Your first dedicated GPU?

[snarfbot]

my first card was a diamond stealth s3 virge, it was marked down to like 60 dollars iirc, i think it was a return. anyway it wasnt even worth that much. it played descent pretty well though.

 

[TennesseeTony]

Wiki says: The term GPU was popularized by Nvidia in 1999, who marketed the GeForce 256 as "the world's first GPU", or Graphics Processing Unit.[2] It was presented as a "single-chip processor with integrated transform, lighting, triangle setup/clipping, and rendering engines".

But it has been fun recalling all the accelerators marketed previous to the GeForce 256, that all you have been mentioning. I had totally forgotten the 2D card/3D card setups.

 

[Ichinisan]

Creative Graphics Blaster
Garbage for games.

ATI All-In-Wonder 4MB
Garbage for games. At least it wasn't the 2MB version.

Diamond Monster Fusion Voodoo Banshee AGP
Unreal blew me away.
Motocross Madness
UltraHLE N64 emulation when it was still the current Nintendo console!

3DFX Voodoo3 3000 AGP
Got it at launch. Awesome for Quake 2 and 3.
Game bundle included Need for Speed III and something curious: They planned to include Unreal Tournament, but the game wasn't finished when the Voodoo3 launched. There was some kind of mail-in offer, but there was also an "Unreal Tournament" disc in the box. The disc would actually install first Unreal game. I believe it had a version of UnrealEd that was never released any other way.

GeForce 3
Doom 3 was delayed so many times, I never got to see this card try to handle it. It was a dream for Quake 3 and UT. I could max the settings for almost anything at the time.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

It was a Windows 95 machine that I got in early 96. Pretty sure it was either an early generation Stealth or a VooDoo1

 

[Ajay]

It was a Windows 95 machine that I got in early 96. Pretty sure it was either an early generation Stealth or a VooDoo1

Stop! I get uncontrollable urges to stabz me eyes out when I think of Windows 95

 

[Sonikku]

I was a console gamer all throughout the 90's because my mother did not nearly have the $2-3k that was necessary for a gaming PC. My first PC I used for actualy 3d games like for KOTOR was a 9600xt. Don't laugh, but I nearly bought a Nvidia FX 5200 because the box and card looked that phenomenal to me at the time. I knew NOTHING about gpu's other than I needed one for the PC I was gearing up to build. Thankfully ATOT set me straight.

 

[Genx87]

Dedicated card? Back then CPUs didnt have integrated video. So I had a Tseng 1000 on a VL-Bus running on my 486DX33. My first dedicated 3d GPU was a Voodoo 2 12MB. Still have it in a bin at my house. It blew me away playing Battlezone. Not only did the game look amazing compared to CPU rendering. It ran at 35-50 instead of 7-9 FPS.

 

[Qasar]

mine.. cant remember.. i think it was a 2 meg card made by cirrus logic... bought with my 1st comp back in 1994 i think it was.. Cyrix dx4-100...

better question.. any one still have some of their old hardware that they upgraded from ??

 

[Geforce man]

32mb geforce 256 DDR. The first 3d accelerator with hardware T&L. Made quake 3 look amazing compared to my buddies that had voodoo 3's. I still have the card! The stock cooler died, and its AGP and I have no agp cards, but I'm sure it would still work, they were so simple back then.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/429

 

[Stuka87]

ATI Rage Pro Turbo in '97 or '98. 6MB of glorious power. Shortly after I got a Voodoo 2 though.

 

[IEC]

3dfx voodoo banshee. With a whopping 16MB vRAM IIRC.

 

[richierich1212]

I vaguely remember I had a 3DFX Voodoo2 for the good old Quake 2.

 

[William Gaatjes]

GTIA & ANTIC for the Atari 600XL.

BIG FAT SUPER Agnus for the Amiga 600.

An S3 Virge for the PC.
But i could really start playing games on the pc like unreal tournament not earlier than after buying a KYRO II.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/a-speedy-tiler,314.html


I even installed a new cooler for it.

edit:
I forgot my N64 - gpu = RCP.

and MSX2 - VG9938

 

[gbeirn]

better question.. any one still have some of their old hardware that they upgraded from ??

This was mine, dug it out. Still has the 486 heatsinks I stuck on there too

 

[HumblePie]

Looks like a few other old farts in here.

First dedicated graphics card I had for a computer was a Mach64. Well maybe I should say my dad had in the computer I used

This is the list of all the graphics cards I've had over the years I think.

ATI Mach64 (2d)
ATI 3d Rage (2d with barely added on 3d)
S3 Virge (shit card for a back up system)
3d Rage Pro (skipped the Voodoo because they didn't have any at my local store back then)
Voodoo 1
Banshee
Voodoo 2 Obsidian (two voodoo2's on a single card)
S3 Savage
Voodoo 3 3500
TNT 2 Ultra
Geforce 256
Geforce 2 Pro
Geforce 3 Ti200
Radeon 9100
Geforce 4 Ti4800
Radeon 9800 XT
GeForce 6600 Ultra
Radeon X800 XT PE
Radeon X850 XT PE
GeForce 8800 GTX
GeForce 8800 Ultra
Radeon X1900 XTX
GeForce 9800 GTX



crap.. I forgot everything after after that as I am going through these lists and going through my buy/sale history here and on other sites as well as order history.

Suffice it to say I've owned a video card from most companies out of every generation since the mid 90s. I currently still own in my house the following cards...

Geforce 970
Geforce 1080
Radeon 290x
Radeon...???

I've slowed down though on all the constant upgrades, swapping parts, and just experimentation that I used to do. Not enough time since I am no longer young, single, and childless.

 

[imported_bman]

Looking back I wish I would have kept my cards, I had some of the classics: Geforce 256 (SDR though ), Radeon 9700 Pro, 8800GT, HD 4870

 

[HumblePie]

Looking back I wish I would have kept my cards, I had some of the classics: Geforce 256 (SDR though ), Radeon 9700 Pro, 8800GT, HD 4870

I have some of them stuffed in boxes in a closet. Some might even still work.

 

[DooKey]

Voodoo 1

 

[Thebobo]

Matrox G200 - Shame they left the consumer market.

 

[manly]

if you dont count cga/ega/vga (doom/wing commander 2) it was my voodoo2 on glquake.

Seems like the OP isn't aware discrete graphics preceded integrated graphics. I think most in this thread are interpreting the question as what was the first 3D hardware accelerated graphics card you ever had. There was great PC gaming before that, but graphics was not yet hardware accelerated (in the mid 90s, I think display cards did some 2D accel for Windows primitives but that didn't help with gaming).

Wow, can't believe it was over 20 years ago already for my 3dfx Voodoo card. I still have that PC, can't remember what the 2D display card is.

 

[buklau]

Diamond 4MB Voodoo 1

 

[ElFenix]

i think i played master of orion on this:

http://lowendmac.com/1987/macintosh-ii-video-card/

 

[Blue_Max]

Stop! I get uncontrollable urges to stabz me eyes out when I think of Windows 95

That out of the way, I remember having high hopes for my S3 Virge card way back when... it did nothing. I held off while a few friends joined the 3Dfx bandwagon and went to the store to get the very first Voodoo2! They sold my held order though...
At least I came home with the best of all Voodoo 1's... the Canopus Pure3D with double the texture memory.

Gawd, Unreal and Wing Commander Prophecy looked so dang amazing! <3

 

[Fallen Kell]

Well, my first dedicated 3D graphics card was a 3dfx Voodoo 1. Everything prior to that was integrated into motherboards (and was essentially 2D), and thus not dedicated.

 

[HumblePie]

Well, my first dedicated 3D graphics card was a 3dfx Voodoo 1. Everything prior to that was integrated into motherboards (and was essentially 2D), and thus not dedicated.

Are you sure? a lot of pre-built computers even then used a dedicated 2d card.