What was the very first video card you ever bought?

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jarablue

[H]ard|Gawd
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Mine was a ATI Rage 128 Pro PCI that I returned the same day to best buy for a Voodoo 3 2000 PCI that went back the next day for a Voodoo3 3000 AGP.

This was in June of 1999, before then from 1990 - 1999 I was onboard video man. Fear me. What was your first card?
 
riva tnt2 was the first card I ever purchased.
my family's first real system was built by voodoo computers and had a voodoo piggy backing off whatever was the best 2D card(I cant remember). voodoo built a system for my little brother for the childrens wish foundation. was said to be worth almost $10,000 in '97.
 
jarablue said:
Mine was a ATI Rage 128 Pro PCI that I returned the same day to best buy for a Voodoo 3 2000 PCI that went back the next day for a Voodoo3 3000 AGP.

This was in June of 1999, before then from 1990 - 1999 I was onboard video man. Fear me. What was your first card?
Click to expand...

Diamond VGA 512 (?Paradise?)....512K was considered a mind bending about of memory back then. You could run 640x480 in 16.7 million colors!


Matrox Millinium
Supplemented with Matrox m3D

But I consider my first true card to be
nVidia Riva TNT (TwiN Textile)
Then MX200
ATI 8500
ATI 9800 Pro
NVIDIA 6800GT
ATI 7970
 
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pendragon1 said:
riva tnt2 was the first card I ever purchased.
Click to expand...
My exact first one as well (except it was ultra model).......My first upgrade from there was a geforce 2gts . I remember prior to this Voodoo's were all the rage
 
Diamond Stealth 64 Video 2001 PCI (1mb), quickly upgraded to a Stealth 3D 2000 with a Diamond Monster 3D when Quake 2 came out December 97.
 
My first rig came from iBuyPower (regretful decision) with an evga nvidia 7300GT. I was on a strict budget since I was just a HS student working at McDonalds lol. The first gpu upgrade, I bought the slim evga 8800GT. Also my fav card of all that I've owned. That thing lasted me years.
 
Voodoo 1 to upgrade pc I got earlier from my parents :) Took few months of collecting money from various family gifts)
 
Picasso II for my Amiga 3000, bought in 1994 for almost $500.
Village Tronic Picasso II - Amiga Hardware Database

I did have the Video Toaster 4000 card prior to this card, but that wasn't really a video card per se.
It was a 4 input AV switcher with a paint box, titler, luminance keyer, and Lightwave 3D.
I bought the card for $2500 in 1993 just to get Lightwave 3D and then traded the card when an app came out that
allowed Lightwave to run without the card installed, and got the Picasso II display card.

Here is what the Amiga and the Toaster card could do in 1993,


this was the Demo that made me want to get into 3D graphics, it is the Demo for the Toaster 2.0,
 
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Eh... I had a 386 that I first upgraded from monochrome to CGA, and then from CGA to VGA via cheap ISA videocards found at the local used computer store. My first PCI videocard was a 3DFX Voodoo banshee. My first AGP videocard was an S3 Savage 4, which I got because I got a Voodoo2 and needed something to use for 2D.
 
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Monster 3D 4MB was the first card I ever bought, but my favorite was my Canopus Pure 3D II, the best Voodoo2 by a long shot. I had so much fun with that thing, man.
 
Riva TNT2. I needed it for Descent 3. The ... Riva 128? ... that was in the computer before didn't support fog, so any area with fog was just a giant jumble of flickering polygons. Made the game so much better looking with proper texture filtering and no weird seams between the polys. I believe that graphics card was my first self-funded computer upgrade.
 
S3 Virge, quickly followed by a 3Dfx Voodoo card once I realized how shitty the S3 was. hahaha
 
Diamond Monster 3D II 8MB card paired with s3 virge 4mb 2d card sometime in 99. Ah, memories :).
 
Had a S3 Virge in a Dell Pentium Pro MMX 200Mhz prebuilt, replaced that with a Voodoo 3 3500 VIVO... which made it effectively faster than my friend's Pentium 2 machine for years after.
 
Zepher said:
-snip-
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What happened to the Video Toaster guys? They were, ligitimately, way ahead of the curve so far as 3D and general video production at the time. I'm assuming they were bought out by a bigger name at some point?
 
It's been a fun ride...

Geforce3 Ti200 -> 6800 GT AGP -> 7900 GTX (Died) -> 8800 GTS 320 (RMA replacement) ->
8800 Ultra -> 260 GTX -> SLI 260's -> 480 GTX -> SLI 480's (destroyed in shipping) ->
660 GTX (New build) -> 680 GTX -> Titan -> 980 GTX -> 980Ti -> FUTURE TitanP/1080Ti (possibly SLI)
 
AllStarMe said:
It's been a fun ride...

Geforce3 Ti200 -> 6800 GT AGP -> 7900 GTX (Died) -> 8800 GTS 320 (RMA replacement) ->
8800 Ultra -> 260 GTX -> SLI 260's -> 480 GTX -> SLI 480's (destroyed in shipping) ->
660 GTX (New build) -> 680 GTX -> Titan -> 980 GTX -> 980Ti -> FUTURE TitanP/1080Ti (possibly SLI)
Click to expand...

So many X60 mid-to-low-end Nvidia cards, even going so far as SLI... I assume you hate yourself, have no fiscal sense, and enjoy trying to make SLI profiles work on games that would've run just as well if not better on top end GPUs.

Also... so many Nvidia cards dead and you never tried ATI/AMD? A true glutton for punishment. Here, my friends, is a true GPU technology masochist.
 
Voodoo 2 PCI, which was a huge piece of shit, and actually slower than my integrated Matrox G200.

I returned the V2 and bought a Voodoo 3 2000 PCI, which was a huge upgrade, and a perfect card for UT99.
 
Diamond Stealth Pro 2MB, VLB. First "3D" card was a mixture of Matrox Millenium PCI 4MB w/Diamond Monster 3D.
 
silent-circuit said:
So many X60 mid-to-low-end Nvidia cards, even going so far as SLI... I assume you hate yourself, have no fiscal sense, and enjoy trying to make SLI profiles work on games that would've run just as well if not better on top end GPUs.

Also... so many Nvidia cards dead and you never tried ATI/AMD? A true glutton for punishment. Here, my friends, is a true GPU technology masochist.
Click to expand...

AMD, never bought, but I've used them extensively. Enough to know that the end user experience leaves a bad taste in my mouth. And with the 260's, maybe you can't remember the time when there was no x70's range and that x60's were the second in line next to their flagship. As far as fiscal sense, yes I've marginally upgraded more than most people would, but 2nd tier cards have always been a sweet spot for price/performance ratio, and that SLI in a lot of cases makes perfect sense when waiting for the next generation of cards to hit. Personally, I've had little to no problems with SLI compatibility, but that was back when developers actually gave a shit about releasing quality games.
 
MSI 9600GT. Really performed well on my 1024x768 Sony CRT. Still couldn't play Crysis tho. LOL!
 
GeForce 4 mx440. Coming from some s3 integrated graphics, it made wc3 so smooth.
 
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