A History of 3D Cards From Voodoo To GeForce 320
Ant sends us to Maximum PC for an account of the history and current state of 3D video cards (single print page). "Try to imagine where 3D gaming would be today if not for the graphics processing unit, or GPU. Without it, you wouldn't be [trudging] through the jungles of Crysis in all its visual splendor, nor would you be fending off endless hordes of fast-moving zombies at high resolutions. For that to happen, it takes a highly specialized chip designed for parallel processing to pull off the kinds of games you see today... Going forward, GPU makers will try to extend the reliance on videocards to also include physics processing, video encoding/decoding, and other tasks that [were] once handled by the CPU. It's pretty amazing when you think about how far graphics technology has come. To help you do that, we're going to take a look back at every major GPU release since the infancy of 3D graphics. Join us as we travel back in time and relive releases like 3dfx's Voodoo3 and S3's ViRGE lineup. This is one nostalgic ride you don't want to miss!"
I bought a whole box of them... (Score:5, Funny)
at best buy a couple weeks ago... too bad the box was supposed to contain a Nvidia 260... s3, 3dfx, all kinds of old ass graphics boards in the box.. but no 260...
7th Guest (Score:2, Funny)
Had beautiful graphics and ran on a 386sx with a 128 MB VGA card and a 2D GPU.
So I call Bullshit- the only reason a high powered GPU is necessary is because game programmers have become LAZY.
Visual Splendor? (Score:5, Funny)
Without it, you wouldn't be [trudging] through the jungles of Crysis in all its visual splendor
Hmmm...is anybody able to play Crysis in all its visual splendor?
There were some early kick ass 2D graphics cards (Score:5, Funny)
But the market never accepted them because no matter how thin they made the peripheral slots, the damn things would just fall through the case.
Re:Graphics and Stuff (Score:4, Funny)
Wait, Fallout 3 had a story? I thought it was just pointless wandering and about two hours worth of fetching stuff for your father.
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Thats why I buy the ones rated in Bungholiomarks (Score:5, Funny)
You need the Bitchin'fast3D2000 [carcino.gen.nz]
Re:I don't miss it (Score:3, Funny)
Good luck finding Vista drivers for them!
Some might see that as a feature.
Re:Graphics and Stuff (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Visual Splendor? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Matrox Millenium (Score:1, Funny)
It's a shame there's no '+1 Nostalgia' moderation option.
Re:Ugh, s3 Virge... (Score:3, Funny)
WTH are you talking about? S3 is the manufacturer of ViRGE. There is only S3 ViRGE, and it is the "regular" ViRGE.
Since you seem at an automobile analogy comprehension level, I will make it even easier: "Regular" Prius is also "Toyota Prius".
Re:SLI only (Score:4, Funny)
>The V2 could only hit 1024x768 in SLI
Well, the V2 was perfectly able to hit other places besides that, like London...
Re:Thats why I buy the ones rated in Bungholiomark (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Honestly (Score:1, Funny)
Re:7th Guest (Score:5, Funny)
Not to mention the added luster of nostalgia. I was showing my mom Fallout 3 and her comment was like "wow, it looks almost as good as Myst!"