Check-out this neat Video Card History article.

[Killrose]

Found this link while browsing at the Rage3d forums. Neat History of 3d graphics cards with pics and other info.

Here

 

[Corporate Thug]

cool, learned a few things

 

[JonnyBlaze]

made me miss my vesa local bus video card.. yeah right.

cards have come a long way.

i used to have a hercules monochrome card and i used to have to use a program called cgaemu to emulate cga graphics.

that was great, 4 shades of green!

JB

 

[Schadenfroh]

i rember reading this a while back

reminds me of how i mis 3dfx
/looks over at voodoo5 shrine

btw, according to the chart, matrox had the first 3d card?

 

[JonnyBlaze]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
i rember reading this a while back

reminds me of how i mis 3dfx

yeah. i hated the switch from 3dfx to nvidia.

i loved my voodoo's

JB

 

[Killrose]

Thank God we don't live in the Video card dark ages anymore, be interesting to see what the next couple of years bring to the market.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: shady06
cool, learned a few things

Same here; this is the first I heard about Intel's i752. I thought they had pulled out after the i740.

 

[bluemax]

Originally posted by: JonnyBlaze
made me miss my vesa local bus video card.. yeah right.
i used to have a hercules monochrome card and i used to have to use a program called cgaemu to emulate cga graphics.
that was great, 4 shades of green!

Hey, when I moved from ISA to VLB, the difference was HUGE! :Q

But back in the XT days, I was fortunate to have a Tandy 1000 with its almost-EGA 320x200x16 colours and 3-voice sound while all my friends had hercules mono (yellow or green) or CGA.
Then I was an early adopter of the Adlib card....

People came to MY house to see what their games SHOULD look/sound like.

 

[yhelothar]

yeah i read this a while back.. very informative article...
although it's a bit on the biased side..

 

[bluemax]

Originally posted by: virtualgames0
yeah i read this a while back.. very informative article...
although it's a bit on the biased side..

Biased towards what?? :Q

 

[Killrose]

Originally posted by: bluemax

People came to MY house to see what their games SHOULD look/sound like.

I bet they were totally in awe too, LOL!

 

[JonnyBlaze]

Originally posted by: bluemax

Originally posted by: JonnyBlaze
made me miss my vesa local bus video card.. yeah right.
i used to have a hercules monochrome card and i used to have to use a program called cgaemu to emulate cga graphics.
that was great, 4 shades of green!

Hey, when I moved from ISA to VLB, the difference was HUGE! :Q

But back in the XT days, I was fortunate to have a Tandy 1000 with its almost-EGA 320x200x16 colours and 3-voice sound while all my friends had hercules mono (yellow or green) or CGA.
Then I was an early adopter of the Adlib card....

People came to MY house to see what their games SHOULD look/sound like.

the adlib was too much for me then. i think i was 9 or 10 maybe. i got a game blaster tho! (the card before the sound blasters)

i remember being pissed realizing that it didnt add sound to EVERYTHING! here i was thinking my wheel of fortune was gonna sound better.

JB

 

[T9D]

..

 

[bluemax]

Originally posted by: Killrose

Originally posted by: bluemax

People came to MY house to see what their games SHOULD look/sound like.

I bet they were totally in awe too, LOL!

In those days, you bet they were! You should have seen jaws drop when I borrowed my school's Roland MT-32 and showed the gang what those Sierra games sounded like! Just when you thought Adlib was the best thing going and one or two even went out and bought one.... hee hee.

 

[bluemax]

Originally posted by: JonnyBlaze

Originally posted by: bluemax

Originally posted by: JonnyBlaze
made me miss my vesa local bus video card.. yeah right.
i used to have a hercules monochrome card and i used to have to use a program called cgaemu to emulate cga graphics.
that was great, 4 shades of green!

But back in the XT days, I was fortunate to have a Tandy 1000 with its almost-EGA 320x200x16 colours and 3-voice sound while all my friends had hercules mono (yellow or green) or CGA.
Then I was an early adopter of the Adlib card....
People came to MY house to see what their games SHOULD look/sound like.

the adlib was too much for me then. i think i was 9 or 10 maybe. i got a game blaster tho! (the card before the sound blasters)
i remember being pissed realizing that it didnt add sound to EVERYTHING! here i was thinking my wheel of fortune was gonna sound better. JB

The AdLib was around for about three years before any games started supporting it... the Game Blaster was even later than that... oh man it sucked. I ran out and bought the very first Sound Blaster (I remember the white papers, code named "killer card") and it had all the Game Blaster support as well. 12 PC speakers in stereo... yecch! :Q :disgust:
I returned the card for a 20% restocking fee... I should have kept it because I wound up experiencing the woes of the "we wish we were a SoundBlaster" clone cards later.... Only a genuine SB card would give you the digital sounds in games like Prince of Persia.

But Game Blaster.... I can't believe Creative Labs thought it was as good as "all that". So much that they kept Game Blaster support on their cards right up to certain versions of the SB Pro...

Mind you, I still remember a salesman and others talking about it in front of a demo game...
"Why are you running that SB in Game Blaster mode instead of AdLib?"
"It sounds better."
"Are you KIDDING? It's nothing but square waves like the PC speaker, only more of them! The AdLib actually tries to sound like different instruments..."
"But the Game Blaster is STEREO!"
[siiiiighhhhh]

This was about video right? Uhhhhh... yeah. I remember my first VGA games... 688 Attack Sub was my first exposure to 256 colours. It had a great musical intro too... if you had an Adlib card. Of course, I would ususally forego the AdLib intro to get the Tandy 1000 much improved sound effects throughout the game. Night and day difference.

 

[Def]

Video cards are CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP now compared to how they used to be! While they might not improve 200% every generation, you can still play any game out with a 2 year old card. Maybe not at high detail settings, but at reasonable ones just fine.

Back in '96-'97, if you didn't have the latest card you had to basically play new games at 320x240 with crappy settings. Then the new cards were ALL over $300 for anything decent.

I think two Voodoo2's in SLI were around $700-800 total right, something ridiculous like that. I just know I couldn't have afforded two of them for gaming!

 

[Killrose]

Def, I agree, I remember paying abot $53 for a 2mb add-on chip for my Matrox Mystique 2mb pci card. What a waste that was. You can buy used GF3's for that now.