Main problem with early cards is image quality under 3D workload.

Some are VERY broken, so comparing them based on performance metric is meaningless (since they can't display the same [correct] image).

agent_x007 wrote on 2024-03-06, 20:08:

Main problem with early cards is image quality under 3D workload.

Some are VERY broken, so comparing them based on performance metric is meaningless (since they can't display the same [correct] image).

Of course but everytime I watch the YouTube reviews of these cards I am sort of impressed they may have been even worse and I'd like test the fastest ones myself.

At the end honestly they don't look that bad with the right time correct balanced expectations. The Alliance aT3D ok might have been a disaster but probably needed a whole LOT of driver development to even find a low end usage in a early 3D rendering. The Cirrus Logic Laguna looking at games/results even if probably with some serious design/choice problem wasn't really bad too, just late and slow to the competition and still drivers. The Trident 3DImàge975 serie also not really that bad at least in average rendering accuracy I was expecting less and Trident really improved all that with the impressive later low end products still releasing in that complex period.

But I suppose just like the S3 Virge serie, most of these solutions were built in slower cheaper revisions/pcb while maybe (beside the broken graphic) only the best ones should be tested.

Well there certainly were other cards that were far more common but just as slow like the ATI 3D Rage and Rage II. Chromatic Mpact! and Mpact2 are other options if you're looking for really weird stuff.

Alliance aT3D - simply does not work properly in any 3D.
Cirrus Logic Laguna3D is usable only in AGP revision and specifically without any bilinear filtering used. This card has a hefty performance penalty for filtering textures.

agent_x007 wrote on 2024-03-06, 20:08:

Main problem with early cards is image quality under 3D workload.

Some are VERY broken, so comparing them based on performance metric is meaningless (since they can't display the same [correct] image).

Some S3 Virge cards and Riva 128 cards come to mind here, cheap Riva 128 cards can be all sorts of terrible for image quality and Virge can be a hit or miss depending on the Vbios used. There are a lot of early ATI cards that are so broken that you need several different driver versions on hand to switch between to get certain 3d functions working with games.

I own the rather infamous ATI Fury MAXX and its one of the most pedantic cards to actually get running due to how fussy it is with AGP and even when it is running its performance can be truly abysmal due to drivers being broken.

Even 3DFX is not immune to terrible image quality, Voodoo Rush anyone with the Alliance 2d chip ..yeah not a great combination, cheap pass through cables can also make for poor image quality.

Riva 128 technically had meh rendering quality, but then you remember that there were very loose standards back then and your real gaming options in 1997 were 3Dfx or Nvidia. With everything else being even more terrible or too obscure to even consider.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2024-03-07, 02:22:

With everything else being even more terrible or too obscure to even consider.

powervr pcx2 erasure. smh

+ 24-bit always, dithers in post (NO FUNNY OVERDRAWS)
+ image quality as high as your host because it's through the bus
+ Fast enough for Unreal (and supported by Unreal at launch. is SGLDrv a joke to you?)
+ hardware alpha with modulation!!!
+ 1024x768 tomb raider!!!
+ available at US$99!!!
- Need a decent FPU for the drivers (Pentium II's a good match)
- Less blending functions, but in 1997 with early DirectX being barely able to 3D and gamedevs targeting a tech art balance for software rendering and the first gen 3d, it's no big deal for 1997
- No GL ICD but that's ditto for everyone until 1999 anyway.

There is a Diamond version of a SiS-6326 which might be the most sorted version... or it might be relatively early, there were meant to be some tweaks in later revisions that made them faster and more stable. Was glancing through the 6326 data sheet the other day, lots of mostly untapped potential in it seems like. Be great to discover one with ALL the features broken out.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2024-03-07, 02:22:

Riva 128 technically had meh rendering quality, but then you remember that there were very loose standards back then and your real gaming options in 1997 were 3Dfx or Nvidia. With everything else being even more terrible or too obscure to even consider.

I remember a good quality 128 ZX was about on par with a VooDoo for quality, I mean neither card was what we would consider great now but for the time its was ok when used with a good CRT.

I think we forget that a good CRT could help with poor picture quality.

A bad CRT helped even more, penalty free AA 🤣

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-03-07, 03:34:

A bad CRT helped even more, penalty free AA lol

For 320x200 resolutions, a small SCART TV might be good, err, bad enough.
These consumer CRTs had a big dot pitch, so all the ugly details were being smoothed out. No aliasing artefacts.. ;)

Jo22 wrote on 2024-03-07, 03:37:

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-03-07, 03:34:

A bad CRT helped even more, penalty free AA 🤣

For 320x200 resolutions, a small SCART TV might be good, err, bad enough.
These consumer CRTs had a big dot pitch, so all the ugly details were being smoothed out. No aliasing artefacts.. 😉

Haha very true !

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-03-07, 03:34:

A bad CRT helped even more, penalty free AA 🤣

One could say the Riva128 came with that already, its image quality could be uhhh very blurred.

Early noughts I had Battlefield 1942 on a 30" CRT TV out of the video out of my GF3 at 800x600 and that wasn't bad to look at.

My monitor throughout the 90s was a trinitron-like so I didn't have any of this "blurry dot pitch is the only retro way" crap. I saw all the dithering and jaggies and the scanlines on 70hz+ stuff etc. If there's obviously bad image quality, i'd know. I only knew about what it could look like switching to an nVidia *after* the 90s.

Not common chips/cards like the Mpact seems very interesting. As far as I remember many of these felt having good specifications and who knows how they could run with a serious driver evolution, like the late Rage II engine drivers that at least gave a good compatibility.

The Riva128 in the Diamond pcb was a nice card with great output signal and the rendering feel cheaper but unique. But some high end pcb with other less known alternative chips are more interesting. It'd great to find reference or prototype cards of those early accelerators.

powervr pcx2 erasure. smh

Nope, just too obscure.

I’m not sure the exact qualification here like it’s a little unclear if we want the worst but also functional or something. Anyway here’s my take:

One of the late S3 cards
Trident blade 3d or another of the late trident cards
Maybe a rendition verite based card

I was installing Descent 2 a month or so ago, and it specifically prompts to install the S3 ViRGE accelerated version. I happened to have a ViRGE card, and never used one back in the day so decided to check it out. And... holy moley it was bad. Bad to nearly unplayable frame rates, even for the time, and blurry image quality. Then, trying it in 2D mode 640x480 on the same card and got very smooth fps and sharp image quality. This was on a 233MMX system. So, in this case the card was acting as a 3D decelerator and a huge bottleneck. 🥴