Diamond Speedstar A55 S3 Virge and Windows XP?

[Eug]

Diamond Speedstar A55 S3 Virge and Windows XP?

Anybody running this combo? I bought it simply because it was US$13 and the store was out of cheap ATI Rages. Also picked up a SB PCI 128 for the same price.

I need a backup computer for work and I have a Celeron 400 with a Supermicro BX mobo. It will just be used for image storage and transfers to my Firewire portable drive. (I have a P4 1.6 in the same office but any image stuff is a pain since I'm running NT. No Firewire or USB support.)

If the card is fine in XP then I'll just keep it. If not then I'll look harder for a cheap Rage Pro (not Rage 128 Pro) or else maybe a TNT2. (I've avoided the nVidia cards though, because of the 2D quality.)

 

[Goosemaster]

That will work, albeit slowly


I tried the same thing when my Radeon DDR died...while it was getting replaced it did a fine job.

 

[Lord Evermore]

It should work perfectly fine, XP has built-in drivers for the Virge (though any special features on the card won't be supported by them). However I'm not sure a Virge's 2D quality would be all that different from a TNT or TNT2's quality, considering the resolution support and color depths.

 

[GrumpyMan]

I use one at work with Win 2000 so XP should be fine with it. It is slow though.

 

[ViRGE]

To put things in perspective, the ViRGE's RAMDAC was still in the sub-200mhz range(185, I think), which severely limits your resolution/refresh rates. Between that and some additional GDI acceleration featured on TNT+ class cards, I'd reccomend a TNT once you can get it.

 

[Eug]

So I've built my frankenputer.

Aopen 300 PSU - leftover from my old Aopen case
Supermicro P6SBA BX mobo ($30)
Celeron 400 hand-me-down from friend after I gave him my Celeron 533A@800.
2 x 64 MB sticks I had lying around
IBM 34GXP 20 GB drive sitting unused
Panasonic 12 CD-ROM sitting unused
10/100 LAN card I got free with from telco for ordering broadband from them
SoundBlaster PCI 128 ($13)
Diamond Speedstar A55 S3 Virge ($13)
Old IBM keyboard sitting in my closet
PS/2 mouse sitting in my closet

Total out of pocket cost: < US$50

Well, this Virge card works fine. Image quality is pretty mediocre, about on par with the TNT2s I've seen. The RAMDAC is 230 MHz, but that doesn't say much since the ATI Rage Pros I've seen with about the same speed RAMDACs have better image quality. It only supports 24-bit colour though. Interestingly, it has the same EtronTech brand RAM as does my Radeon 9100.

Using Win XP's built-in drivers, moving Windows around the desktop was PAINFULLY slow. However, the store had given me some old drivers, dated back from 2000. I installed those and everything seems quite Snappy (tm).

Bottom line: OK video card for the price, but nowadays at the low end it's best to stick to the ATI Rage line for image quality reasons. The Radeons rule though, on par with Matrox. Too bad I fried my Radeon 7200. When Radeons start appearing for US$30, I'll buy one for this junk computer.

Now I just need some more memory...

 

[Lord Evermore]

Is a 32MB SDR Radeon not good enough?

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: Lord Evermore
Is a 32MB SDR Radeon not good enough?

Good deal, but I'm up in Canada. The cheapest I've seen them at the stores close by is about $55 (for the DDR version). I'd have to drive across town to get a Radeon SDR.

 

[nutxo]

itll work, did in wifeys machine until a few weeks ago when i finally replaced with an old mx200