More to the Vipers eye! (Diamond Viper II)

Member Name: alchemlst

Product:	Diamond Viper II
Date:	07/10/01 (195 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Many blending oparations, TV output, Exelent software provided

Disadvantages: No Anti-aliasing, Terrible Windows 2000 support

I have owned my Viper 2 for about a year now, and I have learned to love it.
The viper is full of exelent features which at the time of release were rather impressive.. the S3 texture compression for example.. I forget exactly how much it improved performance in Quake 3, but it did it an awfull lot.
The card supports nearly all the major blending opparations unlike cards sutch as the VooDoo 3, so games turn out exactly how they are meant to look.
A huge dissapointment is the actual LACK of anti-aliasing. Although it is advertised on the web site and in magazines, I have not actually seen it in use in any games which support it, and those which have an enable box is usually blanked out, in fact, in the test program I have.. it tells me it dosent support it! how bad is that!?
dont let this put you off to much tho.. this card has exelent gamme control and TV output, althought the TV output does need to have the drivers updated before it works, but that isnt much of a problem using the handy diamond update wizard that comes with the card.
Also on that point.. the plug for the TV cable on the back is quite a tight squeeze, but push hard enough and you will soon be up and running.
My card came with a copy of the game trickstyle.. not as great game to give away with a nifty graphics card.
Now comes a really bad point, and the only real reason I have for not wanting this graphics card...
Windows 2000 and the Viper 2 or a HUGE no no. The drivers mess up even when you downlaod the updated ones. This causes text to decay and huge window slowdown.. it is seriously terrible. So basically, if you have windows 2000, dont even bother glancing in the general direction of the Viper 2.
Generally, it is very good for its price and functionality.. but only for windows 95/98.

Summary: