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the card that changed everything

Thats true, but I think the reason it gets mentioned is that a lot of people forget the 9700Pro, the 9700 pro was massively faster than people were expecting, whereas the 9800 Pro bought that performance to a majority affordable level. I remember getting mine for £150, and it really was an epic card a the time. I think that is why it gets mentioned, as the 9700 delivered the tech, the 9800 refined it and made it affordable.
 
Ahh the Vodoo1, those where the days, had one hooked up to the 4mb S3 Virge ;) Got a banshee after that. But yeah as some said CLAP (creative labs anihilator pro), first of the Geforce 256, what a card. Remember that costing me close to £400, got an absolute bollocking from my mum for spending that amount of money

Dunno if any of you guys remember when 3DMark was MadOnion and not changed to Futuremark. Was a guy DigitalJesus who broke 10k in 3DMark2000, using a Geforce256 GTS, this was when adding big arse ramsinks was unheard of, and linking a home air condenser to pipe cold air into the case, condensation forming on the outside. Moding the compressor to become colder, this is where modding for me started.

OpenGL and Voodoo was the change for me. Was so impressed at what that offered.
 
3DFX Voodoo is the only card that really made an impact.

The 3DFX Voodoo brought us the first API in the form of glide, that the software developers jumped on.

From that started to get decent 3d games.

Whilst cards such as the 9700Pro and the 8800GTX made big leaps in performance, it was only in terms of performance.
 
Alexrose1uk said:
Thats true, but I think the reason it gets mentioned is that a lot of people forget the 9700Pro, the 9700 pro was massively faster than people were expecting, whereas the 9800 Pro bought that performance to a majority affordable level. I remember getting mine for £150, and it really was an epic card a the time. I think that is why it gets mentioned, as the 9700 delivered the tech, the 9800 refined it and made it affordable.
Click to expand...

I agree, i remember the 'This week only' that OCers did on the 9800 Pro, a stonking fast card for the mass's, alongside my mobile Barton i had an uberfast and affordable OCers dream.

The 8800ghtx deserves a special mention, as does the GF3 series.
 
for me it was the geforce 4200 ti , as it was my first card that had Pixel shaders. i think 1.3 and 1.4 for vertex, and from then on got to see all the lovely per pixel lighting/shading etc.


for me it was a leap forward in image quality and game realism.
 
Officially ?

GF4 Ti4200 opened the way to unstoppable upgrading, once i had a taste I had to upgrade to every top mid range card at the least stopping at the 4870 at the mo.


Unofficially ?
 
I wasn't paying attention when the Voodoo 1 arrived, so I'll say the 9700Pro. Put a massive dent in the nVidia sales when it arrived, I'll wager.
 
3Dfx Voodoo 1 - Propper accelerated 3D graphics, hardware texture filtering, and coloured lighting.

GeForce 256 - Hardware TnL


Those are probably the two greatest leaps in GPU tech, everything after that has just been making it faster/more efficient.
 
3dfx Voodoo

It was the first proper 3d card. There were others before it, but none of them came out with the killer app GL_Quake.

Plus its API, now dead, was embraced by programmers and there were enough games to come out to justify buying one.

For those who wasnt there saying ATi or Nvidia changed PC gaming, you obviously wasnt there before 3dfx. Before, quake ran like a 3-legged dog. I had a choice, play full screen in 320x200 8bpp @ 15-20 FPS or play like a slideshow in 640x480 8bpp with the screen shrunk. Getting a 3dfx ment you instantly went from vga blockyness to svga smoothness.
Jaw dropping.

Ok, the IQ was crappy. But it was so fast.
 
For me it was going from TNT2 256 to 5900XT ok the 5900 was a middle range card but going from 10fps to 40 fps is a WOW factor for me.

Now it's just more Meh.... and tweaking I honestly don't think they can go further without ruining gameplay.
 
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