Worst Video Card You Have Owned?

[Keeksy]

Hah, mine beats all of yours'! A $500 Picasso card. This POS couldn't even do 3D!!! What a wast of money! At the time Voodoos and Rage Pros were on the market. Leason: never buy a product because it costs more.

 

[BFG10K]

Well I never owned this card, but the ATi Rage IIc 2MB is the worst video card I have ever used. It was sooooo slow in 3D that it was quicker to run games in software mode than to use its "acceleration" features.

Also the image quality in 16 bit mode was appalling and it couldn't do 32 bit colour. Not that a lack of 32 bit colour mattered, since it would probably run at 0.5 FPS at that setting anyway.

 

[ChipNOW]

Tie between S3 Trio64D and Creative 3D Blaster Permedia. SOW, that had an old version of RAMBUS didn't it??

 

[Cerb]

Legion88...most of the cards listed, with the exception of the S3 Virge (JMHO ) were POS cards. I would say the worst CPU was not that in the tandy...got a color II in the closet here...the thing still works.

 

[DallasTejas]

Matrox Mystique - should have been called the Mistake

 

[brainyass]

A Jaton 32MB TNT2 PCI. Couldn't get it to work when I bought it and it is still a paperweight six months later. Any offers?

 

[Rankor]

It would have to be the vid card that came with my second system back in 1992.

(The system) was to replace the Gateway 2000 that got ripped-off from my college apartment one weekend. I remember it to be a Trident-based 1MB VLB bus-based PoS.

A quick second place goes to the Hercules Terminator 32 2MB VLB board based on the S3 Trio 32 chipset. It was to replace the Trident board 3 years later.

The supplied Hercules drivers didn't work squat. Had to revert to using Reference Drivers from S3.

That was the first time I've heard and utilized the term 'Reference' Drivers.

 

[RM1]

I've got a list actually.

1. Trident 9440 - ISA. Causes many General Protection Fault during the windows 3.11 days. The drivers were instable.

2. Diamond S3 Virge 4MB. 1.5 generation 3D card. Cannot do anything 3D for games. I never played a single 3D game with it.

3. ATI PC2TV Rage. Also the same story with #2. Thought it was an upgrade for 3D games from #2, but it was just a mere upgrade. However, I have to give the thumbs up for its MPEG playback. Best quality.

 

[Pocatello]

I had a Mystique, 2D display was much better than my S3 Virge, but 3d was a scam. Finally, I bought an Orchid Righteous 3D (a voodoo), that was a perfect combination for a while with the Mystake .

 

[Dean_Jen]

All Diamonds...

Edge 3D: forget it.

Viper: feel like I was bit by that!

Stealth3D: bad support. Originally this is supposed to take the hardware MPEG unit Diamond released. However, later on their release they said that due to INSUFFICIENT DEMAND that the driver would NOT be released. No wonder they're out of business.

 

[Kyle]

I'm with the s3 Virge crowd, but I put down the extra cash for the amazing 4meg memory add on...8meg Virge =) Still couldnt run much, and the sad thing is, I'm pretty sure my parents are still using it

 

[darrenford]

I don't buy many video cards, my current is a TNT VANTA of all things, but I have used enough to compile the following list.

Worst:
Every ATI card I have ever owned or used. They have been a consistent pain since 1990.

Why? In the Windows 3.0-3.1 days, the drivers caused random and frequent int13 breakpoints in code whenever Microsoft debuggers were running.

My last ATI card, a circa December 1999 Rage Mobility Pro, was immediately obsolete due to ATI's incredibly crappy driver update policy. If its not the latest greatest, you are out of luck. It doesn't matter if they are still selling the chipset.

Honorable mention: Diamond cards for the same driver update reasons.

Hats off to nVidia, I will NEVER EVER EVER buy any other brand thanks to their driver support. As a programmer who updates OSes faster than hardware, a video card that works no matter what machine or OS I throw at it is more important than faster frame rates.

 

[ChiefWiggum]

Mine would have to be the: Hercules Terminator 128 with 4MB- I paid $200 for that upgrade. It was otherwise known as: S3 Virge DX

Did not notice any difference in performance from my 2MB Trident 98xx; except when playing Descent II. And damn, when Descent II came with the board, the had to put the Virge updates on a floppy!

 

[Wallace]

The EvilKing 3 Voodoo3 from Powercolor.... It really sucks. It will freeze my system after a couple of minutes.

I ask them why and the answer was to update the Bios and resolder some resistor on the viodeo card...

What do you think about it??

Evilking sucks,
Wallace

 

[Brian23]

Western Digital Paradise Accelerator 24. It's an ISA card with 1 MB ram.

 

[Mem]

Worst card was probably Cirrus Logic 5428 1MB VLB I had for my ex 486DX-66 Computer it was probably the slowest card I ever had.

 

[NullyFresh]

Integrated S3 Virge... 3d de-celerator?

 

[hclarkjr]

S3 VIRGE 4 MEG paid $29 for it brand new.

 

[MetalCat]

Cirrus Logic 5434.....still got it, I threaten the new machines with it if they decide not to work

 

[cirrus1]

Cirrus Logic 5428. Vesalocal bus.

 

[hotrodder]

Not the worst just the biggest pain in the ass - rage fury maxx - i do love the black screen

 

[macssuck]

Rage pro fury VIVO, do they have win2k drivers that work yet?

Hercules 3D Prophet II, fuzzy bastard but the drivers worked

 

[Shack70]

An old STB ISA card with 512k and a trident chipset. I went thru 4 of these in a month. They kept freaking out after about a few days.

 

[sandorski]

I agree with Legion, most people are just naming the oldest card they had. How can one determine worst? Perhaps older cards lacked features, were slow, or couldn't do 3d, but were these cards designed for these purposes or were they worse than others of their generation? Personally, the definition of worst has to be based on which didn't do what they claimed to do. DX Virge certainly falls into that category, but many of the cards(chipsets) mentioned were very good at the time or at least did what they were designed to do admirably.

For me, it is a toss up between a CL TNT and the Diamond Viper2. The TNT was plagued with heat problems, while the Viper2 was simply cursed. The Viper2 never was able to have all it's advertised features enabled and the features that did work were beset with a multitude of graphical glitches. For this reason I proclaim the Viper2 as the worst card I ever owned.

 

[BFG10K]

I agree with Legion, most people are just naming the oldest card they had. How can one determine worst?

Well in my case the Voodoo1 (and Voodoo2?) were both out when the Rage IIc was out. The V1 (and V2?) was far superior to it in 3D.