Trouble-free video card

[Mercutio]

This one's for the builders and integrators among us:

I'm sure we all have different experiences with computer hardware. What I'd like to see is a rough ranking of which video cards (by chipset, not brand, for the 50-billion S3s and nvidia cards out there) that seem the least "fussy" - the most reliable, the best drivers, the most compatible video cards you've sold in the last couple of years. Heck, base it on whatever you want.

Here's my list, best to worst:

1. Matrox G200/G400
2. 3dfx Voodoo 3/4/5 (mostly I sold 3s)
3. Matrox Millenium I/II
4. ATI Radeon 7x00 (I'd rank it equal to the 3dfx if I didn't have to work a bit to make one work with Linux).
5. ATI Rage (3D could be better, 2D is above average, and driver have been pretty stable for a long time)
6. S3 Savage 4 (very average performance, driver causes an odd 2000 crash ~ bi-weekly, poor 3D)
7. SiS 620 (average display, average level of crashy-ness in 9x and 2000)
7. Voodoo Banshee (I found both 2D and 3D sub-par, but decent drivers)
8. Trident 9880 (barely tolerable drivers - crash! - but decent 2D display)
8. s3 Virge (the card that won't die. Barely tolerable everything. You'd think after five years someone would make one that works better than that... and with all the firmware customizations that have been done, maybe your generic driver will work and maybe it won't).
9. TNT2 (looks nice for 3D, once you've fiddled around with it enough to make it work properly, 2D is sub-par at best and drivers seem to be a crapshoot).
10. Geforce2 MX (see above, only moreso. And spend the extra $10 to make sure the user gets a replacement fan for when the first one fails).

I haven't sold any of the other nvidia-based cards but personal experiences with the Riva/TNT1/Geforce/GF2 GTS don't exactly inspire confidence, either.

 

[Buck]

I would include in the best (for me):
GeForce2 MX400 (compatibility is good with KT133/KT266/AMD 760 MP flavored chipsets)
ATI Rage 128 Pro (compatibility with older chipsets (Aladdin IV) and semi-new chipsets (VIA VT82C69 & VT82C686B-Dual Socket 370)


...worst:
GeForce256 (compatibility is minimal, regardless of driver version)

 

[CougTek]

...worst:
GeForce256 (compatibility is minimal, regardless of driver version)

That's probably because of the impressive amount of juice these cards draw from the AGP slot. I remember it caused many issues with several motherboards at the time. 2D was also sub par.

I have very few complains about NVIDIA cards since they rose the reference design for their Titanium line of cards. There's of course the bug between the 23.11 Detonator and some VIA chipset (KT266/KT266A in particular), but I skipped that one (remained with the 21.83 till the latest 28.xx got out).

Now their 2D quality is very tolerable and their 3D performances are the reference of the industry. Nonetheless, I hope the upcoming and highly hyped Matrox Pharmelia will give them a run for the money.

 

[P5-133XL]

I would have put the TNT2 down near the bottom of the list because when the TNT2 was releasted it took so much current most motherboards couldn't deal with it either (Like the GeForce256). It took about 6-9 months before TNT2's worked properly with new motherboards. However, nowdays, the TNT2 has no problems. Thus there can be real problems putting the TNT2 in older motherboards and that is the only place people would be putting a card like that.

This list really depends on when you look at the problems. For older video cards in a modern machine, what you are looking at is no compatibility issues but rather support issues: Are new drivers being written that optimise the cards features. If I were to view modern compatibility, I'd put the voodoo 3/4/5 much lower because of those support issues. Nowdays all drivers for those cards are being written by 3rd parties with no reference drivers. The drivers from 3rd parties vary tremoundously in quality and it is hard for the user to pick amoung the drivers that exist to produce the best result and in the worst caste it can be disasterous.

In general the list is reasonable in judging the amount of trouble-free instalations: There are merely issues of subjectivity that still exist.

 

[Mercutio]

Even from a "modern" standpoint, the "old" 3dfx cards function fully and properly in Windows XP as 2D devices and even as DirectX accelerators (I tried Unreal Tournament on a Voodoo5 during the time I had XP on one machine. It worked just fine @ around 40fps in 1024x768 using DirectX for in-game display) IIRC - and I'm not an XP expert by any means, the only compatibility issues are OpenGL-related.

Not, IMHO, a high priority.

I remeber having issues with ATI Expert-class cards and firmware. ATI offered custom firmware for just about every OEM, like the S3 Virge. That's one of the big reasons I'm surprised/happy about the current Rage and Radeon-class cards. Expert also had some color-bleed problems in 2D display. I'm glad I never bought any. I'm sure they would rank low on my list.

Have a list, Tannin, CougTek?

 

[CougTek]

Thus there can be real problems putting the TNT2 in older motherboards and that is the only place people would be putting a card like that.

Shamefully, there are still (or until very recently) a few major OEMs as well as a lot of Mom&Pop shops that put TNT2 (often M64!) in their current system configurations. Totally shameful, but nonetheless true.

 

[CougTek]

Have a list, Tannin, CougTek?

Dunno for Tony, but I don't really keep a list of the graphic cards that worked well for me. When I have to build a system for my customers, I go with what I feel would be the best for them at the moment. And since I'm almost the only one person I know who upgrades/installs drivers (unless I suggest my knowledgeable-enough customers to do so), I only have to worry about the driver I put, not the past success/failure of a particular manufacturer.

Like everyone, I have favorite companies : Matrox, followed by ATI and then NVIDIA (I don't really consider SiS/Trident until they come up with something at least half decent, although they are fine when integrated into some chipset core). But no matter how much I like Matrox, I will never put one of their cards in a gaming rig just as well as I wouldn't sell a NVIDIA card for someone who would like to play games on his TV (their TV-out sucks), even if they currently are the king of 3D. There have been very few cards I haven't been able to install correctly (only one I remember is a Savage 2000 by Diamond). When I can make it work, it means that it will also work fine for the customer as long as he doesn't modify the installation of his system (and they generally ask me to do these things).

Taken at large, yes there are graphic cards that have been vastly over some others, but there's almost always a way to make a card work properly when you are aware of what and what not to do with it.

 

[Mercutio]

Shamefully, there are still (or until very recently) a few major OEMs as well as a lot of Mom&Pop shops that put TNT2 (often M64!) in their current system configurations. Totally shameful, but nonetheless true.

The other side of that is, for vendors who do use nvidia cards, the M64 is a perfectly acceptable low-cost part. At 8- or 16MB, it fits the bill for "budget" video card just fine, and if you're thinking like one of those misguided folks, the fact that they can do some amount of 3D is just gravy.

I know of at least one regional OEM that just stopped using ISA video cards in the last two years, and has settled on the S3 Virge PCI(!) for their systems... when they don't sell all-integrated machines. It's a sad day when integrated SiS620 or a Savage4 is better than an add-on board...

 

[Buck]

I know of at least one regional OEM that just stopped using ISA video cards in the last two years, and has settled on the S3 Virge PCI(!) for their systems... when they don't sell all-integrated machines. It's a sad day when integrated SiS620 or a Savage4 is better than an add-on board...

That is painful to hear. I always calculate that integrated video is the bottom of the barrel. Even more difficult to handle at times, is the customer who just understand why your "low" price isn't as low as the competition. They don't understand the different in products until they use them, sometimes not even then.

BR

 

[CougTek]

But since you insist :

Office box :

• 1)Matrox
  2)ATI
  3)NVIDIA Titanium serie and later
  4)Trident Blade 3D integrated into the north bridge of VIA PLE133 cheapset
  .
  .
  .
  .
  5)NVIDIA before Titanium.

Gaming rig :

• 1)NVIDIA Titanium serie and later
  2)ATI
  3)NVIDIA before Titanium.

General purpose home system :

• 1)ATI
  2)NVIDIA Titanium serie and later
  3)Matrox (can't honestly place higher due to lack of 3D muscles)
  4)NVIDIA before Titanium.
  5)Trident Blade 3D (only for the cheapest box)

I didn't have enough experience with Voodoo3 and Voodoo 4500/5500 to have an opinion about them (used Matrox G400MAX, ATI Rage Fury and TNT2 Pro back then). I never (or at least don't remember) installed anything using a Kyro chipset. I haven't sold any external (external meaning not integrated into N/B) SiS graphic. I'll probably give their upcoming SiS330 a shoot if it's cheap enough.

Finally, I consider the i740 graphic core that's part of the i810/i815 chipset to be a graphic card's caricature/mockery and therefore I don't use it.

 

[Tannin]

Damn it Mercutio, this could take forever to get right! Let's start with a very rough draft.

General-purpose home/office system:

Trident TVGA 9000
S3 Trio 3D/2X
Nvidia TNT II M64
Trident 9680
S3 Trio 3D
Cirrus Logic 5429
Avance Logic VESA
Realtek ISA
ATI Expert
Trident TVGA 8900
Trident 9440
Cirrus Logic 5428, 5426 and related older ones
Trident AGP cards
Trident 9200 and 9400
Cirrus Logic 5546
S3 903
Cirrus Logic ISA cards
S3 Savage 4
Intel i740


Professional System

Number 9
Western Digital (can't remember the chip number.)
Matrox G200/400/450
Matrox Milennium
Tseng ET6000 and ET6100
Tseng ET-4000 W32P
Tseng ET-4000 PCI


Gaming Rig

Voodoo II
Voodoo III
Nvidia TNT 2 after they finally got the drivers right
Nvidia Gforce II
Trident TVGA 8900
Tseng ET6000 and ET6100
Voodoo 1
Tseng ET-4000 W32P
Cirrus Logic 5429
Tseng ET-4000 PCI
Kyro
Voodoo Banshee
S3 903
S3 Savage 4
Nvidia TNT 2 (before about 2000)
Nvidia TNT 1
Intel 740

 

[time]

Interestingly, I've had more trouble with card manufacturers than chipsets. There's a couple I've learnt to avoid like the plague ...

I actually don't mind NVidia-based cards all that much, but I do think they're massively overpriced. Their earlier drivers, in the days of the Riva 128, were nothing less than appalling. But by and large, they seemed to settle down, barring the odd debacle as Cougtek mentioned.

I can't accept that ATI has better drivers. Their drivers have only just become acceptable in the last year or so, and last time I looked, still offered uneven 3D performance, especially under Win2k.

Yes, I've certainly noticed the differences in 2D quality, but they don't trouble me as much as the differences between earlier graphics cards. And most people never go above 1024x768 anyway, especially in this third world country called Australia where vendors are still bundling 15" monitors. :roll:

It's also a question of what we can buy. For some reason, Matrox seems to remain expensive here. An absolutely basic 16MB G450 costs around US$65 plus tax. A dual head 32MB G550 will set you back at least US$140.

Oz suppliers seem to see ATI cards as budget models. So far I've only seen the VE version of the Radeon ... ah, scratch that, the latest email proudly mentions a 7500LE with 64MB SDRAM for US$75 plus tax (min retail) - is it any good?

Best buy for ages for me has been Kyro II. Good 2D quality, consistent 3D performance, great price. Unfortunately, the only brand available was Joytech (Apollo). I don't know what those bastards do their cards, but I've had trouble with every model of theirs, regardless of chipset. This one wouldn't run 3D at all on a Soltek 75KAV (KT133A), and would only run on an Epox 8KHA+ with 'AGP 2x' disabled in the BIOS. The Soltek didn't have the setting.

Once I got it working, it worked very well. Heaps better than MX400, and genuine 32-bit support rather than the pretend support NVidia normally delivers.

But the supplier has decided they've had enough grief with Joytech, so they're no longer available. And who knows if Kyro will still exist at all next year?

Other stuff:

The SiS 6326 I've seen shouldn't be classified as 3D cards at all. Sort of like a modern S3 Virge.

Rendition never could get their drivers right before they disappeared into Micron, never to be seen again.

Worst driver support award would have to go to S3 though, no contest. And yet four years ago, I was recommending them to ensure 2D compatibility with different OSes and with remote control software. Things can change fast - NVidia should remember that.

 

[Mercutio]

time, I'd suggest giving a Radeon 7500 a try. It's a good blanace between a gaming card and a good 2D card. Rather like the 3dfx Voodoo3s back in their day (it's an apt comparison. Rad. 7000 = V3 2000, 7200 = V3 3000, 7500 = V3 3500).

The fact that the 7x00-series doesn't need active cooling is icing on the cake.

Speaking of brands... anyone ever had a good ChainTech card?

No? That's what I thought. Anyway...

S3 really aggravates me. As I mentioned elsewhere, I still see those awful Virges and Trios (well Trio isn't that bad). The thing that I hate, even more than their underwhelming crappiness as 2D (let along 3D!) solutions, is that, because of firmware optimizations made by specific companies, the generic drivers for their cards don't work every time.

time, I saw the Kyro as a gaming card. I was surprised to see some of the oddball graphics problems within games while using that card. Is that something that has been fixed?

 

[Buck]

...I still see those awful Virges and Trios (well Trio isn't that bad).

The word Dirges seems to ring better then Virges.

BR

 

[GIANT]

. .

Professional System
------------------------
*Number 9*
Western Digital (can't remember the chip number.)
Matrox G200/400/450
Matrox Milennium
Tseng ET6000 and ET6100
Tseng ET-4000 W32P
Tseng ET-4000 PCI

The only problem with Number 9 is that Number 9 cards have not been made in years.


But back in the day when they were around, I had (at work) six imaging workstations with Number 9 Imagine-128 graphics adaptors. Our work -- as it still is today -- is high resolution full colour 2-D work, displayed on calibrated 21/22-inch CRT displays. So, I had six boxes that I had Number 9 Imagine-128 graphics adaptors in and some 20+ image processing boxes that had Matrox graphics adaptors installed, namely the Matrox Millennium I and Millennium II graphics adaptors.


Even though the Number 9 Image-128 graphics adaptors were slightly faster pixel painters on paper than the Matrox Millennium I and II (you honestly couldn't tell by observing, though) at the time, the Number 9 drivers were not quite as well maintained as the Matrox drivers. Soon, Matrox was producing graphics adaptors like the G-100 and then the G-200 that were noticeably faster pixel painters when compared to anything and could produce images that were quantifiably the *best* quality in the high-res 2-D business, not to mention that they were also less expensive than the Number 9 Imagine-128. So, Number 9 went by the wayside because it could not compete on speed nor price.


Matrox still has a death grip on such specialised fields such as the professional 2-D high-res and multi-monitor markets: 2-D meaning photo retouching and desktop publishing; multi-monitor meaning industrial / manufacturing, financial trading, and other specialty areas such as audio and multimedia workstations where 2 or more (sometimes MANY more) hi-res displays are required. Matrox also have a huge presence in medical imaging display business.


As for the Western Digital chipset listed above, are you referring to the old Paradise graphics adaptors? The Paradise graphics adaptors were very successful in their day, but their follow up called the Bahama 64 was anything but successful or particularly stable. It was the final graphics offering for WD.


. .

 

[CougTek]

S3 really aggravates me. As I mentioned elsewhere, I still see those awful Virges and Trios (well Trio isn't that bad).

Ahhh, the Virge. First and only 3D graphic decelerator ever produced...

The Trio was a decent card though. And it is compatible with everything AFAIK. I never crossed an OS than didn't have drivers for the Trio. The S3 Trio is like the Toyota Tercel of the graphic card world. Not particularly enjoyable to use, but very reliable, won't let you down.

 

[LiamC]

Interesting the number of comments about the Matrox G200 being a goodie. Ever try to get the thing working ona Super7 (VIA) board?

I had no end of trouble with this little sucker and gave up in the end. I could get it to work by disabling most of the BIOS performance options, but system performance took a noticeable hit. Not to mention the promised OpenGL support advertised (didn't materialise for over a year)...

Yep, it's 2D is good, crisp and clear (still) but the whole experience soured me on Matrox...

 

[GIANT]

. .

Interesting the number of comments about the Matrox G200 being a goodie. Ever try to get the thing working ona Super7 (VIA) board?

I had no end of trouble with this little sucker and gave up in the end. I could get it to work by disabling most of the BIOS performance options, but system performance took a noticeable hit. Not to mention the promised OpenGL support advertised (didn't materialise for over a year)...

Yep, it's 2D is good, crisp and clear (still) but the whole experience soured me on Matrox...

The cure (back then) for the Matrox G-100 and G-200 to be compatible with the various idiosyncratic Via chipsets was a graphics card flash BIOS update.


The OpenGL support problem was a definite screwup on Matrox's part -- it eventually showed up.


. .

 

[timwhit]

Matrox always is slow with drivers. I remember when the G400 came out which was a few months before the release of Win2k it took them months and months to have final Win2k drivers. The beta drivers were crap and wouldn't work for me at all.

 

[LiamC]

Giant, it was more than one G200 BIOS flash (and more than two or three as well)...

 

[LiamC]

Time, bought an Apollo Kyro II from GameDude and could not get it to run on an Abit KT7A (kept looping in 3D, corrupted icons in 2D) or on an FIC SD-11 (at all!). Worked fine on an AMD760 (EPoX) with a fair amount of stuffing around and ALi MAGiK1 (Iwill). GameDude exchanged it for a PowerColor Kyro II which has worked fine on everything...

 

[GIANT]

. .

Matrox always is slow with drivers. I remember when the G400 came out which was a few months before the release of Win2k it took them months and months to have final Win2k drivers. The beta drivers were crap and wouldn't work for me at all.

The slowness to deliver was to do with MS WHQL certification. I never did use their beta drivers when Windows 2000 first came out. I stuck with the default (stable) Win2K installation drivers until the first final drivers update arrived.


. .

 

[GIANT]

. .

Giant, it was more than one G200 BIOS flash (and more than two or three as well)...

I don't know the exact history of those Via problems back then, as I was dedicated to a platform that centered on i440BX / i440GX stability. But, I definitely used to hear about them for some number of months.

As for Matrox BIOS updates, well, there would be only one nowadays (of course). If you had an "original" non-updated G-200, you would simply flash it with Universal BIOS V2,55 and all would be fine.


. .

 

[Prof.Wizard]

I didn't have a problem migrating from a V5 5500 AGP to a G3 Ti200... I found the latter more than 2x fast and problem-free with every game, regardless the rendering mechanism (DirectX/OpenGL)...

I think modern video adapters from nVIDIA don't share the problems of old TNT/TNT2... However time will tell...