Mine broke this year. I guess it's all defective now.

I'm sure the retail cards are less common than the OEM cards due to volume of sales. But I got an ASUS V6600 Deluxe off fleabay somewhat recently for cheap.

It does seem like there are still inventory liquidations of OEM cards occasionally even though these cards are ancient. That is strange.

I have two Creative GeForce 256 DDR Annihilator Pro. I think this model was more common than Leadtek Winfast or Asus V6600/V6800, but still scarce compared to any card based on GeForce 2. IMHO, it was a somewhat experimental release prior to Nvidia's flagship of the time, the GF2 GTS.

GeForce 256 DDR had a much more balanced design, though. Both GF2 MX and GTS were so severely bandwidth-limited, that their enormous (for the time) theoretical fillrate was cut to half in 32-bit rendering. The older GF1 DDR, with a lower fillrate than MX, but the same VRAM chips as GTS, was able to surpass MX's performance and get close to GTS in some scenarios.

I played Q3 and OA with an overclocked GF1 DDR up to 2007 (must have told this story a few times already). It has a very prominent place in my personal graphics card Hall of Fame, paired with GF4 Ti and second only to Voodoo^2.

NV10/NV15 were also extremely inefficient, wasting a lot of fillrate and memory potential. GeForce 4 MX was neat in how it could match an Ultra with less throughput. NV matched the efficiency that ATI had with the original Radeon.

GeForce DDR was indeed relatively balanced. But back then most people were running 16-bit color anyway so GTS's imbalance wasn't really that in most cases and it destroyed everything else in 2000.

batracio wrote:

I have two Creative GeForce 256 DDR Annihilator Pro. I think this model was more common than Leadtek Winfast or Asus V6600/V6800, but still scarce compared to any card based on GeForce 2. IMHO, it was a somewhat experimental release prior to Nvidia's flagship of the time, the GF2 GTS.

GeForce 256 DDR had a much more balanced design, though. Both GF2 MX and GTS were so severely bandwidth-limited, that their enormous (for the time) theoretical fillrate was cut to half in 32-bit rendering. The older GF1 DDR, with a lower fillrate than MX, but the same VRAM chips as GTS, was able to surpass MX's performance and get close to GTS in some scenarios.

I played Q3 and OA with an overclocked GF1 DDR up to 2007 (must have told this story a few times already). It has a very prominent place in my personal graphics card Hall of Fame, paired with GF4 Ti and second only to Voodoo^2.

So basically, if you want eye candy then a GeForce 256 DDR is better but if all you want is high framerates and don't care as much about how everything looks then GF2MX is the one to get?

Another thing, I noticed in Wikipedia where they break down each series of nVidia graphics cards that they mention that the GF 256 cards were available with 64mb RAM but I never see them with this much. The only ones I ever see all have 32mb RAM. I know there was a Quadro based on the same chip that came with 64mb and that some of those can be flashed, but was there ever a GeForce model released with 64mb?

sliderider wrote:

Another thing, I noticed in Wikipedia where they break down each series of nVidia graphics cards that they mention that the GF 256 cards were available with 64mb RAM but I never see them with this much. The only ones I ever see all have 32mb RAM. I know there was a Quadro based on the same chip that came with 64mb and that some of those can be flashed, but was there ever a GeForce model released with 64mb?

http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=213

Oh and 128 MB GeForce2 MX cards also exist (namely the one from Diablotek), but it's superfluous given its performance strength level.

The thing that really brings the GF2 MX's performance down to that of the original GF256 SDR is the use of SDR SDRAM (128-bit interface), along with the 2x2 pipe/TMU design. Of course, DDR models of the MX also exist, but they only use a 64-bit memory interface, effectively making their performance no better (and in many cases, worse than that of) than the SDR models. A GF2 MX utilizing a 128-bit DDR memory interface (which apparently is impossible according to NVIDIA's GF2 MX page - guess this was done to prevent cannibalizing GTS sales) would certainly have similar performance to that of a GF256 DDR.

With 128bit DDR, GF2MX would be like a Radeon but with 2 TMUs (vs 3) per pipe and lower efficiency. It would have half the pixel fillrate of Geforce 256 which would probably give it a perf deficit in single textured games.

You can also look at GF2MX as a TNT2 with DX7 and 2 TMUs per pipe. Radeon SDR is a bit faster.

sliderider wrote:

So basically, if you want eye candy then a GeForce 256 DDR is better but if all you want is high framerates and don't care as much about how everything looks then GF2MX is the one to get?

If by eye candy you mean 32-bit color rendering, then yes, GF1 DDR is better than GF2 MX. But don't expect the GF2 MX to be any faster than GF1 DDR in 16-bit color rendering due to its higher fillrate. Take a look at these old reviews, GF2 MX matches GF1 DDR in some tests, but most of the times it is tied to GF1 SDR, and GF1 DDR beats both with ease:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/570
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/full-revi … nvidia,204.html
http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/reviews … ew_geforce2_mx/

GeForce 256 has a clear advantage over GF2 MX in older games: a 4x1 rendering engine (4 pipelines with 1 texture unit each). This allows it to use its full texel fillrate in single textured games. GF2 MX, on the other hand, is based on a 2x2 rendering engine (2 pipelines with 2 texture units each), so it can only use half of its texel fillrate in single textured games.

I can only think of two scenarios where GF2 MX should perform better than GF1 DDR: a fillrate limited game with multitexturing, 16-bit color rendering (reviews show a very similar performance in those test, as they were CPU bound with the processors of the time; may be different with faster CPUs), and games/apps with very high polygon count. Professional benchmarks like SPECviewperf do show this GF2 MX advantage over GF1 DDR, but in games, fillrate+bandwidth is more important than raw T&L speed.

Pippy P. Poopypants wrote:

http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=213 […]
Show full quote

sliderider wrote:

Another thing, I noticed in Wikipedia where they break down each series of nVidia graphics cards that they mention that the GF 256 cards were available with 64mb RAM but I never see them with this much. The only ones I ever see all have 32mb RAM. I know there was a Quadro based on the same chip that came with 64mb and that some of those can be flashed, but was there ever a GeForce model released with 64mb?

http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=213

Oh and 128 MB GeForce2 MX cards also exist (namely the one from Diablotek), but it's superfluous given its performance strength level.

The thing that really brings the GF2 MX's performance down to that of the original GF256 SDR is the use of SDR SDRAM (128-bit interface), along with the 2x2 pipe/TMU design. Of course, DDR models of the MX also exist, but they only use a 64-bit memory interface, effectively making their performance no better (and in many cases, worse than that of) than the SDR models. A GF2 MX utilizing a 128-bit DDR memory interface (which apparently is impossible according to NVIDIA's GF2 MX page - guess this was done to prevent cannibalizing GTS sales) would certainly have similar performance to that of a GF256 DDR.

Sounds kinda like what Matrox did when they created the G450. They went to DDR RAM then figured since DDR has twice the theoretical bandwith as SDRAM that they could drop the 128-bit memory controller to save some money and get the same performance from a 64-bit controller. Result? The older G400 with SDRAM actually outperforms the DDR G450 in most games, not that Matrox cards were ever that great at games in the first place.

hi

i got the asus card new for about 230 UKP
i believe.

i gave it away to a friend who probably still
has it. the issue i found was it's annoying fan
other than that it was a good card.

mine came with the 3d glasses, there is a
specific socket on the back plate for those
to plug in. if you didn't get any goggles with
it you know what to look for 😀

if you are interested i still have the ASUS v6600/v6800
install CD here. not sure if anything interesting
is on it though.

i ran it on a ASUS slot-a machine with a 1G CPU
(my friend has that as well). in mid 2000 that
was fast kit.

cya!

edit:
here is what's on the CD:

Retail GeForce 256 rare? GeForce 2 GTS common as dirt?

Funny thing is, I came to the same conclusion. I only saw one or 2 for sale when I wasn't interested in them. And idd, GF2 seems to be quite common

Edit: But if you want REALLY common, check the GF2MX. It's the next Virge! 😜

I have a pair of beastly GeForce 2 MX200 cards that would rock anyone's world. Pulled from Dells.

64-bit SDR SDRAM really lets a GeForce 2 MX run wild and free. 😵

swaaye wrote:

I have a pair of beastly GeForce 2 MX200 cards that would rock anyone's world. Pulled from Dells.

64-bit SDR SDRAM really lets a GeForce 2 MX run wild and free. 😵

Basically a TNT2 with an updated feature set. At least they won't have to keep stuffing TNT2 Pros into P4 machines anymore.

But if you want REALLY common, check the GF2MX. It's the next Virge!

Anything that was really common in OEM PCs is bound to be plentiful on ebay. Which is why not many Voodoo4/5s, Neon 250s and other obscure graphics cards.

Pippy P. Poopypants wrote:

Basically a TNT2 with an updated feature set. At least they won't have to keep stuffing TNT2 Pros into P4 machines anymore. […]
Show full quote

swaaye wrote:

I have a pair of beastly GeForce 2 MX200 cards that would rock anyone's world. Pulled from Dells.

64-bit SDR SDRAM really lets a GeForce 2 MX run wild and free. 😵

Basically a TNT2 with an updated feature set. At least they won't have to keep stuffing TNT2 Pros into P4 machines anymore.

But if you want REALLY common, check the GF2MX. It's the next Virge!

Anything that was really common in OEM PCs is bound to be plentiful on ebay. Which is why not many Voodoo4/5s, Neon 250s and other obscure graphics cards.

Does anyone happen to know which cards we will see in the future? I know Radeon 9600 was used in lots of Fujitsu Siemens's, so those are bound to turn up sooner or later (probably sooner).
Also Medion had a computer featuring the Radeon 9800 XL.

Pippy P. Poopypants wrote:

Basically a TNT2 with an updated feature set. At least they won't have to keep stuffing TNT2 Pros into P4 machines anymore.

Well, a replacement for the TNT2 M64 that is. I have one of those beauties too.

There's actually a GeForce2 MX100 too, with a 32-bit memory bus! 😀 Virge bandwidth.

swaaye wrote:

There's actually a GeForce2 MX100 too, with a 32-bit memory bus! 😀 Virge bandwidth.

Lol I checked if I had one...answer is: Nope 😜 (and won't be getting one less it falls into my lap 😜).

Have an MX400 kicking about. Nothing special imo, although as I've mentioned in other posts GeForce 256 and newer cards don't mean that much to me. Unless they have some obscure feature 😜

As downstripped as the MX is, it was the best selling cards of it's time. I owned a GF2 MX400 with 64 MB DDR and it wasn't too bad upto 800x600 at 16 bit color. The core was as fast as a GF2 GTS. (Ofcourse the 64 MB RAM amount is questionable).
It targeted the value market just as the TNT2 M64 and the price was hot.

I finally found a review that pits the 256s and 2s against each other.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/full-revi … idia,204-4.html