I bought the Diamond Viper II at retail at a closeout price ($30 or $40 maybe) back in the day. It was supposed to replace my Banshee. I never got to play around with the Viper II because it didn't play well with my FIC VA-503+, if I remember. Soon enough, I upgraded to a KT133A board and a Geforce2 MX.
So, this week was the first time I really put the card through its paces. This time I am using a P3-866 on an Intel 815 board.
The drivers on the retail CD are horrible, as everyone knows. Quake 2 wouldn't even run. I upgraded to the Diamond-branded 9.51.03 drivers.
Quake 2 looked good at 1600x1200, and demo1 ran at 42.4 FPS.
UT GOTY also looked good after I installed the S3 MeTaL 2.0.0.4 drivers. I don't know how to run a standard timedemo on this game.
One question: do I have to install S3TC textures for UT? Or does UT GOTY already install them?
I'm also trying to figure out the software package that came at retail. The driver CD comes with a special S3 version of Q3 (just a demo level). The readme says that this level has textures that were "re-created" by "S3-Diamond contract artists" to show off S3TC. The game stutters at 10x7 on my system.
There was also what appears to be a full version of TrickStyle and a demo CD (Tower of the Ancients, Slave Zero, Jetboat Superchamps, Hot Chix 'n' Gear Stix).
I also have a Diamond-branded CD of Unreal that installs as "UnrealSpecial," but I think this is just a cut-down demo version. It won't even do a timedemo. I can't remember whether it came with the Viper II or my Banshee card (also a Diamond product).