Post your 3D video card history

[Killrose]

1997: New Quantex computer with Matrox 2mb Mystique.
1997: 2mb Add on for a total of 4mb on my Matrox.
1998: 4mb Matrox M3d daughter card
1999: 16mb Diamond TNT card replaces Matrox devices.
2000: 32mb GeForce SDR (Gullemot)
2000: 32mb GeForce DDR (Leadtek)
2000: 16mb VooDoo3 2000
2000: 32mb Asus 6800 pure (still have)
2001: 32mb Ati Radeon DDR (currently in use)
Every card from the SDR GeForce on have been used cards bought off these very Forums (used)
Thanks Everyone!!

 

[VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVI]

Orchid Righteous 3D (Voodoo 1)
Paired with a Hercules Tseng ET6000 card with 2.25mb Multi-bank DRAM. Preordered the Orchid card online for a small fortune as soon as they started offering it. I can't remember what my motivation was, but I somehow knew the Voodoo 1 was going to be a big deal The Voodoo 1 lasted me a looong time. I wanted to get a Voodoo2 but never did for some reason.

Diamond Viper V770 (Nvidia TNT2)
Finally after having the Voodoo1 FOREVER, I upgraded my entire system to include a 19" monitor. I was in heaven after suffering with 15" and Voodoo1. Only reason I bought the TNT2 was it was on sale at Buy.com for $115 (very cheap considering the chip was brand new). Otherwise I would have gotten the Voodoo3. I'm glad I got the TNT2. Fantastic card.

ATI Radeon LE
Can you beat this deal?? I bought it in December, before anyone knew it was underclocked and with hyper-z disabled. I was pretty pissed when I found out, but not as pissed as I would have been if oldfart had not posted the hacks. Since then I've been smitten with the card. Very fast and visual quality is outstanding.

Next card? No way am I ever going to spend more than $150 on a video card. It's just not worth it.

 

[oldfart]

I wonder how many LE owners there are who have no idea that they bought one, and don't know that they can increase the performance so much without spending a dime?

 

[Winterkill]

Intergraph Reactor 3D Rendition Verite 1000 (yup, one of the first 3D cards)
Diamond Monster3D I 4 MB w/Matrox G200
Diamond Monster3D II 12MB w/Matrox G200
Diamond V770 Ultra 32MB(Nvidia TNT2 Ultra)
Currently have a Inno3D GeForce2 GTS 32mb

Too bad that Rendition could not get their heads out of their behinds. It was an excellent piece of hardware that was dogged by idiot marketing and bad drivers.

 

[NocturnalChild]

Here's my small list:

1996: 1MB Video memory on a Mac Performa 6320: I could play unaccelerated Quake on it.

2000: VistionTek 32MB Geforce2 GTS: Had this for all of one weekend. Bad PS fried it along with the mobo.

2000: Creative Labs Annihilator(sp?) 2 32MB Geforce 2 GTS: Been using it since Thanksgiving. Great for Half-Life/CS, UT, and Madden 2001.

 

[Iceword]

EGA card, 16 colors
Those were the days, when everyone else was on CGA 4 colors...

Cirrus Logic VGA 1MB
Where is Cirrus Logic now?

ATi Expression mach64 2MB
I wanted 1024x768x16bit, back on a 15 inch non-interlaced mon, when everyone was running 640x480x8bit... so there I was.

Matrox Millennium 4MB
The best 2D card I've seen, rivalled only by the G400 I had afterwards.

Diamond Monster 3D Voodoo 1 4MB
My first taste on 3D. Completely blown away in GLQuake and Tomb Raider. Gaming is never the same on my P133. My most satisfied card of all time.

Diamond Monster 3D II Voodoo 2 12MB
800x600x16bit finally.

Creative Labs Graphics Blaster TNT 16MB
Went to a Celeron 300@450 and I wanted something AGP. First taste of 32bit, very very bad 2D when compared to my Matrox. Can't stand it so I switch for a....

ATi Rage Fury 32MB
I was very happy with this card. Crisp 2D, and 3D on par with TNT. The DVD playback on this thing was superb, even better than anything else I had afterwards.

Matrox Millennium G400 Max 32MB
I wanted something faster on 1024x768x32bit, and environmental bump mapping looked really good. I was also very happy with it. The 2D was superb, but I missed DVD playback.

Hercules 3D Prophet II GeForce 2 GTS 64MB
Went to Athlon, and I wanted something faster than what I had, and nVidia seemed to be the only choice. So I kinda gambled on a Hercules card to see how bad the 2D was, and I was quite happy with it.

 

[rickn]

I have owned

EGA graphics adapter
Some no-name Trident with 512k
Tseng Labs ET-3000 with 1mb
Diamond ET-4000 W32p based card
#9 Vision 968 based card
ATI Rage Pro 4mb
Diamond Monster 3d with 4mb
ATI Xpert 128
Diamond Monster 3d II
Matrox G400
CL Geforce DDR 32mb
Leadtek Geforce DDR 64mb
ATI Radeon 64mb

I also tried cirrus logic and 1 Rendition card from Hercules

I also remembered I still have the Hercules Dynamite 128 in my Linux box

 

[BFG10K]

Cards I've Owned
S3 Virge 4 MB (2D only).
3dfx Voodoo 3 2000 PCI.
nVidia GF2 MX.

Cards I've Tested
ATi Rage IIc.
ATi Rage Pro.
ATi Rage 128.
ATi Rage 128 PRO.
ATi Rage Fury MAXX.

3dfx Voodoo 1.
3dfx Voodoo 2.
3dfx Voodoo 5 5500.

nVidia TNT2 M64.
nVidia TNT2.
GeForce DDR.

Matrox G200.

 

[pen^2]

some integrated junk in apple-II clone
some integrated junk in a XT i picked up at a dumpster
S3 90863 *i think*
ET6000 by Jazz multimedia (lols)
monster3d
starfighter i740 12mb
hercules tnt1
monster3d II
wicked 3d (SLI)
ATI rageII-c
voodoo3 3k
g400 millenium 32mb
trident TGUI9440 (!)
radeon 32ddr

 

[RoboTECH]

3d accelerator cards I've owned in home systems (kids and wifey included, laptops NOT included)

ET6000 + Voodoo1 Diamond Monster (GLQUAKE BABEEYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!)
Diamond Viper 330 (nvidia riva 128)
Creative Labs Riva TNT1 Blaster
ATi Rage Pro + Creative Labs Voodoo2 Blaster 12MB SLI
V3-2000
Creative TNT2 Ultra
V3-3000
V3-3500
V5-5500
Creative TNT2 M64
Guillemot Prophet 32MB GTS
Creative Labs OEM 64MB GTS (o/c'ed to GTS Pro levels)

essentially, I've owned every voodoo and nvidia card since the beginning of 3d gaming, aside from the GeForce1 series (TNT2 Ultra did the trick for quite some time!)
christ almighty pidge, and i thought I changed hardware frequently!!!

 

[pidge]

Damn. Now I feel like I have wasted to much money on video cards over the years.

 

[RoboTECH]

bah

did you enjoy yourself?

if so, then screw it. Upgrading is fun.

 

[han888]

8mb permedia 2
12mb voodoo2
16mb diamond stealth (savage pro chipset )
32mb tnt2 m64
32mb Maxtrox G400 Single head
32mb asus v6600
32mb asus v7100
32mb asus v7700 <== currently still have this card
64mb voodoo5 5500 <=== currently still have this card

 

[Noriaki]

I had a Sis Trio V32+ or something like that...though that's not really a 3D card. That got replaced by an ATi RageIIc, later.

Dimaond Voodoo1 was my first 3D card, in July of 98.
Voodoo3 was my 2nd in August of 99.
Then I got a Radeon 64MB Vivo in October of 2000, which was the absolute worst money I've ever spent. Fortuntely I sold it off and got most of my money back. Using my V3 still.
Upgrading to a V5-5500 soon.

 

[dr0p0ut]

tnt system 1 (mine)
did not know about anandtech at the time, pay full retail 200 for
this card while v3 was around the conner

v3 system 2 (brother's pc)
valueamerica help me keep price low. and he still use this card

v2 sli ( system 1 )
not happy with unreal running in tnt, bought v2 12mb sli. talk about
speed improvement

tnt2 ( system 1 )
gone crazy thinking tnt2 might be better then v2 sli. end up keeping
v2 sli in the system because of glide game

diamond s4 pci
got it when OD offer this card for 40.00. was going to use this card
for dual monitor. but never can get the card to work right.

voodoo5 5500(system 1)
use this card to replace tnt2 + v2 sli. my glide game is happy
i only play rune, UT, unreal, tribe. will keep this until driver
is really rally dead.

will be looking for another v5 to replace my brother's pc.

wow thats a lot of video card.. hehe

dr0p0ut

 

[Hawk]

Naw, if you do it just right, you don't waste too much money.

IE: go back to my list...I bought my Fury for 140 shipped new, with a 30 dollar rebate...sold it a year and some old months later, got 110 (well, probably 105) for it, and bought the Viper II for around 115 after rebate...so not too bad. =)

Then again, all these new video cards cost a lot, so I don't know if I can keep that going...

 

[Tates]

1) S3 Virge DX
2) Diamond Monster 3D
3) Canopus Pure 3D
4) Diamond Stealth II S220
5) Canopus Pure 3DII
6) Voodoo3 3000
7) Voodoo5 5500
8) CL Annihilator2 Ultra

 

[DaveJ]

Diamond Speedstar VGA (1MB)
Trident 9440 (1MB, upgraded to 2MB)
Diamond Viper 330 (4MB)
Matrox Mystique (4MB)
Matrox G200 (8MB)
Matrox Marvel G200 (8MB)
Matrox Marvel G400 (16MB)

Dave

 

[flood]

Diamond Speedstar VGA (1MB)
S3 ViRGE (3d? haha!)
Monster 3D (voodoo power!)
CL TNT
Geforce 2 MX

 

[PieDerro]

Some 1MB Integrated crapola
2MB Diamond Stealth
2MB Matrox Mystique
4MB Nvidia Riva 128
4MB Diamond Monster 3D
8MB Diamond Monster 3DII
32MB Nvidia TNT2
32MB ATI Radeon LE
32MB Nvidia Geforce 2 GTS

 

[RM1]

Well, I have to start with a S3 Virge....

1.) Diamond Virge (lowest and crappiest Virge chipset, the first Virge that is suppose to do 3D). Only ran benchmarks with it. Never ran a game (3D) with it.

2. ATI PC2TV. Thought it can do better 3D than above. Guess it was a lie I fell for from ATI's advertising.

3. Creative Labs Voodoo2. Now this is real 3D card! Used it until December 2000. Purchased in September 97. Glide has been good.

4. Elsa Permedia 2 (Office Winner 2000). Suppose to be a 3D card, but with poor and lousy image performance. Great for OpenGL for CAD stuff but poor for texturing.

5. Asus GeForce2 32DDR. Wonderful! Unreal Tour. don't look as good as Glide, but the speed is awesome.

Will not get another 3D card unit 2 more generations of 3D cards comes and goes.

 

[vss1980]

ET6000 + PowerVR1 PCX2
Yeah, first of the tile-renderers. Not amazing looking back but faster than a lot of the crap around at the time. Definitely faster than the next card.... (plus PowerSGL looked damned good, fogging and smoke effects rocked)

SiS 6326
What can I say about this.... erm, its hard to think of anything the language filter would allow. This was an interim card that I used for a couple of weeks while I waited for the next one. In all honesty the SiS cards do have a good feature set for their time, but speed is not there.

S3 Savage3D
2 years ago, this was pretty good (especially considering it cost me only around $30). I knew it wasn't amazingly fast, but for that money you could have got a cheap ATI Rage Pro which is slower and has worse graphics quality or an Intel i740 card, hmmm. Also, you learn a few things when you use S3 cards, the value of tweaked drivers...

ELSA Erazor III Pro (nVidia TNT2 Pro)
I'm still using this right now. TNT2 Pro chip (which is 0.22um core size process compared to normal TNT2's) overclocks great and runs way past TNT2 Ultra levels current stable overclock is 175MHz core 200MHz memory (default is 143, 166)

Next card.... (Oh the possibilities)
GF2 MX, or maybe when the prices drop due to the GF3 coming out, a GF2 Pro.

 

[NicColt]

Amber monitor
to old to remember what it was. But it was an IBM 4mgz 1981 remember. Jeez some of your weren't even born yet.

Integrated ATI mach32
Yea that was a killer.

Voodoo II
I said that I won't need to upgrade for 10 years now.

Asus V3800 DLX
eh yea, at least IT HAD VIDEO FOR WINDOWS WDM DRIVERS.

All-in-Blunder Radeon 32MB DDR
The poor man's video capture bundle. The &quot;core&quot; drivers are still based on the Rage128. God help us.

 

[airfoil]

Cant remember that far back, but this is what I can put down:

1. SiS 6215 PCI, 2 MB.
2. SiS 6326 AGP, 4 MB.
3. SiS 6326 AGP, 8 MB.
4. Guillemot Banshee something, 16 MB.
5. Creative TNT 32 MB.
6. GEForce2 MX 32 MB.

 

[bluemax]

* Tandy 1000 16-colour. With my graphics and extra sound, I was the envy of all my friends during the CGA-days!
* A variety of 2D cards from my 386/486/Cyrix P120+/K6 days - ranging from 256k Oak VGA to 2MB Cirrus Logic ISA/VLB!!/PCI (Oh Wing Commander 3 was so much better with my 1st VLB video card!!)
* I upgraded to Win95 and got an s3 Virge (3D I thought...) for one game: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter. The game was disappointing, and so was the S3 virge, although it was solid 2D.
* 3D fever began! I spent $300 and got a Diamond Viper (Riva 128) and while it was fast, the 3D quality SUCKED! Demos like Final Reality looked like a faster version of software rendering! Returned it for:
* Diamond Stealth II which was almost as fast, looked nicer, but for some reason didn't like my monitor and was SUPER, SUPER FUZZY. (Way beyond any of my nVidia 2D rants!) Returned it as defective and went back to the Virge until:
* Chris Stellwag of Real3D sent me a promotional kit (t-shirt, info pamphlets, and 8MB AGP i740 &quot;Starfighter&quot; card!) That was one nice card! I went back to the Starfighter a while ago since it's far better than my current &quot;crutch&quot; card, and sharp 2D, vibrant colour!
* Wanted a Voodoo2 while they were brand new... they'd run out and only had 6MB Canopus Pure3D's. Very, very nice though.... Bought one.
* Creative Labs Banshee when I finally outgrew that Starfighter. Traded my Starfighter + Pure3D for it... It wasn't much improvement in speed at all, but it did include Glide for a number of titles, including Unreal.
* Traded Banshee for CL TNT1. Doubled the speed of the Banshee. I loved it. This card lasted longer than my Virge!
* Sold TNT dor decent price and went to a $10 4MB Cirrus Logic AGP card as a crutch. I'm on it now.... yecch!
* Tried out a Voodoo3, but it wasn't much of a speed boost,
* traded up to a 3500 for VIVO stuff since I don't have a TV. Very nice card.
* sold 3500 for more than I paid for it, moved to ASUS V7100MX. 2D **SUCKED!** even compared to my Cirrus Logic Crutch, &quot;Ol' Crusty&quot;.
* Returned v7100mx for ELSA Geforce DDR which was awesome!
* Sold Geforce DDR at a loss to goggleax on here when I thought getting rid of all gaming accessories was required. I'm still waiting for the insuance claim on the destroyed package...
* Went back to ASUS 3400TNT VIVO, which has surprisingly good 2D! Maybe I was getting too used to &quot;Ol' Crusty&quot; again and it only looked good in comparison.
* Sold 3400TNT for what I paid for it and found the group deal on the Voodoo5 which I've really wanted for a long time... I'll have good 2D and plenty enough 3D for my Cel450A to handle. (Free 4x FSAA since I won't be maxing the card by a long shot...)
Good thing I finished up that group buy before the mods locked it!

I'm a Voodoo man now. After the number of cards I've gone through in the last year alone, I BETTER DARN WELL BE SATISFIED! I'm done for a year. Good thing that through some skillful trading, none of these cards really cost me very much....