToTTenTranz said:

Because its memory bus was cut in half to 64bit vs the 128 on the TNT2 models and it used slower memory. Also, the chip was clocked quite a bit lower.

Click to expand...

Yea, I know. I did figure it out back then.

 

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jamesdsimone

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Dec 21, 2015

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• Jan 3, 2025

• #5

I remember that card. Nvidia had some gimped cards back then. I had the orginal TNT along with a pair of crossfired Voodoo 2 12mb cards. I tried to to upgrade to a TNT2 but my board did not support it. I ended up with a Radeon 8500 and have been using AMD cards ever since.

 

Last edited: Jan 3, 2025

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majord

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Jul 26, 2015

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• Jan 3, 2025

• #6

I bought one for a neighbours PC I put together , I had a normal TNT2 was shocked how much of a slideshow Quake III was when testing it. Lucky it wasn't a gaming PC

 

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GodisanAtheist

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Nov 16, 2006

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• Jan 3, 2025

• #7

My GeForce journey started with the very mediocre GeForce 2 MX200 circa 2001/2002-ish. I recall having a Creative Permedia Labs card prior to my Geforce, and a Trident before that...

 

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igor_kavinski

Lifer

Jul 27, 2020

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• Jan 3, 2025

• #8

GodisanAtheist said:

Trident

Click to expand...

I think that was the one that could ONLY display the rotating cube in dxdiag Direct3D test.

 

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DaaQ

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Dec 8, 2018

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• #9

Matrox Millenium here.

 

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MrTeal

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Dec 7, 2003

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• Jan 5, 2025

• #10

That's funny. I almost bought one at auction a few weeks ago with a dirty old P4 AGP motherboard, but at 15 canadian pesos it was more than I wanted to spend on a MB that looked like it needed a couple hours of recapping.

 

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Sunaiac

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Dec 17, 2014

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• Jan 5, 2025

• #11

Didn't have a vanta but I did have a M64 for some time in a secondary PC while the main one was on TNT+V2.
It was not awesome. Not crap either as long as you stayed reasonable with resolution. It was just a perfectly uninteresting card. It also vaccinated me from budget cards for ever. I think the lowest I ever got after in a stack was the 6870, and that's because I bought 2 to test crossfire.