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

Zuul said:
yeah going with "wtf is this apparatus?" in 1982. The Sinclair Spectrum 48k. Buut with PC I'd have to say after seeing hercules, CGA, going to the awesome EGA, VGA, SVGA...well...Voodoo2 donut demo changed my world..forever.
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The voodoo with the dancing can demo.. I think there was a 3d graphic equalizer on a spinning cube too. Crazy stuff for the time.
 
I think open gl for quake on an old rage something ati card... Could be wrong.
 
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I think my first was when I got a GFX 5200, I think it was a PNY, a TOTAL pile of crap right out of the box, and I immediately ripped the HSF off it, and thermal epoxied a P4 cooler on it, then OCed it to just a little bit over 2.2x it's stock clocks. That wowed me, because a 5200 running double clocks gave a 5% performance boost, tops, in GPU intensive games. Was a 'WOW, that did NOTHING!' The card died about 3 months after I got it, and I got a pair of 6600GT's.

My most recent WOW moment was when I pulled my 550 TI out, because of bad thermals, and replaced it with an EVGA 980 with ACX 2.0, and got a ton more performance, but it was silent. And looked so much better.
 
The GTX8800 was another holy cow moment. A single card faster than my 1900xtx+1900xt crossfire I had before. Faster cooler and so much quieter. :)
 
revenant said:
The GTX8800 was another holy cow moment. A single card faster than my 1900xtx+1900xt crossfire I had before. Faster cooler and so much quieter. :)
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Yeah no doubt, the 8800gtx was a beast in it's day, monstrous leap from the previous 7k series. Even the 8800gts creamed a 7950 GX2.
 
I believe my first one was an old PNY Vanta/Verto 16MB card I put in my parents old HP (400MHz Celeron or something like that), and I still distinctly remember the first time firing Dark Forces II up on it. I was blown away by how good it looked compared to that ancient on-board video ;)

Next up was ONI and some good old Quake 3 Arena (a big thank you to Quake for getting me hooked on FPS's)
 
First WOW moment was probably some advert I saw for Need For Speed 3: Hot Pursuit on 3DFX. I thought to myself, HOLY COW, I want so bad! It was around that time my friend got a proper GPU -- a Riva TNT2, I believe -- and played Q3 and I was left with my mouth watering. We'd play that game every day after school for months.
 
87dtna said:
Yeah no doubt, the 8800gtx was a beast in it's day, monstrous leap from the previous 7k series. Even the 8800gts creamed a 7950 GX2.
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I missed the 8800GTX, but I did get an 8800GTS 512MB for $239 and man, the price to performance on that card was amazing.
 
Speaking of 8800 GTS, my buddy picked up an 8800 GTS 640mb in mid 2006.

He immediately called me up like, "Holy s*** son! I just brought my rig downstairs and hooked it up to my parents HDTV (it was a CRT 720p or something).

He was like come over tonight, we're gonna get f***ed up and witness the ultimate modded Oblivion experience!!

Lol. At the time it was definitely amazing....
 
All these posts are making me want to build my own retro system now. I still have a mint copy of Windows 98 SE sitting around. Would love to experience that Voodoo magic since I never had the chance.
 
GLQuake on a Diamond Monster3d (voodoo1). Ran at 640x480 with lighting effects, shadows and bilinear filtering at the same speed software rendering ran at 320x240 on my pentium 120. I had an s3 Virge before that but that thing was barely better than 2d rendering. The difference with the voodoo1 was like night and day. I upgraded to a voodoo2 (k6 266), then a voodoo4 (athlon 800), then - RIP 3dfx- a Radeon 8500 (athlon 1.4 Thunderbird), then a Radeon 9500 software unlocked to a 9700 (athlon 64 3000), then an all-in-wonder x1800XL (a64x2 3800), then a Geforce 8800GT, then a GTX480 (phenomII x4 955BE), and now a GTX1060 (r7 1700).

There have been 5 distinct phases of gaming for me: The 2d era, with sprites and side scrollers gallore, then the initial transition from 2d to 3d software rendering (Stunts, Wolfenstein3d), the introduction of texture mapping (Doom, DukeNukem 3d, Need for Speed) where everything suddenly looked a lot more realistic and you had a sense of an actual world existing, then the jump from software rendering to hardware rendering (GLQuake!), and now the jump from screens to VR. There was a huge gap in between the last 2 jumps, which makes me wonder what (and when) the next one will be. I was an early adopter for each jump and don't regret doing so (well, ok maybe I regret that s3 Virge, but I corrected my error with the Voodoo1). I actually had about a 2-3 year window where I didn't play much of anything, then the DK1 came out and I got back into it. Hard to believe that was 4 years ago already.
 
Dunno. There were so many. But probably the biggest was when I upgraded from an S3 Virge 2MB to A Voodoo1. it was night an day difference. In Carmageddon, Jedi Knight, Quake 2 etc. I still have that Voodoo1 sitting in a drawer somewhere.

But back in that era I was amazed by Dark Forces as well even without 3D acceleration. Back then every step in graphics seemed huge. When you compare an 1994 game to an 1995 one it's a huge difference and the same trend went on until about 2003-2004. Then it all stops. The last noticeable visual jump to me was Crysis.
Since then you could put a 5 year old game next to a current game and most of the time wouldn't even know which is newer. Graphics needs a revolution not evolution.
 
Yeah, I hear that M76. I recently played RAGE on my 4K setup and the graphics honestly looked just about as good as anything today. This game came out in 2011, a full 6 years ago, and it still holds up fine.

There are a few games that push things, though. For example Quantum Break has some amazing character models and animation. The graphics are definitely a step above older titles. So progress is being made, it's just not what we saw in previous years where there were big jumps all the time.
 
Mine was when a Team Fortress Classic buddy heard that I was getting 18fps and playing on software mode. (I was new to PCs and was playing on an eMachines celeron job.) He sent me his old PCI voodoo something or other and I was able to play in OpenGL and get 60fps. Transformed my gaming forever. RIP Paladin.exe you are still missed buddy.
 
I bought a BFG 6800GT at best buy to complete my first pc build and that also marks day I left console gaming behind. I think the first games I played were Doom and FarCry, and I think BF2 shortly thereafter. Jaw was on the floor.
 
The original Monster 3D by 3dfx, but the games before that have always been my favorite. Monkey Islands and the various Quest games by Sierra will always be my favorite, though Bioshock I got close :) I was running an 8800GTS at the time.
 
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euskalzabe said:
I remember mine well... for most of the 90s I had been playing Monkey Island 1, 2 and COMI (Curse of Monkey Island). Ocassionally stepped it up to Tomb Raider 1, 2 and 3 with Pentium CPU software (the Core Design MMX Hardware Emulation) graphics and that worked fine...

But then I saw Tomb Raider The Last Revelation and found that recreation of Egypt super realistic/interesting... so I thought I'd ask my cousin to help me build my 1st PC build. It was a Voodoo Banshee on a Pentium II 333, just before Nvidia announced that new GPU "thing" with the GF256. I was 14 in 1999. I clicked on Direct3D, fired up the game... the moment I saw Lara move around the screen with a resolution and fluidity unheard of to me until then, I actually remember jumping around the room and calling my best friend to immediately come to my cousin's place to witness the magic. Then we both jumped around the room talking about future game evenings with the rest of our friend group.

That moment (which makes me feel a bit nostalgic and old now) created the glee and excitement that has marked each new build, though newer ones have never matched the amazement of that Banshee moment in 1999. And it was all to play this, which is hilarious when you consider that my humble 1060 3GB can now fit the ENTIRE 642mb game in VRAM:

tr1.JPG


What was your HOLY COW! moment with a video card? Was it 2D? Or 3D? I'm curious to know what made you so excited about technology and games that 20 years later, here we are.
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The first Geforce release. I forgot which company sent me one. Whatever incarnation of doom/quake was out at the time. the T&L engine really changed the game. I miss getting review hardware randomly showing up at my door. I've kept iamnotageek.com parked forever sitting as an old archive. I just haven't had enough ambition to get it going again. The journey from athlonoc to hardwareoc and on was fun but as I've gotten old and had kids I like just punchin the clock and going home with the nice steady paycheck. Blackhat SEO tactics are what really put an end to to that run for me. Once google delisted me the cash disappeared almost overnight.

I came here to read up on the 1070 ti to see if I was going to order a few of them to mine with. Newegg wont let me use the newegg CC to preorder with so I'll have to wait and hope they don't sell out. I really don't feel bad grabbing a big stack of those knowing there's no interest for 18 months. I should probably lock in some more profits today.
 
Went front BFG 8800 GT to a XFX GTX 280 gave me a Holy Shit moment on cod4 lol
 
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When I got my first video card. It was a Voodoo 3 3000 card that I paired with my 1Ghz Athlon chip. Prior to that I was playing on some cheap video card and had to play UT in software rendering for a couple months before I could afford to buy the better GPU. Wow. Just. Wow. I also simultaneously went from a ~15" monitor with something like a 13" screen to a 19" massive CRT. That was a beautiful day for me.
 
Radeon 9800XT upgraded from a Geforce FX5200. I could turn up AA so high I couldn't even read the text in Battlefield 1942.
Geforce 7800 GT in SLI to a 9800 GT was also pretty cool. I think I was playing Fallout 3 at the time, and I was impressed that the same product slot could get so much better in 1 generation (technically 2, but IIRC the 9800GT was basically a rebadged 8800GT).
Yeah, I'm not as old as some of you farts with your fancy 80s and 90s GPUs...
 
Going from RIVA TNT (not tnt2) to an ASUS v7700 GeForce2 GTS, which overclocked like mad.
Still have them. Upper left and lower right in image below - respectively.

Was more like a "holy shit!" moment. Suddenly not playing Quake2 online in a slide show anymore. Found I was actually good enough to be invited to join several clans. Which I did for a time. Have not experienced online FPS play quite like that since.
Ahh ... the good old days.

agp2-jpg.14563
 
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From my first PC to my second was huge. First PC was a Pentium 3 700mhz with integrated graphics. I would play Counter-Strike and barely get 40fps at 640x480. I was super jealous of my friend who had a P4 with a Geforce 2 MX200 and high speed 1.5M internet while I was stuck on 28.8k. My second PC I built with an Athlon XP and ATI 9800 Pro after I got high speed internet.
 
Susquehannock said:
Going from RIVA TNT (not tnt2) to an ASUS v7700 GeForce2 GTS, which overclocked like mad.
Still have them. Upper left and lower right in image below - respectively.

Was more like a "holy shit!" moment. Suddenly not playing Quake2 online in a slide show anymore. Found I was actually good enough to be invited to join several clans. Which I did for a time. Have not experienced online FPS play quite like that since.
Ahh ... the good old days.
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Deleted the pic link to keep the post size reasonable...

Yeah. I remember those days... I wanted a Geforce3 so bad, it hurt. I never got one... Which explains why I got one of the worst NVidia cards ever released, the 5200. Blah.

Edit: lol... I just went back through my order history on Newegg, and found... https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814108115 Something magical.
 
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nVidia Riva TNT2 Model 64 on my Gateway computer I purchased in 1999.

Quake 2 was a little choppy and low framerates. As soon as nVidia came out with their ForceWare drivers, it was a whole new ball game.

Aside from that, I'd say going from the FX5900 to the 6800 was one of the biggest leaps of a holy crap moment.
 
Back in 99, I built my 1st PC after spending 5 years on a Gateway P90. Installed a shiny new Geforce 256DDR alongside the Athlon 700mhz and just dialled all the games upto max at 1024x768 - Freespace 2, Unreal tournament and RTCW looked damn fine - in fact UT and RTCW don't look any different today on my 980ti.

The 2nd one was installing a 8800gtx, I didn't need to worry about low frame rates for nearly 2 years.
 
It was the first time I saw Unreal on a 3dfx card at a friends house. It has happened a few times since then, but none of them have ever reached that moment.
 
Unlike the rest of you nerds I can't remember the exact model number of the video card :) but it was seeing GLQuake's transparent water for the first time

I had other "holy cow" moment before that but they weren't really video card related...
 
Probably my first card which was the Voodoo 2 with the external dongle to your 2d, which I believe was a Matrox Diamond card, then playing Quake II and Tomb Raider demo.

After that, it just kept getting better graphics but I wasn't "wowed' the same way again until perhaps HL2 came out.
 
Playing G-Police on a Riva 128. I was blown away by the graphics far smoother and better than the consoles.

Runner up: 1024x768 Voodoo 2 SLI powered Unreal Tournament. Textures of amazement.
 
In my case, it was my first AIW/Voodoo I (original) tag-team - AIW Pro and a "Brand X" (Best Data - remember them?) Voodoo I and GL Quake - then came the later followup of the AIW Radeon and a Diamond Monster 3D II (specifically, the Revision E) - I actually still have that in my parts library. The Voodoo 2 actually saw some Direct3D gaming from time to time (Forsaken and Microsoft's Hellbender) - it was NOT just used for GLide and OpenGL. (As it was, not many games did 32-bit color in D3D at all at the time - the only one that did was Forsaken; even Microsoft Hellbender topped off at 800x600@16-bit - and the 3D II was enough for that.) The AIWs were so I could watch TV at my desk.
 
For me it would be when I got my 8800 GTS 320MB SLI setup and played F.E.A.R. maxed out for the first time. I had been playing it on my 6600GT at medium so it was a nice boost to the visuals. The other time would have been when I had upgraded from my FX5600 to my 6600GT and went from playing Far Cry on low to Far Cry maxed out. The opening scene of Bioshock on DX10 was also nice as well as Crysis on that SLI setup.
 
Voodoo3 2000 PCI. Was stuck with a P166 (non-mmx) and only a 2D card for years. My brother had a RIVA TNT in the pc for all of about one month before he built his own and took it. Once Voodoo was installed and I loaded up Unreal and could finally play it at more than 10-15 FPS at best (no Skaarj present), I was hooked. Felt like more than HOLY COW at the time.
 
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