Diamond Stealth 3D pro 2000 advice \ VOGONS

Diamond Stealth 3D pro 2000 advice

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First post, by mmx_91

Posted on 2024-06-02, 11:25

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Hi all,

In order to complete my 'childhood replica' pc I'm thinking on buying a quality branded S3 Virge DX.

I know it's not really a good card but let's say it's the only mismatching part (except from having more ram and hard disk space).

Right now I'm using a Matrox Mystique 220 paired with a Voodoo2, so I'm more interested in 2d quality than 3d capabilities, being the system focused in early 3d accelerated games for Windows.
With this setup, image quality is very good even with the passthrough cable.

Recently, I found an advert dated Nov 1997 of this same system saying that it came with a Diamond Stealth 3d pro 2000 Virge DX 2MB (upgradeable to 4Mb).

All other non-branded Virge cards I ever had or even have now lying around are horrible. Image is very blurry and black colors are more greyish than black.

Will this card behave the same as the non-branded Virge cards? Does anyone have this specific card and can share an opinion?

What I want to avoid is spending around 50€ to end up having worst image quality than with the Matrox card.

Thanks a lot!

Reply 1 of 6, by Joseph_Joestar

Posted on 2024-06-02, 11:36

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mmx_91 wrote on 2024-06-02, 11:25:

What I want to avoid is spending around 50€ to end up having worst image quality than with the Matrox card.

That's pretty much inevitable, since Matrox was the king of 2D image quality back in the day. Your Mystique has a 220 MHz RAMDAC while the Virge DX tops out at 170 MHz. Diamond was a reputable manufacturer though, so image quality should still be decent, but likely not quite as good as with the Mystique 220, especially at higher resolutions.

On the plus side, the Virge DX will have better DOS game compatibility, as seen here: https://gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS/

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Reply 2 of 6, by iraito

Posted on 2024-06-02, 13:24

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Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-06-02, 11:36:

mmx_91 wrote on 2024-06-02, 11:25:

What I want to avoid is spending around 50€ to end up having worst image quality than with the Matrox card.

That's pretty much inevitable, since Matrox was the king of 2D image quality back in the day. Your Mystique has a 220 MHz RAMDAC while the Virge DX tops out at 170 MHz. Diamond was a reputable manufacturer though, so image quality should still be decent, but likely not quite as good as with the Mystique 220, especially at higher resolutions.

On the plus side, the Virge DX will have better DOS game compatibility, as seen here: https://gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS/

That compatibility list should be updated, by lowering the cpu speed to period correct levels the matrox cards show no glitches or any issue really.

If you wanna check a blue ball playing retro PC games
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Reply 3 of 6, by chinny22

Posted on 2024-06-03, 00:19

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I'm not to concerned about image quality but even I notice the difference between my Mystique 220 and Diamond branded S3 Virge.
I don't own any generic branded Virge cards so don't know how much of a difference that makes.

Personally I prefer the Virge though and messing round with the S3D games

Reply 4 of 6, by konc

Posted on 2024-06-03, 08:51

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I also agree with the previous posts, Diamond's is one of the good Virge implementations but you will notice the difference.

Reply 5 of 6, by H3nrik V!

Posted on 2024-06-03, 10:41

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I have this in my "Multi 3D API" build at the moment. Being a 2 MiB, it only gives me 1024x768 @ 16 bpp, and though it passes through a Voodoo to a 1280x1024 flat screen it does look fine. Not Matrox fine, off course, but definetely not horrible.

If it's dual it's kind of cool ... 😎

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Please use the "quote" option if asking questions to what I write - it will really up the chances of me noticing 😀

Reply 6 of 6, by mmx_91

Posted on 2024-06-03, 18:31

mmx_91 Offline

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Thank you all for your very kind responses 😀

It seems that I will keep the Matrox card for the moment, let's see if I can do some tests with another card in the future.

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