I had thought for years that the Tasmania3D was a device I'd never get to tinker with in person, but I recently came into possession of not one but two of these from different sources.

One was a loose card, and the other is still sealed. I've been told that these may be the 4th and 5th cards known to exist in the hands of collectors (one being the only sealed box), and the story of the Tasmania3D is a rather interesting one so I figured this could be a fun thread.

The card is unique in that it uses the Yamaha YGV612-F 3D accelerator chip, which isn't known to have been used in any other consumer products. It is also the only 3D accelerated card that Western Digital's Paradise graphics division ever released. One would think that with Paradise's extensive experience with building successful high quality 2D video cards and Yamaha's undeniable influence on the PC gaming industry (thanks mainly to their OPL2 and OPL3 chips that revolutionized music and audio for IBM compatibles)... this card seemingly had a lot going for it, and could easily have been the first successful 3D accelerator, right?

Well... sadly, whether the hardware had a lot going for it or not, a complete lack of software support from both the manufacturer and from game developers doomed the card from the outset.

There is a good writeup here on VOGONS-wiki.

There is also a nice thread with lots of information and links about the YGV612 and YGV611 accelerator chips themselves.

Here are the pictures of the bare card, with 2MB of memory and unpopulated locations for another 2MB. I am told that this card came from a man in his mid 80s that owned a PC repair business for many years.

And here is the sealed retail box. Seller said it came from an estate sale in Sun City, CA a while ago.

There's so much to talk about on the box, I don't even know where to start. Nearly all of the claims made on the back are outright false. The only two games known to exist that actually support the card are the two included in the box (yes, two... despite the back of the box saying "several" were included). There is no record of anyone ever getting any of the additional mail-order games advertised on the front, and no retail games have ever been found with Tasmania3D support. To make matters worse, Direct3D support was also never released to the public. At this point in time, I believe the *only* things that will even cause this card to do anything at all are the versions of "Tank Commander" and "FX Fighter" included in the game box.

Thankfully, another user was able to help me get the games from the original CDs without opening my sealed box, so I was able to test the card today. It comes as no surprise that Tank Commander is seriously awful, to the point of being comical... but it does actually work, and it is technically making use of the Tasmania3D's capabilities. FX Fighter seems to have some kind of weird issue though, possibly CPU speed related, and when I tried it on a 266Mhz PII my character wouldn't really do anything but shake\jitter a little when I would try to attack.

... and that, folks, is all these cards are known to do at the moment! Amazing right? Is it any wonder that they fell off the face of the earth? Notice the clearance sticker on the box. I have looked at it closely and it says $68.00. What a smoking deal on a 3D Accelerator!