The ATI cards are good with 2D, but are not quite as good with serious 3D games, but the ATI are a good start and you can always upgrade later with a dedicated 3D card. The ATI card also allows you to play DVD, and this can be fantastic to those that want their computer to be their entertainment center. The ATI card is also fully compatible with the 3Dfx Voodoo and NEC PowerVR 3D only boards (The ATI board can even send the 3D image of the PowerVR board to the TV as well.)

The Riva 128 is a much better 2D/3D card, that is great for the gamer who could care less about DVD or a TV tuner (although, there are some TV Tuner add in cards that can work with the Riva 128.)

Both chipsets score big with their ability to send the signal out to a TV and thus allow for more engaging play with your large screen TV.

There is a lot of noise that the S3 Savage3D, Nvidia TNT and the NEC PMX1 chipset (alias PVRSG PowerVR Second Generation) will all be better chipsets than Voodoo 2 both in performance and in visual quality.  The problem is that we don't know for sure what the developers will do. A lot of the new chips will be relying on developers to include these new feaures into their games, but while these features may be cool, they can not be used on the existing 3D gamer user base, and thus the development of these features may be in jeopardy. Chances are that many developers will include new features like bump mapping, and texture compression, but others won't, and the reality is that developers are already familiar with 3Dfx's Glide.  And here is the thing, where the Voodoo cards really shine, both in beauty and with benchmarks, is with games based on Glide.

The NEC camp is betting on SEGA's influence to get developers working on PowerSGL enhanced games that will take advantage of the PVRSG's new features, and it looks like this is a safe bet. This will allow the PowerVR chipsets to compete head to head on the high end, and might have the added effect of allowing the other new chipsets to compete- many developers may choose to use DirectX v6 to enable these new feautures rather than NECs proprietary PowerSGL API.

In the end only time will tell, don't believe the hype from either camp, in the graphics industry no one knows what will happen 6 months out.

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Will MMX eliminate the need for 3D video cards?

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What are your favorite 3D games?

New interests: Descent: Freespace Mortal Kombat IV Unreal Battlezone Gex 3D   (3Dfx Glide only) Twisted Metal 2

Old Favorites: Jedi Knights Tomb Raider Wipeout XL Ultim@te Race Pro Motor Racer

POD is growing on me, but isn't quite "real" enough for me- I've been spoiled by Ultim@te Race.  I think that 3Dfx users should take a look at this one though since they don't have the Ultim@te Race option.

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If I wanted to see a "gee whiz" state of the art demo of current 3D technology what game would I play or demo would I download?

For pure beauty
• Tomb Raider 2
• Unreal
• Gex: Enter the Gecko (Glide only)

For Action
• Quake II
• Jedi Knights

For Strategy
• Battle Zone

For Racing
• Ultim@te Race Pro
• Motor Racer
• Wipeout XL
  and for the racer that likes lots of variation:
• POD

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Which, if any, of the video card manufacturers provide adequate support?

Of course you could talk about your web page and plug projects.

What Resolution should I use

Some card combinations may not allow you to enter high resolution games without first lowering your windows 95 resolution in order to free up your memory buffer- very typical with 2mb graphics boards.

I recommend that you always stick to 65k colors (16bit high color). 256 colors gives terrible graphics in most modern games, and 24 bit slows you down without giving you significantly better graphics.

Monitor	General Desktop Resolution	Game Resolution	Refresh Rate
14"	640x480	640x480	601
15"	800x600	800x600	85
17"	1152x8642	800x6003	85
21"	1152x8642	800x6003	85

¹  Many of the low end 14" monitors don't support 75hz either at all, or edge to edge.  Since most people won't notice the difference between 60hz and 75hz, you might as well keep to 60hz.

If your graphics card doesn't allow you to control your refresh rate change your monitor selection to the IBM 8514 and reboot.  This will force your graphics card to run at 60hz.

²  I do not recommend the 1280x1024 or 1600x1280 resolutions, because the pixel aspect ratio is different from the other modes, and most people will have problems with displaying 65k colors at fast speeds in these high resolutions.  Another thing to consider is refresh rate. Some graphics cards won't be capable of high refresh rates at 1280x1024.

³  Unless you have a Pentium II system chances are that the 1024x768 option (if available in the game) will not be fast enough to play and in most cases the graphic quality is not as significantly improved as the jumb from 640x480 to 800x600.  This is largly due to the low res, small textures used in most games.