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the card that changed everything

I can't believe anyone hasn't mentioned the huge change in graphics quality going from EGA to VGA - especially with VBE graphics extensions, and then of couse the ubiquitous Matrox Millennium gfx card.

Oh hang on, you're probably all too young..... :p
 
Moley said:
I can't believe anyone hasn't mentioned the huge change in graphics quality going from EGA to VGA - especially with VBE graphics extensions, and then of couse the ubiquitous Matrox Millennium gfx card.

Oh hang on, you're probably all too young..... :p
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Pro's had Hercules Monochrome display adaptors. None of that low res 16 colour rubbish.

720x384 of high res goodness.
 
Voodoo banshee, 1st single card that did 2d and 3d.

More recent the 4850, changed the pricing structure accross the board for all cards.
 
Marshy said:
The one & only that really changed everything, you had to have been around at the time to really understand why though:)
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yup..I had an orchid card..came with Tomb Raider...the difference was amazing at the time
 
The S3Virge chipset was supposedly the first with any form of 3d acceleration if I recall correctly - not that it was any good.

Also recall a powerVR add on card around then as well...

....but it was the 3dfx voodoo 1 card that had the biggest impact (and performance).....

...but nothing quite beat the twin voodoo2 12mb sli setup for sheer power and geekiness shortly after. That was a big step.

(I recently found I still have all those cards in my spares bin.. :eek:)

The Banshee while more convenient being an all in one card wasn't as powerfull.

Since then its really just been getting faster at higher resolutions, but seems to be missing that "next gen/big thing" now. In fact, its more along the lines of game landmarks rather than hardware these days.

Probably the next "wow" point for me was when water effects took a leap when shaders were introduced. Been playing a demo of the latest tomb raider game and the water effects are simply amazing.
 
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).
 
I was never that into PCs when i was young so the card that changed everything for me was the Geforce 3 when it first came out :)
 
Defo the 3dfx Voodoo. It brought on a whole new era in gaming. Once you'd played a game powered by a Voodoo you never wanted to return to software graphics.
 
The Voodoo 1 was definitely the most groundbreaking card on the grounds of being the first consumer solution for hardware 3D. I find it interesting how few on here instantly though of this... a reflection on the current age of the members! :D

I started PC gaming with only 4 colours... at the time, the move to 16 colour was pretty awesome!
 
For me it was 6600GT It really showed me how good computers can be! For me it went like this -

5200FX>6600GT>8800 GTS
 
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Seems like it did ok?
 
In most benchmarks it didn't seem too bad.
I really liked my 5950 at the time but it started showing its age far quicker than the 97/9800's did.

I'm sure there were some questionable drivers for the FX series to keep them competitive.
 
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