Well here we go, these aren't rated in terms of modern day performance of course....
Chips and Technology 256K ISA card 9/10 << My first VGA card in a 386, used it in a 5x86 too. Fastest ISA card I've come across yet! Only gets 9 because it lacked RAM and VESA modes. C&T got bought out by intel for the gfx, and somehow, their onboard gfx of 5-10 years later get worse 2D performance than this circa 1990 relic!
CL5428 2Mb VLB card, 9/10 w00t 16 million colors and fast, fast 2D, I had one running on a 60Mhz VLB bus and I've not seen better 2D performance from ANYTHING, in the benchie I was using it could do about 450,000 chars per sec, whereas run of the mill PCI cards will do about 250,000 and AGP, even modern AGP cards will only do around 350,000 or so. 1 off for a tendency for it's windows drivers to go bad once a month and heating problems (yeah I had to stick a sink on it).
Trident 8900/9000 256K-1Mb ISA, 4/10 these damn things keep breeding in my junk drawer, slow really even for ISA, doom is not good on them, only reason I mention them at all is because they are tuneable, there's a DOS app that you can play with rates and sync polarities, in. The only reason I haven't chucked them out is because I've got an idea that they might be flexible enough to drive some salvaged lappy LCDs or wierdy monitors if I ever get round to playing with them.
CL5430 1Mb PCI 6/10 meh!, you'd think it would run as good as the 5428, but nope, bit of a slug in a PCI card even when new. Picture quality never great either.
Trident TGUI 9680 2Mb PCI 8/10 Solid reliable fastish 2D card, likes fast PCI buses, had them up to 44Mhz. Good old workhorse of a card.
S3 Virge DX 4Mb PCI 8/10 joint fastest in 2D PCI card, it's meant to have 3D acceleration, not that you'd notice....
Voodoo 3 2000 PCI 16Mb 10/10 had this baby from new, Always very pleased with it, still plays a lot of games! Overclocks decently too. Also got a 3000 AGP and PCI now to put in linux rigs. Joint fastest PCI in 2D with the Virge.
GF2MX400 64Mb 8/10 it's okay, still got some game left in it, 2 off for refusing to work at 4x in KT133 mobos, and for not clocking much.
GF3ti200 128Mb 9/10 had this new, good card, still useful, still my main card, 1 off for not having very overclockable RAM.
SiS6326 8Mb+4Mb 7/10 w00t, cheapness!
a valiant effort by SiS, giving them 7 even if they are as slow as bejasus, just because they have good picture quality, and work albeit very slowly with most directX and openGL stuff. Worth $2 used any day of the week to throw in your router!
Rage IIc 4Mb PCI 4/10 OMG how did ATI sell any of these? it's slower than the SiS doesn't do open GL, has direct X problems... (I got this one used and real cheap btw) I'm only keeping hold of this one because it's got TV out.
Rage XL/XC 8Mb/4Mb 6/10 an extra 2 over the IIc for actually running openGL, slowwwly, marginally faster than the SiS but have the odd issue with Dx and OGL. Can just about run NFS3 on them with detail low, also got Alice running with everything turned off or low.
Power VR2 2Mb PCI, Apocalypse 3DX 2/10 This is an addon acclerator I bought for my wifes rig real cheap shortly after I got the Voodoo3. I've never actually managed to get any game running well on it apart from the powerVR optimised demos that came with it. Those look nice and run smooth, it seems nice on it's own API... However trying to get anything else working on it at all is a pursuit for masochists. I did nearly get NFS3 running, it was a slide show with chunks missing and white untextured shapes.... Mebbe it will have it's day when I find a 50c bargain bin of Playstation 1 ports that are PowerVR optimised....
GF4600 128Mb, GF256 32Mb, TNT2 M64 16Mb, got these too, haven't played with them much or pushed them. The GF4 needs fixing, I got it for $5 broke, when I've managed that it will prolly be my main card for a while. The GF256 I think I will like, it seems to have a bit of soul to it. The TNT2 I don't think I will, seems soulless.
Road Warrior
...
