I use a 4MB version on my p200mmx setup, it is indeed fast AND compatible.

Seems to be the "optimal" retro NVIDIA card for playing DOS games
Though the "noisy" filtering kinda makes it look like 15-bit rendering mode (a la S3 ViRGE) and its filtering isn't quite as smooth as the Voodoo. And it probably saved NVIDIA's arse after releasing a non-DirectX compliant chip a couple years earlier. Oh well, it makes it a good enough candidate to add to my collection.

Keatah wrote:

Wasn't the Riva-128 ZX 8MB variant one of the fastest 2D chips of the time?? Sporting a 250mhz+ ramdac..!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIVA_128

Well this was about the time that everyone achieved nearly the theoretical limit of 2D acceleration. You will be hard pressed to notice differences in speed between Banshee, G200, Rage PRO, Savage 3D, #9 Revolution, etc.

Riva 128 has some probs in 3D that make TNT a better choice. But it was an amazing first start for a NV DirectX card.

My favorite Nvidia chips that had "style" were the Riva-128 (4mb/pci) and the Riva TNT-2 ultra with 32MB and tv in/out and perhaps the Geforce-4 4600 ultra .. I never felt any of the ge-force chips had personality though. Even today, they all feel like mass produced 'devices' designed to transfer funds from your wallet to a big corporation.

What I am hard up to see succeed is the built-in on-die graphics chips from intel in their new processors. I hope that, as they did the soundcard, they engulf and eliminate the 3d add-in board market. Or perhaps reduce it to nothing more than commodity and cheap-o afterthought.

On-board graphics is elegant, and that is the way the early computers did it! Like the Apple II. The processor had to manage each and every pixel that went on the screen. There was nothing more than a simple "ramdac" serving as the graphics board. It would scan the main memory and dump to the screen, independent of the processor. But the cpu had to laboriously put each pixel in memory.

Besides, the add-in graphics card came about as a way around a technological limitation. The add-in card is like a tumor growth, big, hot, clunky. Anyways, the limitation was not having a powerful-enough cpu to do the job. Now, perhaps our new cpu's coming out in 2011 and 2012 CAN handle the job. Afterall, they handle software sound just fine nowadays.

I think the major functions a CPU has absorbed over the past 20 years are not a lot. So another one is a welcome addition!

Keatah wrote:

My favorite Nvidia chips that had "style" were the Riva-128 (4mb/pci) and the Riva TNT-2 ultra with 32MB and tv in/out and perhaps the Geforce-4 4600 ultra .. I never felt any of the ge-force chips had personality though. Even today, they all feel like mass produced 'devices' designed to transfer funds from your wallet to a big corporation.

ARRRGH

It's a graphics card. It draws stuff on your screen. It can do it quickly, it can do it slowly, it can do it nicely, it can do it badly. It has no personality. It has no style. NONE OF THEM DO.

I'll go away now.

In the hard analysis, yes, it's a pile of silicon and plastic and metal. But don't you feel and taste some flavor when you touch a graphics chip? Something mysterious inside. Electricity goes in, and pretty pictures come out..? Something like that.

When I touch a graphics chip, I am gravely alarmed at the possibility of ESD.

@Keatah : the voodoo chips had a soul... 😀

Jorpho wrote:

ARRRGH […]
Show full quote

Keatah wrote:

My favorite Nvidia chips that had "style" were the Riva-128 (4mb/pci) and the Riva TNT-2 ultra with 32MB and tv in/out and perhaps the Geforce-4 4600 ultra .. I never felt any of the ge-force chips had personality though. Even today, they all feel like mass produced 'devices' designed to transfer funds from your wallet to a big corporation.

ARRRGH

It's a graphics card. It draws stuff on your screen. It can do it quickly, it can do it slowly, it can do it nicely, it can do it badly. It has no personality. It has no style. NONE OF THEM DO.

I'll go away now.

Yeah, when I see a 50million dollar Rembrandt, I think the same. It's just a thin piece of canvas with paint mixed all up, mounted in a frame of wood...with gold paint or something.

...k, my turn to run!!
😜

^ LOLz