What was your first HOLY COW! moment with an actual video card?

bf1 so well optimized and stunning graphics. but ghost recon wild lands for me is probably the best graphics ive seen. all in 2k. while i dont like GRW except for the fact it have extraordinary graphics, gameplay and story is very low, purely from a graphical perspective.
 
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When my dad really wanted to get Falcon 4.0 working for me acquired and FLASHED a Voodoo 2 3000 PCI card with a Macintosh BIOS so it would work in our PowerMac G3 (I grew up in an Apple household). This is a man who to this day needs help with basic computer tasks.

I still don't understand how he did it and neither does he.

Starting the game up and actually having games on our computer for the first time was an incredible experience.
 
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Matrox Mystique but then teamed it with a Matrox M3D PowerVR.

Quake/Quake2 and Unreal suddenly came alive.

I think the next was a Banshee.
 
Diamond Stealth II S220 playing Hexen, Quake, and Unreal under OpenGL. Sure the frame rate blew chunks at times but HOLY GEEZE did they look awesome. I still keep a patch around for Unreal that was done by someone Epic gave their blessing to, the patch was OldUnreal's 227 Patch. I also stumbled upon a demo for Descent, the colored lighting had me mesmerized.
 
I have to add 1080 to my list. The increase in performance, gameplay resolution, and power decrease were phenomenal.
 
I don't know if anything modern can touch the first time I saw the intros to GLQuake or that initial Unreal castle flyby.
We haven't seen a sea change in graphics in a long time. I don't know it it's even possible without VR or AR. I don't know if even photo-realism would be that much of a jump.
 
Got a Voodoo Rush in 97'
My first 3D game was Star Wars Shadows of the Empire , at first i got the demo (just the battle of Hoth) then the whole game

I was blown away

 
Went from a FX5200 to a 6800GT on my desktop many years ago..

Recently upgraded from a 780m gpu MSI laptop to a Sager with a 1080 in it.. mind blown once again.
 
From laptop igfx to Radeon 9700 Pro on EQ. I didn't have to face the wall or the floor anymore (;
 
Can't name a specific game, but it was with my Diamond Viper V770. NVidia TNT2 Ultra.

I ran a couple of TNT2 Ultra's, the second one was a Elsa Erasor III that failed on me. I RMA'd it with Elsa and they accidentally sent me an Elsa GLORIA III, Quadro 2 Pro. It was a $700 card at the time. Still kicking myself in the ass for not selling it a pocketing the money.
 
I just had a "holy cow" moment with my EVGA GTX 1080 Ti hybrid card. I hit +1000mhz on the memory in Afterburner (!). Seriously. 13000mhz effective memory speed. Plus I have my core at 2050mhz boost speed. This card is unbelievable. I uploaded a photo as proof.

I ran multiple Valley benchmarks and also ran GTA V as a stability test. It seems stable. I'm super impressed with this card.

I don't think the memory slider goes any higher in Afterburner. I'm kind of scared to try for more, if that's even possible.
 

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Try PUBG.

I just crash over and over if OC'd on the GPU. I've turned everything back to stock- CPU included- in search of a match without a crash :drowning:
 
Hmm that moment would be when I upgraded from the horrible FX5200 128MB/64bit to 6800GT 128MB/256bit. Game-wise with FX5200 I was "playing" F.E.A.R. and Doom 3 at the lowest possible settings and 640x480 with 15-20 fps. 6800GT gave me max settings, 1024x768 (or even 1280x1024) smooth (for the time) 40+ fps. In some games it outperformed the 5200 by a factor of 100. I've never had such an upgrade since then. I was also 16, best days of my life :)
 
Got a Voodoo Rush in 97'
My first 3D game was Star Wars Shadows of the Empire , at first i got the demo (just the battle of Hoth) then the whole game

I was blown away



I loved Rogue Squadron on an ATI 3d Rage Pro Turbo.
 
SLI Voodo 2 with FFVII, had some buddies who were playing it on the OG Playstation at the time and i remember our jaws collectively drop when we summoned Neo Bahamut for the first time!
 
Voodoo 2 right around when the Voodoo 3 came out.
I haven't had such an OMG experience since.
 
I want to say it was transparent water in the OpenGL accelerated port of Quake II. It totally blew me away...

That would have been on my first real 3D card, too. As I recall it was an STB Velocity 128 which was based on an Nvidia Riva 128 chipset.

STB ended up being bought up by 3DFX for the sole reason that they needed facilities and tooling to begin producing their own Voodoo cards - cards which they produced exclusively from that point forward.
 
My first wow moment with a GPU was when I sat at my friend's house and played on his rig for the first time in 2013. I always had played on laptops, and consequentially never had a good experience with fps, or high-level graphics settings and detail. I sat there and got so hype that I went out and built and entire new setup that was a clone to his, and to this day i play on the same pc (although its been upgraded lol).
 
Back in the day, when I plugged in my GeForce 2MX and fired up Return to Castle Wolfenstein...that was something else.
 
Unreal when it came out pretty much blew me away. The awesome night sky at one point in that game, after fighting one of the Titans, was just amazing.
 
glquake on monster3D voodoo hardware was my first real "holy crap" moment.
 
When homeworld came out. Can't remember the video card I had but it was my first pc space game.
 
That was probably quake, running the glide3d or whatever it was that enabled the graphics to look better.

But for "Holy shit" moments in games that were amazing... (gameplay), I would say
Half-Life. Playing the first half-life demo I remember being so amazed as Soldiers come after you. I remember that feeling real.
Soldier of Fortune. Playing this, the death animations could be so real that, after awhile I didn't like killing the enemy... headshotting someone from a distance, and they sorta went limp and fell over.. it was creepy.
Aliens vs Predator 2 + expansions (2001 ish). So damn scary, jumped many times when alien would attack. and remember running scared away from the aliens.
No One Lives Forever. Really fun 60's timeperiod game where you play a spy. So a bit James Bond like. Remember riding a snowmobile in this and thinking how beautiful it looked.
Prey (2006). Played this demo over and over.. At the beginning of the game when you are at the bar and it all goes to shit.. got goosebumps from that. Loved it.
Amnesia, The Dark Descent. Scary. As. Fuck. Highly recommend.

Really, recommend all of these. They are so good I have replayed all of them more than once. Though Amnesia, only twice to see a different ending.
 
Mine was GL Quake on I believe a voodoo 2. The difference was insane. Shortly after I remember unreal and that intro flying around the building and the reflections on the tile floor. It was insane.
 
Well I started on C64, but could not afford an Amiga. That's a different story.

PC wise, not counting the DOS era, and there was plenty of that. I think my Voodoo1 card in like 1997. GLquake, Shadows of the empire, GL Tomb Raider, all good stuff. Anyone remember Forsaken? That game looked amazing on 3dfx, made me motion sick like crazy but it was so cool looking. Was like a real 3d Descent, with multiplayer... oh man so much fun but I had to be drunk to play it. At work they would have these huge Quake / Quake 2 lan parties, and I would take my rig up there and people would freak the hell out. Watch the before and after on this video. Yeah it looks like xbox 1 or worse now, but in 1997, this was A Big Deal. Watch the software mode, then jump to 3:15 to be blown away.



I think between GLquake / Quake 2 and Forsaken, I was personally responsible for at least 100 people buying Voodoo cards. And those things were $400 in 1997-98. They were kind of hard to come by, stores wouldn't stock more than a couple.. if anyone saw them in stock they would buy them all on sight and resell them to coworkers.

Voodoo 2 a couple years later... Quake 2 in 800x600 was amazing. Voodoo 3 a few years after that, Quake 3 in 1024x768 was like nothing anyone had ever seen.

Went through several Voodoo 3 flavors in AGP and PCI versions, had a friend who could get me a discount. I did buy a Voodoo 5 5500 but 3dfx folded a year or less later, was bummed. Sold it. UT2k was pretty sweet on that.

After that, cards come and go, get faster and more expensive. Had a Geforce 2 then a 3ti (Medal of Honor was all the rage then), Geforce 5 was MEH slow, sold it fairly quickly, Geforce 6600GT was good for a while, then 7800, 8800 GTS, 460, 660ti, etc etc
 
Well I started on C64, but could not afford an Amiga. That's a different story.

PC wise, not counting the DOS era, and there was plenty of that. I think my Voodoo1 card in like 1997. GLquake, Shadows of the empire, GL Tomb Raider, all good stuff. Anyone remember Forsaken? That game looked amazing on 3dfx, made me motion sick like crazy but it was so cool looking. Was like a real 3d Descent, with multiplayer... oh man so much fun but I had to be drunk to play it. At work they would have these huge Quake / Quake 2 lan parties, and I would take my rig up there and people would freak the hell out. Watch the before and after on this video. Yeah it looks like xbox 1 or worse now, but in 1997, this was A Big Deal. Watch the software mode, then jump to 3:15 to be blown away.

!!! I LOVED Forsaken and played the ever loving shit out of it with my Voodoo3. Trying to explain how it felt to go from software rendering and then to 3D in a game like that is something I can't do, and even that video doesn't do justice to how the difference felt at the time. I've been trying to find my disc for years now, to no avail (I have a download version now, but I want my disc). I think there's still a few containers at my parent's house I can check, but my hope has faded a good bit.
 
I still have Forsaken kicking around the house somewhere. Brings back some very cool memories, that one.
 
My first "wow" moment was with consoles rather than video cards.. I was playing with a Sega Dreamcast before they were released (I was about 8 years old), and I thought the graphics were amazing. I didn't make the switch to PC gaming until 2013, using a GTX780 on FarCry 3.. mind blown.
 
!!! I LOVED Forsaken and played the ever loving shit out of it with my Voodoo3. Trying to explain how it felt to go from software rendering and then to 3D in a game like that is something I can't do, and even that video doesn't do justice to how the difference felt at the time. I've been trying to find my disc for years now, to no avail (I have a download version now, but I want my disc). I think there's still a few containers at my parent's house I can check, but my hope has faded a good bit.

I might have it in full box forum :)

Haha I do! How about basicly new! Game case is sealed and contents look untouched but the box has been open.

This was in storage for over 5 years.. was planning on selling it along with others but became busy with buying s new house and moving at the time.
 
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