Graphic cards
The S3 Trio 64V+
This was the card that handled graphical tasks inside our P-133 on delivery. It had one megabyte of RAM, and upgrading that to two was my first try at modifying something inside a PC as far as I can remember. 3d performance was a joke by modern standards of course, but that wasn't something notable for about a year or so. Then, something called the Voodoo chip had made its entrance, and games were quckly becoming less and less keen on running on a P-133 without 3d acceleration. So, I wanted a 3d card, a good one. Didn't know too much about them though, so the wish list simply said "3d card (preferably with 3dfx chipset)".
The ATI 3D Charger II+
And I actually got a 3d card, of sorts ... Had the buyer asked in a shop about hundred meters further down the road, things may have been different. Now, the buyer asked in the shop were we'd bought the computer itself, and they weren't into 3d gaming ... So, while this card had 3d in its name as well as four megabytes of memory, it kind of lacked that crucial "acceleration" ... Felt more sorry for the buyer than for myself though, but at least some more memory was nice for Windows colour depth and resolutions. 3d gaming wasn't really improved, so 320*240 was still the resolution to stick with. Didn't stop me from playing through both Quakes, and having a good time while at it, though.
The Voodoo2 (Orchid Righteous 3d II)
Got this one a few weeks before we got the P-450, and experienced the concept of the processor as a performance bottleneck for the first time. Buying new graphic cards is almost worth it just from the first kick of discovering their graphical muscle ... This card laughed at pesky 3d chargers and blew them to bits. No matter what I tried, the Voodoo2 just said "oh yeah?", did everything it was told and sat back waiting for the processor to catch up. The net result was everything looked infinitely better than ever before and also played a lot smoother. This card still serves as main 3d handler inside the P-450, but even it gets old with time. Some games nowadays make it choke when too many limbs are sprayed over the screen at once, and resolution options decisively stop at 800*600. Plus all the flicker, and possibly related problems, when changing from primary graphic card and back. Change came, with my P-700 in the form of ...
The GeForce (ELSA Erazor X)
Change didn't feel as dramatic this time (nothing like no 3d acceleration to top of the line 3d acceleration ...), but it was still a kick. Always is to turn options up to above what you last card would even consider and get better framerates ...
