wich gfx card is beter

[mrweirdo]

Hello I have two old PCI video cards around and I'm a trying to figure out which one is best to keep for spare parts and wich one to get rid of? I have an STB S3 VIRGE/VX PCI 4MB VRAM 4MB DRAM and a ATI 3D RAGE II+ PCI 2MB VRAM 2MB DRAM video card.

 

[dguy6789]

run 3dmark 2000 on em.

 

[VirtualLarry]

The Virge is newer, and probably faster. The RagePro had poor 3D, and the RageII+ predates the RagePro by a bit.
I once played UT on an S3 Virge/DX 4MB PCI card, was surprised that it had a decent frame-rate at 800x600.
I'd keep the S3 around just in card you need to flash the BIOS on a b0rked AGP card, but I wouldn't use it for anything serious.

 

[Childs]

S3 Virge is a total POS. You were probably using a software renderer in UT.

 

[mrweirdo]

well I decided to keep the S3 around and give the rage away wich went into a dell comp i fixed up thats going to be donated. I just wanted to know wich would be best to keep around for myself in case I ever need a PCI card when trying to fix a system that wont boot properly or something. It seems like the extra ran would be beter anyways.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Childs
S3 Virge is a total POS. You were probably using a software renderer in UT.

No, actually it was slower, interlaced, and had a non-filtered output when I switched to the software renderer.

That's why I was so surprised, everyone seems to claim that the Virge's 3D is crap, and yet it clearly was better than the software renderer, both in speed and in quality of output.

(Note that this was a Virge/DX 4MB, not the original Virge.)

Neither one was really up to what I would call "acceptable" performance for playability though.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry

Originally posted by: Childs
S3 Virge is a total POS. You were probably using a software renderer in UT.

No, actually it was slower, interlaced, and had a non-filtered output when I switched to the software renderer.

That's why I was so surprised, everyone seems to claim that the Virge's 3D is crap, and yet it clearly was better than the software renderer, both in speed and in quality of output.

(Note that this was a Virge/DX 4MB, not the original Virge.)

Neither one was really up to what I would call "acceptable" performance for playability though.

I remember playing Tomb Raider 2 and 3 back in the day on an S3 Virge, and they actually ran quite acceptably. Although I was very disappointed at the time that it didn't have OpenGL drivers available for it, just Direct3D. No GLQuake2 for me until I bought my first "real" video card, a TNT2 Ultra.

 

[LordPhoenix]

Get a cheap gf2.

 

[nRollo]

They both stink, throw'em out.