What was your first video card?

Since the thread is kinda going in this direction here are the cards I have had:
Diamond Stealth 2000 (as noted in the first post)
Voodoo Banshee
ATI Rage Fury Pro 32mb
ATI Rage Fury Maxx (it was free from a relative)
Hercules TNT2 Ultra (My first GOOD card)
PNY Geforce 2 GTS 32mb
PNY Geforce 4 4600 128mb
ATI 9600 Pro 128mb (I was having trouble with Halo on the 4600 so I figured I would pick this one up)

Coming Soon:
Evga 6800 GT (waiting for them to restock)
 
First one I bought with my own money...TI 4600. That was my entry into hardcore gaming.
 
I grew up playing consoles. And we were't the richest family so I got in the game kind of late.
ATi 7200 (32MB or 64MB I don't remember)
Geforce4 Ti4400
GeforceFX 5600 Ultra (Worse than my Ti4400 but PNY insisted it was a better card than the 4400)
ATi 9800 Pro
 
My first video card ever was an Oak Technology with 256K RAM in an ISA slot, but I do not recall the model...

I still have and use a Trident TVGA 8900C (ISA slot, 1MB RAM) for testing purposes...
 
S3 Trio 64DX 2 mb

Then I got Voodoo Rush's, Voodoo1's, Voodoo2's, and on up. ;)
 
Ok then. Here's all of mine. (In order).

ATI Mach64 4MB -Came with PowerMac 9500/120 604e
ATI Radeon Mac Edidtion PCI -Upgrade for PowerMac 9500/120 (At the time was upgraded to a 250MHz G3 though :cool: )
Nvidia GeForce4MX 32MB -Came with PowerMac Dual 867
ATI 9800Pro -For my first PC :D. Sig rig.
 
Jesus that's a long list. What the heck could those first few cards run?
Click to expand...

Actually EGA wasn't all that bad. It was 16 static colors or 4bit color depending on the card, so it's similar to say the Commodore 64. I played a lot of the first PC Sierra games on it, like Hero's Quest, Leisuresuit Larry, King's Quest, etc. And old Lucas games too. Those early VGA cards would run a lot of games too. They'd run doom, though not well at all.

These were the glorious days of DOS. No Windows fuqing stuff up, sucking resources, etc. Configuration was a nightmare for those that weren't totally into it, but I actually enjoyed trying to free up memory, load TSRs etc. It was rather puzzle like :D

Now I play all those games under DOSBox. http://dosbox.sourceforge.net for those interested.
 
Can't remember what the name was it was one of the first Matrox's though. About a year after I had a number 9.
 
^^^lol, i spent more time trying to free up the high memory area than I did playing some of those games. Some of the early EA and Origin stuff required some serious effort, and they even ended up making their own memory managers to use instead of emm386.exe and/or himem.sys.
 
J3RK said:
My video cards in order from the 80s up :D

Paradise EGA (8 bit ISA)
256K AVGA1 VGA (16 bit ISA)
512K Oak Technology VGA (16 bit ISA)
1MB Oak Technology VGA (16 bit ISA)
1MB Orchid Fahrenheit 1280 (VLB)
2MB Tseng Labs ET4000W32P (PCI)
4MB Matrox Millenium (PCI)
4MB Matrox Myst(ake)ique (PCI) with Matrox M3D PowerVR PCX2 (PCI)
4MB Riva 128 (AGP) with 4MB Orchid Voodoo 1 (PCI)
16MB Creative TNT (AGP) with 12MB Creative Voodoo 2 (PCI)
16MB 3DFX Voodoo 3 3000 (AGP)
32MB Creative TNT 2 Ultra (AGP)
32MB Creative GeForce 256 SDR (AGP)
32MB Hercules GeForce 256 DDR (AGP)
32MB Hercules GeForce 2 GTS (AGP)
64MB Elsa GeForce 3 (AGP)
128MB VisionTek GeForce 4 Ti-4600 (AGP)
128MB ATI Radeon 9700 Pro (AGP)
128MB ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (AGP)
256MB ATI Radeon X800 Pro (AGP)
256MB BFG GeForce 6800 GT OC (AGP)

The next card I get will be whatever the best (PCI-Express) card is at the time :D

Wow that's quite a list, I didn't realize it was that long until I typed it. I remember each card distinctively and what I played on them at the time. Fun stuff.
Click to expand...

I've been a little more patient between cards...and I got a later start:

STB Velocity 128 4meg (Nvidia Riva 128)
STB Velocity 4400 16meg (Nvidia Riva TNT)
Hercules 3D Prophet DDR-DVI (Nvidia Geforce 1 DDR)
Visiontek Geforce 3 Ti-500
BFG Geforce FX 5900 Ultra (I know I know...what can I say, those initial D3 benchmarks swayed me)

and today I received my: evga Geforce 6800 GT which I immediately clocked to 420/1120 and I'm a very happy camper...
 
J3RK said:
These were the glorious days of DOS. No Windows fuqing stuff up, sucking resources, etc. Configuration was a nightmare for those that weren't totally into it, but I actually enjoyed trying to free up memory, load TSRs etc. It was rather puzzle like :D

Now I play all those games under DOSBox. http://dosbox.sourceforge.net for those interested.
Click to expand...
I tried using DOSBox/D-Fend to play a relatively old game (Fragile Allegiance :D), and I couldn't get the controls to work. It loaded to the main screen, though. :(
 
good god, i think that guy has spent more on vid cards than i have on all my gaming sience Pong was popular ;)
 
My first Video card or 3d Card?

My first Video card was in my first 386 SX. It was a 512Kb Trident from what I can remember.

The first "good" one I got was a Diamond Stealth 2M card.

The next Video card was a Matrox Millenium...

And my first 3d card was the first one in existence (the Diamond Multimedia Monster 3d Voodoo 1 4M). Had that piggy backing off my 2M Matrox and my shit was FLYING!!! Decent Open GL or GL Quake was my addiction for some time.

edit: That was a 300$ Voodoo 1 that I got about a week or two after it came out. And when I got home, and realized Doom 2, Duke Nukem, ROTT, and all other 2d Games would not run better, I was PISSED. Then I fired up Tomb Raider (3dfx patched), and my jaw dropped
 
Have you tried the newest version of DOSBox? It runs everything I've tried on it, including a lot of those Origin and EA games mentioned. I'm mostly playing Ultima 8 on it until Pentagram is released. I've played some old Sierra games on it, and I think I'm about to play Omnicron Conspiracy on it next. That was a really fun game.
 
J3RK said:
My video cards in order from the 80s up :D

Paradise EGA (8 bit ISA)
256K AVGA1 VGA (16 bit ISA)
512K Oak Technology VGA (16 bit ISA)
1MB Oak Technology VGA (16 bit ISA)
1MB Orchid Fahrenheit 1280 (VLB)
2MB Tseng Labs ET4000W32P (PCI)
4MB Matrox Millenium (PCI)
4MB Matrox Myst(ake)ique (PCI) with Matrox M3D PowerVR PCX2 (PCI)
4MB Riva 128 (AGP) with 4MB Orchid Voodoo 1 (PCI)
16MB Creative TNT (AGP) with 12MB Creative Voodoo 2 (PCI)
16MB 3DFX Voodoo 3 3000 (AGP)
32MB Creative TNT 2 Ultra (AGP)
32MB Creative GeForce 256 SDR (AGP)
32MB Hercules GeForce 256 DDR (AGP)
32MB Hercules GeForce 2 GTS (AGP)
64MB Elsa GeForce 3 (AGP)
128MB VisionTek GeForce 4 Ti-4600 (AGP)
128MB ATI Radeon 9700 Pro (AGP)
128MB ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (AGP)
256MB ATI Radeon X800 Pro (AGP)
256MB BFG GeForce 6800 GT OC (AGP)

The next card I get will be whatever the best (PCI-Express) card is at the time :D

Wow that's quite a list, I didn't realize it was that long until I typed it. I remember each card distinctively and what I played on them at the time. Fun stuff.
Click to expand...

I am more than interested to know what games you played on all those cards, especially the earlier ones. Seriously, I'd get a kick out of that. I'd probably not know half of the games you'd list, but it'd be interesting nonetheless.

So if you will.... Thanks.
 
Harkamus said:
I am more than interested to know what games you played on all those cards, especially the earlier ones. Seriously, I'd get a kick out of that. I'd probably not know half of the games you'd list, but it'd be interesting nonetheless.

So if you will.... Thanks.
Click to expand...
I asked earlier.

J3RK said:
Actually EGA wasn't all that bad. It was 16 static colors or 4bit color depending on the card, so it's similar to say the Commodore 64. I played a lot of the first PC Sierra games on it, like Hero's Quest, Leisuresuit Larry, King's Quest, etc. And old Lucas games too. Those early VGA cards would run a lot of games too. They'd run doom, though not well at all.

These were the glorious days of DOS. No Windows fuqing stuff up, sucking resources, etc. Configuration was a nightmare for those that weren't totally into it, but I actually enjoyed trying to free up memory, load TSRs etc. It was rather puzzle like :D

Now I play all those games under DOSBox. http://dosbox.sourceforge.net for those interested.
Click to expand...
 
my first one was something based off of an S3 chip. My first 3d card was the 4mb Voodoo 1 :D
 
I forget exactly, but probably a Hercules MGA clone.

My first color card was an ATI EGA Wonder (still have it and it works),

first 3D card was a WD Paradise (Yamaha YGV612 RPA, not DX compatible, still have it) and

first real 3D card was the Diamond Stealth II S220 (V2100).
 
Harkamus said:
I am more than interested to know what games you played on all those cards, especially the earlier ones.
Click to expand...
I don't even remember the names of the games that I played with an MGA (monochrome graphics... Hercules standard), but with EGA I used to play the old "Softdisk"-style games ($4.99 at Electronics Botique, Walden Books and Warehouse). I remember before I had VGA I would play Commander Keen and the crummy looking PC ports of games that looked decent on the Amiga. A little while later games finally started looking better because VGA replaced everything else.
 
My first card was an original IBM CGA adapter. I had to downgrade to a MDA-clone card because I couldn't afford my own color monitor.

When I started Windows development, I got a PS/2 machine with an 8514/a card.

.B ekiM
 
PCI express is going to be the tightest thing since agp!lemmings was my faviorite game!
 
First card I bought separately for a computer was a Quantum3d voodoo banshee video card with 8mb of video memory. The real tragedy was that it was much better than the 2mb onboard video that came with the p200mmx Acer Aspire I bought at sears for over $2000. I think I'm still paying for that shiz @ 18% apr. Probably got $4500 paid on it by now. :eek:
 
my first video card was the integrated intel graphics in my dell inspiron 7500. I got the notebook when i was in 6th grade, and it was one of the happiest days of my life. However, I was always pissed that I could never play the latest games, which eventually led me to buying a desktop.

Still though, laptops have a "cool factor" that a desktop simply cannot match

ahhh, memories :)

edit: Woohoo! im an [H]lite now!
 
2x 12MB Voodoo2's in SLI. It was a helluva lot of money, but oh man did quake 2 scream.... lasted me for a while, up until around counter-strike, then one fried...
 
A diamond something...lol I don't even remember anymore. I was a stupid like 10 year old back then. Course, the day my brother brought back a Voodoo 3 PCI, I was amazed--wow, this game is actually smooth! (45fps vs. 3fps).

I wanted to run FF7 back in the day, but my crappy card forced me to run it in window mode. Just before upgrading to XP SP1 and my current setup, I was running 98SE with a Matrox G400 (yes a Matrox lol).

Full screen and no lag--sigh, I wish i had a better card a few summers before, but oh well. Now I can't play FF7 at all cuz XP doesn't seem to like it.
 
A 4mb ati rage pro that didn't support any games...I used to play midtown madness with software graphics.
 
Whatever was in the Apple IIgs.. probably something onboard. First actual video card was an STB something-or-other, whatever was stock with an Gateway 2000 P5-100. I still have it around here somewhere too, and it still works.
 
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