I used integrated for ages until a computer I bought in 2004 then got myself a Geforce FX5500 256Mb. Pretty rubbish I know and certainly didn't need that much memory, but I was a real noob back then on GFx cards. (Pity I didn't come to a forum like this for advice!)
I quadrupled my frame rates when I upgraded to a 6800GT less than a year later.
I used it for almost three years. Was a great card and was my longest lasting GPU to date. In fact I still use it in an old Dell. That was the equivalent of a purchasing the 8800GTX in November of 2006 and holding for almost three years. It could easily be done. Unfortunately some of my other GPU purchases haven’t been as wise.
Original Matrox Mllenium, then a Mystique with a Rainbow Runner add-on.
edit ps, Funny thing is I probably had something "before" that but didn't know what they were as they were part of systems. Not sure if my thinkpad of the time (likely the 7 series) had NeoMagic or not, but I think the old Thinkpad had a 1MB Neomagic, I know it's replacement the 380 did; but the first stand-alone discrete would be the Millenium.
Message edited by TheGreatGrapeApe on 05-01-2008 at 12:07:18 AM
--------------- You need a license to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp (or internet account) - REDGREEN. GA to SK HD Freedom: 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Does a Sinclair Spectrum 48k count? if not then it would be a Matrox Millenium with an Orchid 3DFX accelerator, Half - Life @ 800 x 600 = Bliss
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Forums are like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhoea -- massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind-boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it.
First video card before they switched to the GPU naming...
The S3 Virge Dx 4Mb was the first card I used in a home build.
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If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce today would cost $100, get a million miles to the gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside.
PSA
ATI Mach 64, back in December 1993 when it was cutting edge LOL. Sill have it and the system in use today, although I upgraded the Pentium 90 to a 200MMX overdrive CPU. Like TGGA, I wouldn't know/recall what was in the earlier pre Pentium machines.
Message edited by pauldh on 05-01-2008 at 12:24:10 AM
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MSI P6N SLI Platinum, Q6600, 2GB Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC8000, SLI BFG 8800GT OC 512MB, SB X-Fi Fatality, Antec TruePower Trio 550W, Windows XP pro
S3 Trio 3D, 1MB Of cource, it had no real 3D acceleration, but I though it did, and even added one more megabyte of ram to it- I thought quake2 will run faster if I do that (P.S., I understand, in this thread were are using term "GPU" to indicate graphic card, no matter that GPU was first used to describe IIRC, GeForce1?)
The first one I had in a system was in an old Packard Bell that came with an Ati Mach 64. I remember upgrading that 66Mhz CPU to a 133Mhz overdrive, and was blown away by the increase in speed it brought.
The first upgrade card that I got was a Creative Labs 3D Blaster Banshee 16MB. It is amazing how far things have come since then. It is almost time for me to upgrade my 6800GS, but not yet. Games still play pretty good at 1280x1024.
ATI X800pro AGP, had it since summer 2005 and I still use it to this day. Great little card, I can play CoD 4 in DX9 mode 1280x1024. I will be upgrading my entire system this summer, graphics will probably end up as a radeon 48xx or GeForce 99xx.
As far as discrete graphics card my first would have to be the RIVA TNT2 32mb video card, Nvidia's 5th graphics processor generation
Everything before that was onboard of some type or another all the way back to a Commodore 64. Adventure Construction Set (published by EA), lost so many hours to that "making" my own games. Too bad EA doesn't make anything that out of the norm nowadays but I digress..........hehe.
Think mine was the Voodoo 2 i saved up for 2 years to get it. Then when i put it in a thought it'd be a good idea to compress my HDD to get to 2Gb. It took over a week to do 24/7. Unfortunately I wasn't on the internet and didn't know this was a bad thing . Took just as long if not longer to uncompress it. Damn Swiv 3D made me do it hehe.
@Talon - Faye Valentine? Cowboy Bebop is very good and the music is even better
Message edited by closed_deal on 05-01-2008 at 01:13:25 AM
TNT2 ... damn and i thinked it was good at this time ... i paid 1500$can for a Pentium 133 when it was out ...now for this price you got a real kick ass system
The first graphics I had was an S3 Trio with 1MB RAM, and a friend of mine helped me install the chips to expand the memory to 2MB, but I really don't remember there being any difference. That was in my HP Pentium 166. The first actual card I installed was an STB 128 16MB. My favorite for the longest was my Voodoo 5...I've still got that thing in the garage.
S3 Virge was in 'my' second rig, I have absolutely no idea what was in the first one, I was so young and couldn't care less... lol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S3_ViRGE
