Cards I've owned: Jaton Trident Video-109 AGP 3D 9880 Blade 3d(
http://db.jaton.com/VGAProductDetail.aspx?P_ID=82107-P08MBA0 this thing)
, then a Geforce 4 MX 440-SE, then a Geforce 6800non-GT 128mb AGP, then I went to a 7800GT, and finally my Current X1900XT.
Of them, I loved these:
1. The X1900XT 512mb. Plays any game I have at 1600*1200 with at least 2xAA and lets me then go with 16xAF. Well, I liked it after I cleaned out the Nvidia drivers after the 7800GT. Before I was wishing I had the 7900GTX because of the stuttering, but after I used driver cleaner, the stuttering dramatically improved.
2. The Geforce 6800 128mb AGP. I loved it when I had it. Great performance from the Geforce MX 440SE. Could unlock to 16 pipes, but I would lock them back up for fear of destroying it(a fear I now see was unfounded). It was the first card that ever showed me what real gaming could be like. I did have buyer's remorse over not getting a 6800GT because I was on the Compusa site and it said something about hard drive power dongles and I went for the 6800(at newegg instead) because it said nothing about the dongles, which I found out too late were the connectors. Still was a great card, but stuttered quite a bit at 1024*768 on Far Cry with 2xaa and 4xAF, but then again, I had an Athlon XP 2600+(which was another case of buyer's remorse because I had heard of the Athlon 64s) and 512mb of ram(which probably was the cause of the stuttering).
Cards that I Liked a lot, but didn't totally love:
1. The Geforce 7800GT 256mb. This card was a great card and it would play all my games on high settings(It even played FEAR at 1600*1200 with 2xAA and 8xAF or 4xAA and 8xAF if I left all shadows off), and I really liked it. But it didn't offer the same performance boost that I had experienced from the MX440 to the 6800. It was probably also helped by the fact that I got an Athlon 64 3500+(which I will upgrade this Christmas to an X2 4200 or a 4600+ because I don't want to spend $600+ on a E6600 + mobo + 2 gigs of Kingston when I could grab a 4600+ and be done with it. Hope Buyer's remorse doesn't get me again.) and 2 gigs of ram, which helped Far Cry and Pacific Fighters(another game that stuttered HEAVILY, even more than Far Cry until I got the upgrade) tremendously. However, While I really liked the card, it cannot go into my all-time favorites. It's still in my closet as a backup for my X1900XT should I need it.
2. The Geforce 4 MX 440-SE. But the only reason I say I like it was because it was an upgrade from the Trident 9880 3d blade card that I really hated(I'll describe that later). It actually played my games unlike that 9880. However, it wouldn't run Vice City without stuttering, but I had this with a Duron 800MHZ and 256mb of ram(128mb of ram before March when I upgraded the amount of ram. Still a very good improvement over the Trident). I don't know what's to blame. It offered much better performance than the Trident 9880 3d blade and it was the biggest performance boost I'd ever seen, only rivaled by the 440-> 6800 upgrade. I really liked it at first, but once I found out it wasn't a real Geforce 4 and was a budget card and a re-named Geforce 2, basically, my opinion turned a bit sour on it. I spend days dreaming about upgrading my rig to a Pentium 4 2.0/2.4 ghz and grabbing 512mb of ram and a Radeon 9700Pro(I didn't know much about parts back then), but it looked too expensive and all the stores in my area only had FX 5200s/Radeon 9200s/9600SEs and other cards. A 512mb stick in my area at the time(2003-late 2004) went for $120+!
Didn't know about newegg at the time, but if I did and I knew that their service was good like it is, then maybe my video card history might have been different. Man, I spend DAYS dreaming about the speed of the 9700pro. I remember going from the local computer store in March of 2004 and dreaming of getting $400 to get a 9700pro(when newegg had it for $200 or so and the 6800s were coming out). I never did get the 9700pro I wanted, though. But then again, the Geforce 6800 was a nice substitute!
Now we get to the card that I really hated. The Trident 9880 3dblade.
I HATED THE TRIDENT 9880. The reason I hated it? It wouldn't run
ANY games I had decently and sometimes wouldn't run the games at all! Games would also crash to the desktop(Rogue Squadron 3d and B-17 Flying Fortress the mighty 8th), probably either due to the 9880 or because of Windows ME. I blame the 9880. Even simple games like Star Wars: Force Commander and Red Ace Squadron ran at a nice 1-2 frames a second at 640*480/800*600 resolution and low details. Red Ace Squadron was basically white ground with a little(and I mean little) color and was horrible on the card. Other games(and I'm talking 1998-1999 games) would have to be run in software mode in order to get a better framerate than 10FPS. Medal of Honor: Allied Assault gave me OpenGL subsystem errors on this card. I get angry even thinking about that card. I wish I still had it, because I would get a sledge hammer out. Thats how badly I hated this card. Makes even an FX5200 look great in comparison.:|