30 Euros? WOW whats so special?

it uses the NV1 nvidia 3d accelerator, that uses the same tech as the SEGA SATURN console, in fact with the extra bracket you connect saturn pads to the pc... it is also a soundcard. Some SEGA games have native nv1 support. It is more of a collector's item IMHO

Oh wow, that's pretty cool!

It's a cool piece of kit. And since I had too many of them lying around I decided to sell my last spare card (Sold 2 already earlier). You cant beat the saturn pads for input in early directx titles btw (non FPS games). Most pc gamepads at the time couldnt hold a candle to the quality of the sega pads. It's sad most cards still going around have the bracket missing. And the audio quality isn't bad in windows either. It's just the lack of DOS compatability that was a bit of a letdown back in the day. But who cares now. Just slap in a legacy soundblaster and you're good.

It is a fascinating bit of history. I remember seeing a demo of this in a magazine that had it doing 3D acceleration in Windows 3.1! 😀 I don't know if that is possible with the final product but I do doubt it heh.

The biggest issue is that there are only like 6 games. It also isn't compatible with D3D or OpenGL so there is that too. And then the rest of the card is kinda meh. The VGA support is not great, GUI accel is only ok, and the audio part isn't as good as other wavetable cards. Jack of all trades, master of none.

And definitely at the time the lack of good DOS support was a killer. Diamond's early Monster Sound cards got panned for that too.

Oh and another little issue was the sticker price of like $300-400. 😳 Risky purchase it was and obviously it wasn't worth that in the end.

I think they (hastec at the time) upgraded all their leftover edge3d cards to 2mb versions by filling the expansion sockets, stickering over the model nr. and dumping them for a cheaper price. I have a newer driver revision floating around somewhere that includes the direct3d support, and soundblaster (emulation) TSR. I just havent gotten around to give either one a try yet. The output is actually pretty good. Runs my LCD just fine at 1024x768.

I've never even gave mine a real try in windows, should find better drivers and try sometime. Wnder how much direct3d support it really has or if it's some software emulation mess.

Considering it's fundamentally different than a triangle rasterizer 3D chip, I can't see how it could do OpenGL or D3D well at all...

But I found this nice PR blurb that is probably 80% bullshit:
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-18052584.html

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 4, 1996--NVIDIA Corporation today announced full support of the Windows 95 Direct 3D(T […]
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SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 4, 1996--NVIDIA Corporation today announced full support of the Windows 95 Direct 3D(TM) Application Programming Interface (API) for its production-released NV1 Windows 95 Multimedia Accelerator.

With this announcement, the NV1 becomes the first fully integrated chip to hardware accelerate every one of the industry-standard DirectX(TM) APIs. NV1's unprecedented level of integration enables high performance acceleration of Windows 95 DirectX content for mainstream consumers.

The NV1 is a fully integrated, single-chip solution combining real-time, fully-textured 3D graphics, 2D graphics acceleration, advanced audio, full-motion video acceleration, and a digital input joystick engine. The NV1's concurrent hardware acceleration of DirectDraw(TM), DirectVideo(TM), DirectSound(TM), DirectInput(TM), and Direct3D(TM), results in an immediate enhancement of Windows 95 content. NV1 based products from Diamond Multimedia, Jazz Multimedia Inc, Leadtek Research Inc, and others, will ship soon with a complete suite of Direct X drivers.

"Direct 3D is the industry standard required for mass market adoption of 3D by consumers," said NVIDIA president Jen-Hsun Huang. "The unique ability of the NV1 to accelerate Direct3D in only 1 MB of frame buffer memory enables a powerful enhancement of Windows95 content, at a mainstream consumer cost point. Our Direct 3D implementation, complemented by concurrent hardware acceleration of DirectSound and DirectInput, allows the OEM to deliver PCs that immediately upgrade every level of multimedia capability under Windows95."

"We are very pleased with NVIDIA's support for Direct3D," said Brad Silverberg, Senior Vice President of Microsoft's Internet Platforms and Tools Division. "NVIDIA's engineers worked with the Microsoft DirectX team to implement not only Direct3D but DirectDraw, DirectSound, and DirectInput. The NV1 Windows 95 Multimedia Accelerator is innovative in its ability to support all of our DirectX technologies on a single chip. This is the type of innovation that makes high quality multimedia broadly available and affordable for mainstream consumers."

"Activision is committed to adding depth and realism to our games by creating high-resolution 2D and 3D real-time graphics that completely immerse players in an intense, sensory experience," said Bobby Kotick, CEO and chairman, Activision, Inc. "We are very excited about the NV1's ability to optimize our Windows 95 games to run full-screen, high-color images at 30 frames per second and to provide hardware support for sound and digital input peripherals."

"Advanced Windows 95 multimedia applications require simultaneous acceleration of media such as graphics, video, audio, and input, through Direct X," said Ken Wirt, vice president of marketing for Diamond Multimedia Systems. "The integrated DirectX multimedia subsystem from NVIDIA, enables us to provide Diamond EDGE(R) 3D customers with a one-time, across-the-board upgrade for expanded support of the latest games and applications under Windows."

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software for personal computers. The company offers a wide range of products and services for business and personal use, each designed with the mission of making it easier and more enjoyable for people to take advantage of the full power of personal computing every day.

Activision, Inc. is a publicly held developer and publisher of interactive entertainment software for Microsoft Windows and MS-DOS-compatible, Macintosh and other computers, as well as Nintendo, Sega and Sony PlayStation game systems. Headquartered in Los Angeles with offices in London, Tokyo and Sydney, the company sells and markets products under the Activision and Infocom trade names.

Diamond Multimedia Systems, Inc. is a leading manufacturer of high-performance visualization and multimedia communications products for the home, business and professional markets.

NVIDIA Corporation is a privately held fabless semiconductor company based in Sunnyvale, Calif. The company's mission is to develop single chip acceleration technology to transform the PC into the ultimate multimedia platform.

And then I did some Google Groups digging and came upon
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.ms-win … 9a68979ac4acf4d

I only mention this because these are the same drivers that Diamond (and others, I imagine) have released lately stating that th […]
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I only mention this because these are the same drivers that Diamond (and
others, I imagine) have released lately stating that they supoort
Direct3D. The Nvidia driver release notes clearly states that they
provide "compatiblity with Direct3D (software only)." Software only!?
The Diamond release notes are not clear on the subject and when I
contacted their on-line live support (talkcity) they claimed that D3D
was accelerated in this release, but didn't really seem to sure. Does
anyone really think Diamond wrote their own D3D HAL for the NV1 chip? I
doubt it.

I believe that what we have here is Diamond lying their their teeth. Oh, shocking. 😁