Your very own first Video Card, post here!

[Red Squirrel]

ATI Radeon 7000 64MB! (I think it was 7000)

I remember I was in high school and my friend had bought a 32MB one and we were totally amazed at the graphics of Serious Sam now that he had a card that could handle it. Then maybe a week later I went and bought the 64MB which was the next generation of his and he was like "Damn you!"

 

[VirtualLarry]

Does a full-length 8-bit ISA Hercules monographics card count? High-res (compared to CGA) for the win!

Edit: I think mine was a clone though, not a real branded Hercules card. It worked with Herc drivers.

 

[SpeedTester]

I purchased a full Length ISA monochrome card back in 1990 (believe it was a trident 8900). I remember playing f119 on my friends Packard Bell a year or so later with CGA graphics and was in awww.

 

[geek33]

my first video card was an ISA card Cirrus logic 512KB VESA

 

[ronnn]

rookies.

oem trident 1mb vga

I could play price of persia with that

 

[MagickMan]

Original Hercules ISA card

 

[nOOky]

Matrox Mystique 4mb. Yes it had sgram baby, that and a P200MMX and Duke Nukem was rockin'

 

[zerocool84]

Post your very first Video Card that you personally bought back in the day, no on-board graphics qualify.

My first card as an enthusiast was a Creative Labs Voodoo 12MB 3D Blaster Banshee PCi . Cost me a fortune back then, but a months later they released the Riva TNT series which made my purchase worthless....

HA I bought the same card.

 

[ExcaliburMM]

GeForce 2 Ti -> Geforce 4 MX -> 9300LE -> 6800 Vanilla -> 8600GT 512mb DDR3 -> 4870 1GB.

 

[Bateluer]

First video card I bought? Some POS Trident 4MB card. First real video card? A Voodoo 3 2000.

 

[AdamK47]

Creative Labs 3D Blaster with the Rendition Verite v1000

 

[BTA]

Hercules Monochrome represent.

Then it went as follows:

random CGI card > random EGA card > random VGA card (trident I think) > Diamond 3D Decelerator > Rendition Verite > Cirrus Logic based 2D + Voodoo2 > Matrox G100 + Voodoo2 SLI > Riva TNT + SLI > Voodoo 3 3000 > Gainward nvidia something....etc etc etc.

I Think my Matrox G100 + SLI setup was my favorite

 

[Jesusthewererabbit]

3850 at launch. My family was waaaaay too broke when I was a kid for a computer, and I was too broke until I got a real job to spend money on a video card.

 

[hkklife]

The first "modern" PC I had where I can recall paying attention to what kind of dedicated graphics capabilities it had was a Gateway 486X2-66 in early '93. It had a Cirrus Logic (or perhaps Trident) 1mb VESA Local Bus card. I just remember being jazzed it could output 1024x768!

Historical note: I almost upgrade that machine to the rare Creative Labs 3D0 Blaster add-in (and a year or so later, the Nvidia NV1--Diamond Edge something or another?) but decide to wait for an integrated solution, which came in the form of the original 4mb WRAM Matrox Millennium on a Pentium Pro 200. I was pretty jazzed about 3D acceleration at the time (mid-1996) but the only games I recall ever being supported by that card were Hyperblade, that Nascar racing game from Papyrus and one of the Mechwarrior titles. I finally was able to play GLQuake with a Matrox M3D add-in PowerVR card in '97 but I quickly moved on to a Voodoo1 4mb.

Ah, the memories...

 

[palladium]

FX5200 PCI to 'upgrade' from GMA900, then after 2.5 years of saving as a student, the current GTX280. Planning for a single card, dual chip upgrade this X'mas, along with a SSD and Windows 7.

 

[PUN]

ATI Xpert 98 8MB PCI, and ATI Rage Fury MAXX 64MB shorty afterward.

[imglink]http://www.paranormal-entertainment.com/idr/blog/images/Rage_Fury_MAXX.small.jpg[/imglink]

Me too!
I bought the ATI Rage Fury Maxx from someone on AT. It was a nice card back then....I still remember running "Omnikron"

 

[TheMeanestGuest]

A 12 MB Voodoo 2... I can't remember specifically who by, I think I still have that computer around somewhere, I'll have to check tomorrow.

 

[Tsavo]

The name Cirrus Logic brings back bad memories.

 

[kreacher]

Geforce4 Ti 4200 or if it counts the S3 Trio64.

 

[sandorski]

ATI Graphics Solution(IIRC)--CGA GRaphics on a TTL Monochrome Monitor. It was the shit!

 

[quadomatic]

Well, my cousin got my a Nvidia Riva TNT2 32MB AGP card when I was 9. Damn, that tore Rayman 2 up! (unfortunately, at that age I was not terribly aware of games like Half-Life) Then my brother and I (sort of) were responsible for a few video cards over the years - GeForce 2 MX 400, Radeon 9200SE, Radeon 9800Pro, Radeon X850 Pro.

The first card I was wholly responsible for was a 9600GSO that I picked up in the Fall of 08, and unfortunately my current 9800GT isn't THAT much faster than that was (it overclocked like a beast). I'd still have it if I hadn't torn the legs of a chip and some traces off the pcb in a failed attempt to do a volt mod.

 

[ViRGE]

S3 virge with 4mb of memory

You have good taste.

 

[Schmide]

The first card I replaced on my own was a FastWrite VGA (Video Seven?), it replaced a Hercules Graphics Card that was standard on my 386dx20. Although I spent quite a bit, I was really happy as my college roommate cheeped out and got an EGA card.

 

[sandorski]

You have good taste.

Your problem isn't one of Short Memory, but one of Lack of Memory.

 

[x3sphere]

TNT2, now I have a 5970. Amazing how far technology has come.