Real3d R3D/100, has anyone ever seen it?

[[EOCF] Tim]

I've got a Permedia 3 for Mac with packaging; its actually running within one of my Macs.

Looks exactly like this one:
http://www.uselessmac.com/photo/proform.jpg

I'll guess you never found a Bios for making a Permedia 3 out of the VX1?

Ah yea the Proformance 3, very nice, that's quite a rare card you have there.

Well, I have actually never looked for a Permedia 3 bios, the chips being basically the same anyway, I didn't think it would be necessary.

 

[RaVeNsClaw1989]

Well, I have actually never looked for a Permedia 3 bios, the chips being basically the same anyway, I didn't think it would be necessary.

Hm, I thought that the card would have a better gaming performance with the newest Permedia 3 driver than with that limitation to the workstation drivers...

Or is it possible to use the card with the Permedia 3 drivers?

 

[Davros]

can you flash that card to pc ?
i know you can with the mac voodoo5

 

[RaVeNsClaw1989]

No, there isn't any SGRam Permedia 3 for PC.

 

[Davros]

did the permedia 3 come out before the voodoo5 ?
it supports fsaa thought the v5 was the first card to do so ?

ps: all these years ive bought popular mainstream cards, what I should of done is buy the least popular - i'd be laughing now

 

[[EOCF] Tim]

Hm, I thought that the card would have a better gaming performance with the newest Permedia 3 driver than with that limitation to the workstation drivers...

Or is it possible to use the card with the Permedia 3 drivers?

Never tried that, should be fun to try out, unfortunately I've got some other cards on the bench atm.

did the permedia 3 come out before the voodoo5 ?
it supports fsaa thought the v5 was the first card to do so ?

ps: all these years ive bought popular mainstream cards, what I should of done is buy the least popular - i'd be laughing now

Permedia 3 came out May 1999, v5 was June 2000. Voodoo 5 wasn't the first card to support fsaa. I don't know which card was the first one by heart, I would have to check.

 

[swaaye]

I had a big collection of VLB hardware for a while. Cards like Diamond Stealth 32 (ET4000), Stealth 64 Video VRAM (S3 968), S3 805, ATI Mach 32... Had an ISA ET4000 too. I dropped all of that ancient stuff off at a recycle center a couple of years ago when I decided that I was sick of ~486 hardware and would rather just use DOSBOX.

Some photos I took for Wikipedia:



My first ISA card was a Trident 8900C. Compared to my first PC (a Tandy 1000TX), it was 256-color sweetness and high resolution that was super cool compared to the once-amazing Tandy/PCjr 16 color. But oh wow was it slow. To put its performance in perspective, I "upgraded" to an ISA Diamond Speedstar Pro (Cirrus 5426) for Wing Commander III and saw probably twice the VGA performance. GUI acceleration wasn't really important to me yet at that time. I didn't even bother with accelerated drivers for Win3.1 usually cuz it was even less stable with them usually. Later, I managed to get a cheap Hercules Dynamite Power ET4000/W32p VLB board eventually and that hauled, and then a Number Nine Motion 771 (S3 968) and it was slower in DOS but nifty for Windows 95.

Right now the collection contains just 3D accelerators that I've found nifty throughout the years.

 

[swaaye]

Permedia 3 came out May 1999, v5 was June 2000. Voodoo 5 wasn't the first card to support fsaa. I don't know which card was the first one by heart, I would have to check.

I seem to recall people hoping it would challenge NV10. They came out at almost the same time. But Permedia 3 couldn't touch it. Just like Savage 2000 couldn't.

Actually, the Savage 2000 is only a safe bet for one or two games, I think. They tried to make sure the thing worked for Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament. And then they pretty much gave up on it shortly thereafter. For UT, it was a pretty decent card because it could do S3 Metal and so was better off than cards stuck with Unreal engine's awful D3D. And it could do S3TC textures with the game because of the API. Voodoo5 eventually became the preferred card though, but it wasn't around for almost another year.

I'm fairly sure that Permedia 3 didn't have any strengths for gaming. You were probably better off with a Voodoo3, TNT2 Ultra or G400 Max. Of course, NV10 was in another class. NV10 had serious availability problems in 1999 though.

 

[[EOCF] Tim]

Those are some sweet cards really, I wish I knew more about that era, but I never got that interested in it I must say, even though I did play games on those machines.

Yea it seems a lot with the lesser manufacturers that even though on paper the cards were decent, the drivers fell hopelessly short, never unlocking the full potential of the cards, maybe they had more people/funds on designing and building the cards then on the actual driver department. Seems to still go that way with current S3 products, I think they are pretty much the last of the bunch that still brings out videocards, I'm not sure if they will ever be able to compete in the high end market, they've got some sweet cards at the moment with the chrome series, amazing really that they are still around.

 

[MrMilli]

Once in a while i go to the recycle center and the stuff people throw away ... it really hurts.
Too bad you are not allowed to take stuff from there.
Over the last 18 years i always threw away my old stuff ... if i just would have kept my stuff.
What i love about those times is that you could choose from +10 chip manufacturers. I miss that.

About fsaa: i think the first was the unreleased OAK Warp 5 that supported it (around 1997).

It seems that the most intresting stuff always got cancelled. Chip developement just got too expensive in those days.
The list is quiet long:
- as mentioned: OAK Warp 5
- Tseng ET6300
- Verite V3300 / V4400
- Stellar PixelSquirt
- GigaPixel GP1/2
- Alliance Paladin (Glide compatible)
- Kyro3 (PowerVR series 5 too)
- Tritech Pyramid3D
- Real3D-100 consumer chip?
- Bitboys Glaze3D
- ... probably even more (Chromatic MPACT! shouldn't be in this list since it's released but still very unknown)

The two (well three actually) most boring survived because they stayed 'sane' in their choses. Too bad. This is just boring.

 

[[EOCF] Tim]

Yep too bad, some would have been fantastic cards, especially Glaze3D, but also the Verite chips, they never really had the chance to redeem themselves properly, especially Bitboys, they got a lot of flack because of not releasing anything, while they had some proper ideas.

Yea, I'm not sure where you live, but its the same in the United Kingdom, your not allowed to take anything with you anymore from the recycling center, you would think that is the ultimate way to recycle, but no, health and safety legislation says you can't. Ridiculous, tell me where to find a 386 or 486. eBay? No chance, recycling center? Good chance.

 

[[EOCF] Tim]

Whoa, look at that baby :

Oak Warp 5 prototype.

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

I wonder who owns that board.

 

[Simon F]

Yea, I'm not sure where you live, but its the same in the United Kingdom, your not allowed to take anything with you anymore from the recycling center, you would think that is the ultimate way to recycle, but no, health and safety legislation says you can't. Ridiculous, tell me where to find a 386 or 486. eBay? No chance, recycling center? Good chance.

You could try joining your local "freecycle" group. <shrug>

 

[[EOCF] Tim]

You could try joining your local "freecycle" group. <shrug>

Hmm, I really don't know what to say to that. Not sure if that would work for a videocard collector.

Just had a nice buy from eBay :

iXMicro ix3D Ultimate Rez (Mac 3D Accelerator from 1997)

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_/ai_19992393

 

[[EOCF] Tim]

Sounds like the Stellar VelaTX Pixelsquirt was quite advanced in it's production, I can't exactly find when and where it was cancelled though.

Only thing I can find is that they were bought in 2000 by broadcom, and it just mentions that Stellar had designed the Pixelsquirt architecture, and that Broadcom will expand their 3D offerings, whatever that ment.

http://www.design-reuse.com/news/1820/broadcom-stellar-semiconductor-3-d-offerings.html

Check out the pdf on VelaTX.

http://www.mediafire.com/?zmmldmj9jmv

 

[Simon F]

Hmm, I really don't know what to say to that. Not sure if that would work for a videocard collector.

Maybe, maybe not. It did just occur to me that it might be possible to start a "special interest" cough geek cough freecycle group

 

[[EOCF] Tim]

That might be a good idea. I have always thought of making a website or forum, for people who collect videocards.

You have the odd 3dfx collectors forum, but nowhere somewhere where everyone can gather and express their thoughts and show their collection. I know many others would love to have a place like that. I think it will be the ultimate gathering of videocards.

 

[[EOCF] Tim]

They've got some Chromatic Mpact boards here! :

I've just been reading up on it, what a versatile architecture that was, it beats the NV1 in that regard I would say lol (even though the NV1 had Audio, joystick port, and graphics in hardware, as opposed to the Mpact being written for in software modules.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NEW-STB-LG-CHROMATIC-MPACT1-DVD-CONTROLLER-CARD-6000658_W0QQitemZ110178387557QQcmdZViewItemQQptZPCC_Video_TV_Cards?hash=item110178387557&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66%3A2|65%3A10|39%3A1|240%3A1318

 

[swaaye]

That might be a good idea. I have always thought of making a website or forum, for people who collect videocards.

Check out VOGONS. It's fairly active with folks building retro rigs. We have retro vid card discussions almost daily there.
http://vogons.zetafleet.com/index.php

 

[swaaye]

They've got some Chromatic Mpact boards here! :

I've just been reading up on it, what a versatile architecture that was, it beats the NV1 in that regard I would say lol (even though the NV1 had Audio, joystick port, and graphics in hardware, as opposed to the Mpact being written for in software modules.

I ran into one back in the day. A friend's comp came with one. The problem was, like with most other non-Voodoo cards, that it was so slow and buggy.

That's why many of those other cards failed to show up. The companies couldn't get them out before 3Dfx and NV were beyond what the product would be capable of anyway.