Your Favorite vid card of ALL time List it!

[Yza]

Hands down the original VOODOO BAD BOY.Monter3d 4mg.

 

[weezer]

Matorx G400MAX, no doubt about it. Great videocard!

 

[gregulator]

Definitely my Orchid Righteous 3d. Going from pixelated doom at 320x200 to quake1 at 640x480 is the most amazing thing I have ever seen (well actually seeing 3 feet of fresh in lake tahoe last winter was the most amazing thing )

 

[JackG]

I've enjoyed my V3 2000 since April(?) of 99, so it's certainly been worth the $100! Still works purty smooth with Q3 TA, 'cept for the big maps.
I also have fond memories (am I a douche?) of my Real3D Starfighter AGP (Intel i740). I bought that one instead of a Voodoo1 'cus it looked better. I actually re-installed it last week when I completely pooch-screwed my V3 drivers, and it did ok! Even without its heat-sink, which I had commandeered for the upside of my V3.

 

[Oyeve]

We're just old semimaker.

 

[Oak]

VOODOO 1 - this is without question. If you think its one of the more recent cards, you either havent been around long enough to appreciate it, or you arent looking at the question correctly. Cards like the Geforce/V3 etc are indeed great cards, but its a matter of comparing it to what was available BEFORE its existance. Take the Geforce GTS, well, is it really that groundbreaking compared to the Geforce DDR? Nah, not really. Fast, but side by side, not really that big a deal, probably couldnt tell just looking at them... Now, look at what was available when the Voodoo was released... ATI rage?!?!? gimme a break. The one card that you can mention in the same breath it the first Matrox card that ran OpenGL, the Mystique (i think?) I guess it was out the door a week or two earlier, but never really took off, or was responsible for the 3D explosion. Voodoo2 was also the shiznit, but, again, was nothing too groundbreaking compared to the Voodoo1, just faster.

I still remember the first time a saw QuakeGL fired up, and I nearly wet myself, and there is NOTHING that has happened THAT IMPRESSIVE since, only steps...

IMHO

*EDIT - my bad, i was answering the age old 'what is the greatest card ever...' question. I always let those go and dont answer, and in my zeal, replaced 'favorite' with 'greatest'. Your favorite is your favorite, my answer is the 'greatest' !!!

Oak

 

[slpaulson]

Good old Canopus pure3d.

 

[klipschboy]

the good old banshee ruled

 

[Broadkipa]

Has to be my voodoo 2,I went from a Matrox Mystique to a voodoo2 and the differance was amazing. Quake2 looked great and I had joined the 3d world.

 

[JimmyJoe]

Diamond Monster 3D 4MB Voodoo1

This was the first REAL 3d card that I owned that allowed me to play 3d accelerated games. No upgrade since has come close to the experience of the first 3d card for me. Voodoo2 was great for better framerates. Then TNT for better image quality. Right now I have a CL Anni-Pro 32MB DDR GeForce 256 card that I love, had it for a 11 months and still don't need an upgrade yet.

 

[MulLa]

My first 3D card, the Dimond Viper V330 ^^ Hey it doesn't need a heatsink at all, guess that's pretty normal for those days. Still have it as a collector's item.

 

[gregshin]

cRaz hit the spot...Canopus pure3D, imagine a US version of an Ultra GF2

 

[ragiepew]

No doubt about it... original Voodoo baby! I had a Pure3d (6mb) and it was amaizing. I fired up quakegl and almost died... the most freakin awsome graphics of its time... hands down. It brought the PC graphics leaps and bounds abouve anything out there (psx n64 etc...). I too keep my old card around... somewhat sentimental... i bet it would still rock if i slapped it in... hrmmm i wonder what it would bench in UT... may have to try...

 

[mcgi6ah2]

Savage3D

Cost: £65 compared to over £120 for TNT, G200 or Banshee.

Overclocking: 130mhz for me (overclocked from 110mhz), 0.25micron compared to 0.30 for TNT and Banshee.

Performance: Fastest in D3D (especially at 130mhz). Fastest in Unreal until V3 came along. Second fastest in Q2 trailing the TNT by only a few fps using the MiniGL wrapper (MeTaL to OpenGL).

Visuals and Features: 32bit, S3TC, DXTC, MeTaL, DVD motion compensation, TV-Out as standard. SGRAM

Longevity: Its in my Dad's computer now (I'm with an GeforceMX), and runs Unreal Tournament and Q3A at an acceptable rate, it can do this because of its support for S3TC and MeTal which are utilised in both these games. There is no way a TNT or Banshee can manage to output anything like what the Savage3d can in either of these games now. The TNT was just a Q2 card.

Drivers: Probably the weak link in this, but at that time S3 did regular updates, in my experience I avoided problems with regular updates and just stuck with a BX board. Always was happy with it as a card.

 

[Celstar]

Fav card: whatever is availible 6 months from now

 

[Chad]

Voodoo 1 easy. It changed the industry. 3dfx pushed 3D onto the PC, and brought many console gamers to recognize the PC as a legitimate gaming machine. I have them to thank for my knowledge of computers, and thus ultimately for my current job as a database administrator/java programmer for a very large and well known company that really likes to pay me a lot.

Before the Voodoo 1, I never even had put one finger on one single key and didn't know how to turn a computer on.

Thanks 3dfx!

 

[Leo V]

Diamond Stealth S220 4MB 100MHz SGRAM based on Rendition Verite V2100. Bought in fall 1997 for $99 after rebate. Overclocked from 40/100 core-mem to 80/125. Superb 640x480 and 512x384 16-bit performance and quality. Supported true color and large textures too!

 

[Z24]

STB Velocity 128 AGP (nVidia Riva 128 chipset)

--The beginning of the end for 3dfx.

 

[KouklatheCat]

The CGA card on my 8088 was cool (several years ago0 but I did like my Monster 2 card, my first "real 3d card.

 

[AfterBurn]

Hmm.. lets see...
My history so far, fairly complete i'd say:

Trident ??? 512kb
Trident 8900 1mb
Tseng ET4000W32 1mb
S3 Virge
Matrox Millenium 4mb wram
Diamond Viper 330 4mb
Matrox G200 AGP 8mb
Leadtek TNT2 16mb
Matrox G400 MAX

My fav would be the G400; 2D speed as i was used to in the old days with the Millenium and G200, image quality thats still something others can only dream of, and 3D performance thats high enough for an occasional gamer like myself to play any game thats out there right now. Matrox rules! Now if only there will be a G800 soon....

 

[jimmt]

For the PC, Imagine 128. The 2D on this card was awesome. But, my favorite card of all time was when I upgraded my Amiga to the Firecracker 64, now that was 3D baby!

Jim

 

[jimmt]

For the PC, Imagine 128. The 2D on this card was awesome. But, my favorite card of all time was when I upgraded my Amiga to the Firecracker 64, now that was 3D baby!

Jim

 

[jsm]

I thought the Voodoo1 was pretty cool, but nothing could compare to my Voodoo 2. Oh my god - I had never seen a game as cool as Quake 2 until I saw it in hw rendering.

Now, I can only dream of what the NV30 or NV100 is going to be like.

 

[Midnight Rambler]

I'll second the Rendition nomination, and also the V2, although my first card was an Orchid V1, followed by the Intergraph Reactor (Rendition V1000).

There was a time when my rig of an 8MB Thriller (V2200) AGP + V2 SLI was the killer setup.

And I have stated here many times before, and still maintain, that the Rendition chipsets produced the best 3D image quality, not to mention they had hardware AA. I still use my Thriller for running Grand Prix Legends. No other card works/looks as good with this sim.

Finally, the V3 3000 deserves honorable mention. 2D second only to Matrox, and 32bit or not, this card was the best of its generation. In fact, it was the 'dis of the V3 that really broke 3dfx' back. If that chip had gotten the support it rightly deserved, and the OEM contracts followed, it would have been a whole different story for 3dfx. Certainly 3dfx dropped the ball with the V4/5, they are partly to blame. But the initial (and most fatal) blow to 3dfx was the general rejection of the V3 due to lack of 32 bit color, which at the time was not a critical feature by any means (maybe a 1/2 dozen games at most) yet people, and esp. the online gaming and reviews community, crucified 3dfx for it. Conveniently they overlooked the myriad of compatibility issues, power issues, texture handling issues (can you say Tribes or Unreal on an nVidia?), none of which 3dfx suffered from. Indeed, the V3 ruled, but only from exile ...

 

[peemo]

MAtrox Millenium II 8MB. Still have it in the closet just in case.

I replaced it with the Voodoo3 2000 PCI and got Quake. Oh man that was a day!