Do you remember your first graphics card?

A Trident 4MB, then added a Diamond Monster 2, then went to a Geforce 2, to a GeForce 4 MX, to an 4400 TI, to an X1650 PRO, to an 8800 GTS 640, to an 8800 512, and just got a GTX 260 today. XD
 
I had a celeron 300 box that started out with a voodoo 2 and then upgraded to a voodoo 3. I would set stuff up to render in Swift 3d, then I would go to sleep and it still wouldn't be done in the morning.
 
Nvidia Riva TNT1...16mb?...or 32mb?

i still have it actually

got a shit ton of much older cards, but i bought those later off ebay for my misguided plans to build a Beowulf cluster of old P2 machines. lmao...technology sure makes us look stupid sometimes.
 
Nvidia Riva TNT1...16mb?...or 32mb?

i still have it actually

got a shit ton of much older cards, but i bought those later off ebay for my misguided plans to build a Beowulf cluster of old P2 machines. lmao...technology sure makes us look stupid sometimes.

No, just too early :p

F@H can take advantage of multi-GPU in the same vein as your idea ;)

As for the thread, the first add-in card I remember is a Matrox Mystique, the first 3D card.

 
As for the thread, the first add-in card I remember is a Matrox Mystique, the first 3D card.

I had one of those also - as far as I remember, it didn't do a damn thing. I clearly remember some Vesa Local Bus card - can't recall what that was. I also had some Trident chips and an old Tseng Labs ET3000 - but I don't think they were cards just chips on the MB.
 
I had one of those also - as far as I remember, it didn't do a damn thing. I clearly remember some Vesa Local Bus card - can't recall what that was. I also had some Trident chips and an old Tseng Labs ET3000 - but I don't think they were cards just chips on the MB.

Yeah, ditto... Before the Mystique, I had a hard time remembering a older add-in card and I assumed it's a onboard graphics or some crappy 2d card. Maybe a ET3000 as well.

The main thing I remember about the Mystique is that it included Mechwarriors and it's a blast. However, back then, it's hard to find a 3d game since most is proprietary or OpenGL (in the realm of expensive cards).

 
My first real 3d card was a Matrox Mystique. I believe it was the 2 or 4 meg version. It came with Scorched Earth, Demolition Derby (2?), and Mechwarrior 2. They were all enhanced editions that only worked with that card.

Too bad the card sucked for everything else. :p

Yeah, ditto... Before the Mystique, I had a hard time remembering a older add-in card and I assumed it's a onboard graphics or some crappy 2d card. Maybe a ET3000 as well.

The main thing I remember about the Mystique is that it included Mechwarriors and it's a blast. However, back then, it's hard to find a 3d game since most is proprietary or OpenGL (in the realm of expensive cards).


Thats what I said! :D
 
3D Accelerator or video card in general?

First video card

Tseng Labs ET4000AX, ISA. 512K RAM
ET4000AX.jpg



First 3D Accelerator

Diamond Stealth 3D 2000 PCI 4MB (S3 Virge chipset)
DIAMONDSTEALTH3D2000-top.jpg
 
VESA (ya know that 3.5 mile slot) i want to say it was a trident card. 800x600 w/ 512k memory, w/ sockets for the 1 meg upgrade. When i hit 1024x768 32 bit w/ that 1 meg, WATCH OUT !!!!
This was in a 486dx33 btw :)

edit: FOUND IT, it was a cirrus logic !
 
VESA (ya know that 3.5 mile slot) i want to say it was a trident card. 800x600 w/ 512k memory, w/ sockets for the 1 meg upgrade. When i hit 1024x768 32 bit w/ that 1 meg, WATCH OUT !!!!
This was in a 486dx33 btw :)

Yes, quite a bit newer than my first card, but quite a bit older than most people's "first" cards in this thread. The proper acronym was VLB for "VESA Local Bus" which was an extension of the ISA bus. It was a 32bit slot at the end of a 16bit ISA slot. Inferior to PCI but a nice leap above ISA.
 
yeah, what a great card tho, you could use it as a 2 foot arm extension or a video card. no pci yet at the time but it was so close if i had known i woulda waited out the year.
Agreed Dan_D, when i see ppl saying their first card was a 6600, WOW. feelin old here :)

Oh yeah, had an old 8088 w/ the amber monitor but no idea what it's vga was.
 
First "3D" card was a Quantum 3D Voodoo Banshee, got rid of that POS and went with 2x Canopus Pure 3D IIs :D

Ohhhh dude wicked! I dont remember why but I remember those were far and above the lux Voodoo's. SLI's.... well... unimaginable.

My p166 mmx started with a rage3d onboard: I put a off-name Banshee in there I got on auction for $75 a year or so latter. Never had I been so happy to play 512x384. Soon thereafter I ended up working for a company where UT was all the rage, the box there had a TnT2 M64 piece of junk running like 400x300 or something spit awful. Oh to be low on the corporate ladder!

First real card was a Geforce 1 SDR. It kept losing fan blades. It got used like crazy until I got a ti4200 I overclocked the pants off and then it sat unused in my linux box for a number of years with half its fan blades missing before I upgraded and threw out my AGP garbage. That card served me well though, o7.
 
I had a Diamond Voodoo. GLQuake was amazing with that card.

That would be a Diamond Monster 3D using the Voodoo chipset. Later succeeded by the Diamond Monster 3D II using the Voodoo 2 chipset.

And yes, GLQuake kicked ass.
 
The first video card I ever bought was a Creative Riva TNT. I still have it and it still works. Before that I was stuck with a Packard Bell with a Cirrus Logic 2MB on board card. I still have that computer too, and it still works.
 
I started with a Riva 128zx 4 mb card. Quickly upgraded to a Diamond branded voodoo banshee. I lived with that card until the original geforce 2 MX came out. I used that MX for quite a while. My brother ended up giving me his old Geforce 3 ti 200 which overclocked really well. After that, I went with a 5900xt card for dirt cheap which lasted me until the 6800Ultra was launched. I owned the Ultra until the 8800gts refresh occured. I got myself an g92 and haven't looked back since.
 
My first video card purchase was a Trident 8900 1meg S-VGA 16bit ISA card which I bought in the late 80's. Was capable of displaying 64k colors on my 20 MHz 386 based PC! (Made the soft porn back then look soooo much better) Woot! :D
 
My first video card purchase was a Trident 8900 1meg S-VGA 16bit ISA card which I bought in the late 80's. Was capable of displaying 64k colors on my 20 MHz 386 based PC! (Made the soft porn back then look soooo much better) Woot! :D

Now we are talking.
 
1st one worth mentioning was a Voodoo Rush.

The Voodoo Rush sucked. Its' 2D was terrible and it's 3D wasn't a match for the regular Voodoo card. The Voodoo Banshee was a far better endeavor.
 
Ti 4400- in my first complete build
9500pro -9800pro- 6800 NU unlocked & overclocked nicely
x1900xt- paid too much, but damn Oblivion laughed at my 6800, worth every penny.
The 4400 is the only one that ever died, the rest are still kicking in friends and family computers.
 
Ti 4400- in my first complete build
9500pro -9800pro- 6800 NU unlocked & overclocked nicely
x1900xt- paid too much, but damn Oblivion laughed at my 6800, worth every penny.
The 4400 is the only one that ever died, the rest are still kicking in friends and family computers.

Well many of the Geforce 4 Ti4200, Ti4400 and Ti4600 cards had capacitor and voltage regulator issues that caused them to die prematurely. I've personally whitnessed the death of 30 PNY Geforce 4 Ti4200's that my work at the time purchased (that PNY refused to exchange) and I've lost two Ti4200's myself along with two Ti4600 that died as well. One died three days after I bought it and the other died six months later. I ended up replacing the second one with a ATI Radeon 9600Pro because at the time I was strapped for cash and the 9800Pro was out of my price range. That and there weren't any games out at the time that really made me want for more than that Radeon 9600Pro.

That of course changed when Farcry came out.
 
My first graphics card was an Orchid Righteous 3D.. aka 3dfx Voodoo 1. It had 4mb of memory and rocked the Mechwarrior 3D Pentium Edition very hard. I managed to sell it along with the K6-2 200mhz processor that went with it to nab a riva TNT and a 400mhz celery stick. SO FAST!
 
First PC we had was a TI 99-4/a. That hooked up to a tv monitor, but boy did I love munchman and parsec. That was my father's first PC, but became my PC when he bought a Panasonic 8086.

I don't remember what the card was, but it was a VGA card in a Panasonic 8086, with dual floppy drives, a 20GB HD, 8mhz processor (where the turbo button was important, as XT's were half that speed). Inherited it from my father when he upgraded to a 386 (so probably 87, I was only 8 years old at the time, remember downloading all sorts of stuff with procomm and dialing into bbs, ahh duke nuken, commander keen and the like, it was a sad day when Wolfenstein 3D came out and required a 286, we could get it to run on XTs but it was too slow to be really enjoyable, even in a shrunken window)

I then remember the family having some machine with a permedia2 based card, but don't remember if it was a 486 or a pentium. Pentium might make more sense due to AGP. I don't remember what card the 486 had, but it had a VL-bus card, also we bought a 7 disc scsi cd changer (1x drive). Used Corel scsi drivers with it.

my first machine I paid for myself came with a Matrox G200 (P2-400 for college). After that it goes Radeon 9700 Pro (in P2-400 and carried over to a Tiger MP/MPX build) -> Nvidia 7900GS (bought for a Q6600 build) -> Nvidia 8800GT (upgrade for Q6600 build), but the original machine (TI and Panasonic) are still the best. Remember installing turbo assembler, turbo pascal and turbo C on it. We had Forth interpreter for the TI, as well as loads of software. "OLD DSK1 forever!"
 
First PC we had was a TI 99-4/a. That hooked up to a tv monitor, but boy did I love munchman and parsec. That was my father's first PC, but became my PC when he bought a Panasonic 8086.

I don't remember what the card was, but it was a VGA card in a Panasonic 8086, with dual floppy drives, a 20GB HD, 8mhz processor (where the turbo button was important, as XT's were half that speed). Inherited it from my father when he upgraded to a 386 (so probably 87, I was only 8 years old at the time, remember downloading all sorts of stuff with procomm and dialing into bbs, ahh duke nuken, commander keen and the like, it was a sad day when Wolfenstein 3D came out and required a 286, we could get it to run on XTs but it was too slow to be really enjoyable, even in a shrunken window)

I then remember the family having some machine with a permedia2 based card, but don't remember if it was a 486 or a pentium. Pentium might make more sense due to AGP. I don't remember what card the 486 had, but it had a VL-bus card, also we bought a 7 disc scsi cd changer (1x drive). Used Corel scsi drivers with it.

my first machine I paid for myself came with a Matrox G200 (P2-400 for college). After that it goes Radeon 9700 Pro (in P2-400 and carried over to a Tiger MP/MPX build) -> Nvidia 7900GS (bought for a Q6600 build) -> Nvidia 8800GT (upgrade for Q6600 build), but the original machine (TI and Panasonic) are still the best. Remember installing turbo assembler, turbo pascal and turbo C on it. We had Forth interpreter for the TI, as well as loads of software. "OLD DSK1 forever!"

I'm gonna guess you meant 20MB hard drive not 20GB
 
first high end one I purchased was a matrox millenium. It had 2MB of memory...wooooooooo
I have forgotten the model of the ATI card it replaced but it had 512KB memory on it.
Also had an STB video card...(simply the best) made in texas
Total system memory was 12MB on a 286XT with a co processor WOOOOOOOOOOOO
120MB HD was $420 on sale in computer shopper
 
Oh, just remembered a earlier card, that's a Cirrus Logic VESA card. Thank to whoever mentionned that brand, was so old :eek:

 
Not that old a card compared to where some of us started, but that's an interesting first video card since those weren't all that popular.

this was my first real add in card, unless you consider those "Frys" Trident 2mb pci cards :D or onboard.
 
this was my first real add in card, unless you consider those "Frys" Trident 2mb pci cards :D or onboard.

Well my first video card pre-dated 3D accelerators of any kind. So I listed both my first video card and my first 3D accelerator.
 
I had a Matrox Milenium G200 (8mb I believe). Great little card for its time. Upgraded to a voodoo5 and then a GF3 Ti 200. And then the list goes on and on and on...
 
The Voodoo Rush sucked. Its' 2D was terrible and it's 3D wasn't a match for the regular Voodoo card. The Voodoo Banshee was a far better endeavor.

It was the best 2D/3D solution at the time (not quite as good as a Voodoo1 but close)... Remember it was out before the Voodoo 2's and quite a bit before the Banshee.
 
My graphics card history from the beginning to my current card goes like this:

Hercules GeForce2 MX 32MB PCI
eVGA GeForce4 MX440 64MB AGP
Gainward GeForce 3 Ti-450 128MB AGP
Sapphire Radeon 9600XT 128MB AGP
eVGA 6600GT 128MB AGP
eVGA 6800GT 256MB PCI-E
VisionTek Radeon HD3850 512MB PCI-E
BBA Radeon HD4870 512MB PCI-E
 
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