What was your 1st 3D video card ?

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LordBritish

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Jan 28, 2001
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Here's what a 3DFX Voodoo card looks like:

2qxyu82.jpg


And the 3DfX version of Mechwarrior 2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1s2WOHJG-Q
 
Zepher

Zepher

[H]ipster Replacement
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Sep 29, 2001
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Dual GPU Oxygen card
oxygen1.jpg


next to a standard card,
oxygen3.jpg
 
R

R3MF

[H]ard|Gawd
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Aug 14, 2006
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3dfx voodoo 2 8MB, if you count the card i spec'ed for the parents first PC. Magic moment - emerging into the valley in Unreal. (i can see so far....)

GF3 if you include the first card i bought. Magic moment - stepping of the boat in Morrowind (pixel shader water!)
 
M

melk

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Voodoo3 16MB GL_Quake changed my life.

QWTF and MegaTF were the best!
 
R

redmasc

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A family friend built a computer for me when I was starting out. It had a 32MB ATI Rage video card in there. Then I started getting components to start learning how to upgrade and I went with the Diamond Viper V770 nVidia Riva TNT2 AGP

000049-00.jpg
 
P

Private_Ops

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PCI Geforce 2 MX400.

Game was either Microsoft Train Simulator or HALO:CE... I don't recall now.
 
C

ccityinstaller

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My first "3D" deaccelerator was the S3 Virge 3D back in '95...On wait, I think you meant cards that could actually render 3D faster then a CPU. In that case the honor goes to the Nvidia based Creative Graphics Blaster Riva TNT upon release in '98 (I was 16, loved having 2 jobs so I could afford my Jeep for the girlies and my "stealth geek" side):p

86676.jpg


Followed quickly by the Voodoo 3 3000 AGP at least release in '99..God I miss Starseige Tribes:(:(:(:(:(...
 
L

LigTasm

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I had a bunch of the early "3D" cards, like the Rage II, but the most influential to me was the Geforce 2 GTS, mine had 32MB of DDR SGRAM and it was astoundingly fast compared to anything I had used before. I could play Quake III and UT in full 32-bit color at my monitors maximum 1024x768 resolution! What a beast! I find it kind of funny how picky we are about graphics these days when back then I was worried about my frame rate tanking if I didn't use 16-bit color.
 
T

TurboGLH

Gawd
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Dec 19, 2002
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Yikes. Voodoo Banshee. In hindsight, I would have been better off with my existing 2D card and a Voodoo2, but it worked for well enough to play.......whatever it was I was playing back in 1999.
 
R

/rant/

Limp Gawd
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Oct 18, 2008
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Matrox Millennium G400 with a Katmai Pentium 3. Don't even remember what I used to play with that.

Ahh, wait. I played Populous: The Beginning, Flight Simulator and some Quake 2 mostly.
 
C

ccityinstaller

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LigTasm said:
I had a bunch of the early "3D" cards, like the Rage II, but the most influential to me was the Geforce 2 GTS, mine had 32MB of DDR SGRAM and it was astoundingly fast compared to anything I had used before. I could play Quake III and UT in full 32-bit color at my monitors maximum 1024x768 resolution! What a beast! I find it kind of funny how picky we are about graphics these days when back then I was worried about my frame rate tanking if I didn't use 16-bit color.
Click to expand...

You have a very good point..I remember being so happy when I grabbed a Riva TNT2 Ultra, installed it (replacing the V3 3000) and then realizing that Tribes didn't support OpenGL for 3D rendering..I removed it and waited a few weeks I believe it was until the devs pushed out a patch to support OpenGL...

It was utter bliss to have high resolution 32 bit color and FPS....I used to own that game..It truly is my favorite PC game experience EVER and second best game memory only to Super Mario Brothers 3 on the NES...


*Insert rant about how gaming devs used to actually publish fun, working games at their release without the need for a million updates etc...
 
DejaWiz

DejaWiz

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Rendition Verite 2200. Had it for about 2 weeks, returned it, and got a Voodoo Banshee. Played the hell out of Quake with the GLQuake mod and the GLide wrapper.
 
J

jlbenedict

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$200 for a S3 Virge based Diamond Multimedia Stealth 3D 2000 ..
Advertised as the worlds first 3d accelerator.. came bundled with Descent
 
DejaWiz

DejaWiz

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jlbenedict said:
$200 for a S3 Virge based Diamond Multimedia Stealth 3D 2000 ..
Advertised as the worlds first 3d accelerator.. came bundled with Descent
Click to expand...

I remember the pissing contest between the S3 Virge and Matrox Mystique claiming to be the first. The Virge, while not the fastest in 3D, offered superior image quality with features that Matrox left out of the Mystique.
 
A

artimusbill

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Voodoo Rush! GLQuake was awesome at 13 fps! I eventually upgraded to dual VooDoo 2 cards. THAT was awesome.
 
dr.stevil

dr.stevil

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I was into PC's long before 3D cards were a thing and sort of fell out of it for quite a few years during my school years. The first machine I built with a dedicated 3D accelerated GPU contained a 9700pro, which was a beast... then 'upgraded' to an FX5200 lol

Quite possibly the worst GPU ever

All of my machines before that were powered by a trident Super VGA GPU :p (and other misc VGA/EGA cards)
 
R

RadXge

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Diamond Monster 3D 4MB FTW!!!
It provided only 3D acceleration and a traditional video controller was required for conventional 2D.

I almost bought the Canopus Voodoo which featured 6MB but it was too damn expensive!
 
B

bucketlist

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Oct 8, 2013
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ATI AIW Radeon 32MB that I selected with my first PC from CyberPower.
Followed by:
ATI Radeon 9700 pro 128MB 8x AGP
ATI AIW 9600 XT 256MB
XFX GeForce 7600GT 256MB
EVGA Geforce 9600GT 512MB (dear EVGA tech support: yes this card has the SPDIF pass-through header! Dumb asses!)
EVGA Geforce 9800GT 512MB (came with free copy of Crisis)
 
M

MrC4

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The Voodoo 1 and GL Quake (what a game changer!!). Still have the card boxed up with my Voodoo 2, Voodoo 3 3000, Voodoo 5500, etc.
 
R

runudownquick

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Nov 11, 2008
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Voodoo 3 3000 PCI! I got it for my first pc, a Celeron 400 rig that had no USB, or AGP :eek:

Still regret selling the card.
 
M

Mortuus

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mine was Orchid Righteous 3d 4mb i think it had..first game i played was Turok i remember the computer store had the game running as a demo it was fun.
 
Factum

Factum

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The first graphics card I owned that called it self "3D accelerator" was the S3 Virge.
It functioned more like a "3D-deccelerator".

First 3D card was a Voodoo Graphics PCI (used in conjuncture with the S3 Virge as it had no 2D capabilites)

First GPU was the GeForce256 DDR
 
Q

qbanb8582

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Sep 15, 2006
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First GPU was the Creative Annihilator Pro 256. I damn near shit myself when I played Quake 2 on OpenGL for the first time. This was the picture of the box(not my pic), it was a thing of beauty at the time.

HPIM0278-1.jpg
 
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