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the card that changed everything

9800 was just a 9700 wasn't it. I remember because I had to buy one as they stopped making the 9700s which were actually faster I think!


Also had a Geforce4 TI4200 which wasn't the best but bang for buck was amazing. £120 or so and it was the same chip as the top end card I think, simply de clocked. Sweet for overclocking.

8800GTX was obviously a nice leap, missed out on it :(, I had a 7900GTX and then a 8800GT. Doh.
 
The nvidia 5 series was fast in older games dx7, etc. probably faster than the ATI 9 series in most cases... but in newer DX8 and higher games it was often only half the performance of the equivalent 9 series card...

The 9800/9700 went on to match the 6600GT in resolutions under 1280x with driver updates.
 
The FX5200 LE! Why? It was my first "3D" card, shame it couldn't play any games I purchased (even at uber low settings) Drove me back to the console market for several years.. So it changed everything in the wrong way :p

In recent times, the 4670 is an easy winner. The first well executed and software independent powerplay (wish I had it on the 260 and 4850). No external power cables, cool running, small size, can max every game at mid/low res and cheap to buy. Perfect!
________
Vapolution vaporizer
 
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HeX said:
Banshee was considerably faster than a Voodoo1, but it was slower than a Voodoo2. However it did have more memory (16MB vs 8MB/12MB on the Voodoo2).
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True - but then on a Voodoo2 setup, the memory was only used for the 3d buffers. There was also memory on the graphics card that was used for 2D and display mixing. I had a 2MB VRam cirrius logic I think... something like that. :D Even upgraded to the heady heights of a 4MB Matrox Millenium "dual head" card for a while too...

I even have a voodoo 5500 pci card around somewhere that I bought to use with my amiga - shame it doesn't work anymore though. :(

Got a voodoo 2000 as well, which was more like an integrated Voodoo2/gfx card than the banshee. I recall the later having a fair few compatability issues with glide based games...?

I think its all because a few years back it was all new and very pioneering - a bit like the early tech demo's on the original PSX, like the walking dinasour one I saw all the time in the computer shops in the area.

The nearest thing to come to the same level recently-ish (if you believed the hype) where the physx cards. Bit of a let down they were though...
 
I have to admit my first gfx card was a Savage 3D 8mb card. Went from software rendering on a P1 166(with SSE mind you!) to that. Stunning difference. Absolutely loved it.
 
Voodoo banshee almost forgot about that card !

It did get its name and card tarnised but if I recall shortly a little company known as Nvidia came about with there Geforce1 and changed all that :)

Ahh good old days, the best days frankly.
 
I don't really think you can pin it down to one card, for me the landmark cards wer.

Voodo

TI4200

9700 Pro

8800 GTS
 
HighlandeR said:
Voodoo banshee almost forgot about that card !

It did get its name and card tarnised but if I recall shortly a little company known as Nvidia came about with there Geforce1 and changed all that :)

Ahh good old days, the best days frankly.
Click to expand...

I thought it was the voodoo 3 which lost out to gf1 because it had 16 bit colour and the gf1 had 32 bit colour or was it 24 cannot remember as well as T&L but if i remember right it was the 16 colour that did it for the VD3.
 
Got to be the voodoo 1 tbh

The 9700/9800 were very good cards. Played BF2 at 1280x1024 on high settings with mine and it played fine. Remember breaking 20k for the first time in 2001SE with one of those aswell :)
 
For me the biggest steps forward were the Voodoo 2 and 9700 Pro. Notable upgrades were the GF2 and 3.

Overall though it has to be the Voodoo. It made 3D graphics viable for the first time. And Glide was so damn awesome!
 
Voodoo1 changed it all. But before that I tried all the "cutting edge" 3d cards in a desperate bid to get away from 320x240x256colour MCGA state of the art that was Wing commander 1.

So pre Voodoo1 which I bought the day they came out (Orchid Righteous 3D).

Nvidia NV1 or Diamond Edge as it was known.
Matrox Mystique (still have a copy of the original Mechwarrior that came with it, think I ran it as the 2d card with the voodoos up till voodoo2 came out, I remember the best combo for 2D quality and 3D gaming was a Matrox + SLI Voodoo2 for quite some time :)

Oooh how could I forget the Rendition Verite the only true contender for the voodoo1 crown. anyone remember vQuake (as opposed to GlQuake) boy was that a buggy POS :P

Then I dabbled a bit in PowerVR but went back to 3Dfx ASAP :cool:
 
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I'd say it was IBM's "VGA" and "MCGA". Both released at about the same time, and both included the 320x200 256 colours from a pallette of 262,144.

It was the first card to break from EGA's 16 colour pallette and allowed PC's to catch up with Amiga and Atari ST's for gaming graphics. (Most amiga games at the time were 320x256 with up to 4096 colours, but didnt look much different from VGA.

320x240x256bit CVGA ?? I think someone has thier PC history a little out. As above.. it was VGA and MCGA which had the 320x200 and it was 8 bit(265 colour) pallettised.

Anyway CGA was horrible and ugly, EGA gave resolution and enough colours for windows to start becoming attractive enough to be viable, but it was VGA that allowed PC's to start encroaching on the games markets held by the "home computers" and consoles, combined with the Adlib and Soundblaster cards which finally gave our PC's usable audio for sensible money.

(For old school die hards, sierra and lucasarts made some great 16 colour EGA adventure games, but VGA/MCGA bought us a colour pallete which allowed far more natural "photographic" images.

After VGA I'd call "Voodoo" along with most of the others here, as one of the first affordable 3d Co-processors. (I call it a co pro as you still needed a 2d graphics card in the system) SLI Voodoo 2 was awesome, gamed on that for a long time, infact I only replaced it when Everquest discontinued the Glide build, and the Geforce 256+DirectX was a better performer than the Voodoos in DX emulation.
 
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