Let's test a 3,495$ AccelGraphics OpenGL card in Quake I/II (John Carmack from iD Software had one)

Let's see what was like to have an AccelGraphics Eclipse while playing GLQuake and Quake II. Both the card and the games were released in 1997. I know that John Carmack from iD Software had one.
*This card has drivers only for Windows NT 4.0.
From vgamusem.com : "Based on Mitsubishi 3DPro/2mp chipset co-developed by Evans & Sutherland (Evans & Sutherland core REALimage 1000 combined with Mitsubishi memory).
15MB 3D-RAM FrameBuffer + 4 ($3,495) or 16MB CDRAM Texture Memory.
Initially anounced as Eclipse, but later renamed to Eclipse II same as chipset named 3DPro renamed to 3DPro/2mp after releasing new enhanced driver."

[@retr_os]

Check out RealiZm II 3D accelerator from Intergraph : kzbin.info/www/bejne/p4XJlWtuqrR9d5Y This card is HUGE! (must be insterted into 2 PCI slots)

[@JoeBloggs777]

0:42 My god, that noise brought me nostalgia!

[@max_MXX]

For me sounds like I just boarded the Enterprise.

[@napalmarsch]

thanks for showing such a rare piece of tech

[@retr_os]

Glad you liked it!

[@Dukefazon]

Hint: it's not "ID" software, as in your identification card, but "id" as in "id, ego, superego".

[@retr_os]

Apparently, not for me. As a kid they entered in my brain as "ID" and that's how it stays.

[@yyy-gx4of]

Or, you know, show some respect by making an effort to pronounce names correctly. 🤦

[@retr_os]

@yyy-gx4of I will try. :)

[@dominikschutz6300]

I stay with ID Software. Sounds like "idea" not like "it" 😊

[@dustmighte]

Who cares ya effin pedants

[@TheCarlos206]

Legendary Card !! THX for show us!

[@retr_os]

There are more to come. I think at least 10 video cards that can be named "rare"..

[@maniatore2006]

I had this Card and could nothing doo with that, so i sold it... today i regret it. The only Workstation Cards i have today, are the NEW old Stock Still sealed. V3350 from ATI and some ELSA GLoria´s Thank you for that Video.

[@retr_os]

I have a few more workstation cards, but now I regret too... I didn't collect them. Over the years I saw many strange/rare GPUs... :)

[@novinovic298]

Thx alot for this! While there are many retro hardware channels nowdays on youtube there is still alot of history and rare hardware that was not covered properly or not covered at all. History of early 3D accelerators is probably the most intresting and most complex topic when it comes to retro pc/workstation hardware.

[@retr_os]

Welcome aboard! You might want to check this video about Chromatic Mpact 2 (which I think is even rarer than a AccelGraphics Eclipse): kzbin.info/www/bejne/a2KmioWvpJaHd7s Also the latest videos are about two custom Voodoo cards with HDMI output and extra memory.

[@DrGeta666]

Man this brings back memories. Back when 3D cards were daisy chained with 2D cards, I loved my old voodoo

[@retr_os]

You should check this video about a "new old Voodoo" with HDMI output: kzbin.info/www/bejne/j2ncoaKpep6nj5I

[@rtchau4566]

Oh, that NT4 startup sound. I remember feeling like a god when I got NT4 on my PC at home. "THE POWER!!!"

[@Aeduo]

What a mess 3D graphics acceleration was back then. Everyone trying to compete with everything being incompatible. There should've just been 1 good open standard and cooperation for compliance between manufacturers. Kinda the way it is today, to some degree. At least, better than in the past.

[@serow6]

I remembered going through so many 3D accelerators until going with a Voodoo 3DFX card and a really early Diamond Multimedia Nvidia card...

[@pleggli]

We have more than a handful vendor specific shader languages right now that basically does the same thing.

[@rBennich]

To be fair, the problem of chaos of a battleground of standards is usually what promts adopting a universal standard. Remember the chaos of tape formats before VHS became standard. Or even the chaos of different resolution formats before 16:9 became standard. Maybe chaos in the beginning is unavoidable. Also, said chaos makes for a diverse experience for retro enthusiasts.

[@CannedNoodles]

that video card looks so cool and I am surprised you can install windows NT 4.0 on modern hardware

[@retr_os]

Windows NT is crazy... Even Windows NT 3.51 can run on a modern Intel 13th Gen motherboard even with multiprocessor support. Check out this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/p3rFlolnd76shdE

[@Dr.W.Krueger]

Interesting. I think we had these in our mid-range dual Pentium II workstations at the time. Typical applications included 3D tools like 3D Studio MAX, SoftImage, Lightwave but also compositing tools like Fusion or AE. Maybe you should try it on "period-correct" hardware one day.

[@PericlesBeber]

What a amazing trip :), I worked since 1999 with Accel EDA software ( later turn to PCAD brand and now Altium Designer ) to develop PCB cards, and now you show me a video card from Accel. Very nice .

[@Luix]

I am very impressed that wolfestein worked.

[@retr_os]

Yes, and is very playable... It looks that many people are complaining about RTCW not running in full screen... The fix might be this: "Create .cfg file in main folder with commands below r_mode "-1" r_customwidth "640" r_customheight "480" then start game exec that file and type /vid_restart"

[@tomteiter7192]

lol, that Sierra logo, followed by the Valve logo animation sent goosebumps all over me XD.

[@ammaina01]

Finalmente qualcuni che testa questa scheda .... dopo 27 anni ! Bravo .

[@retr_os]

Era ora... farò un video più completo sul mio canale principale. Ci vediamo anche lì... www.youtube.com/@O_mores/videos

[@rbus]

Have a pile of these 90's workstation cards. Pretty interesting to see how they compare to the modern supercomputers we game on today. NVIDIA was pretty awesome in the day when they supported full OpenGL on an affordable consumer 'gaming' GPU, and supported it DAMN well enough to run Maya & Houdini. 3DFX had OpenGL support but was unable to share 2D and 3D screen spaces (hence multiple viewports) due to being a dedicated 3D output and only 256x256 texture sizes. Other consumer GPUs either just didn't bother or did it very poorly. It was pretty epic because my school lab was able to upgrade from SGI O2s to cheap PCs and still teach Maya.

[@retr_os]

I have only a few, an Integraph RealiZm II -> kzbin.info/www/bejne/p4XJlWtuqrR9d5Y | This AccelGraphics + a rare Chromatic Mpact II: kzbin.info/www/bejne/a2KmioWvpJaHd7s + various nVdia Quadros. Regular consumer cards I think I have like 200+... (no kidding)

[@antonhei2443]

Those new Asus business motherboards with PCI slot are fantastic. My socket 1200 variant has a charming simplicity with it's classic green pcb. 😊

[@retr_os]

@@antonhei2443 Yes, they are... I wish 2 PCI slots though...

[@udirt]

I had an accellgalaxy 2000 but sold it again at some point, was a great card really. Greater luck still go even get it. You needed some "AGPpro" slot or it couldn't even run, asking around how to get around that landed my first unix job.

[@SiliconExarch]

Quake is probably looking washed out because it's gamma corrected for native CRT gamma since the sRGB standard didn't exist yet when the game was in development.

[@JohnDoe-ip3oq]

The opengl engine did not support the lighting effects of software mode like full bright light effects, and you had to manually patch the water to be transparent. Quake didn't look right even back then. It required the idgamma tool. Quake 2 had similar issues and a tool, but also required fixing the mip maps or suffer blurry textures. People pretend these fixes don't count, much like people today don't understand you played 16 bit games on a CRT TV, which changed how things looked. The quake games had issues with stock graphics and no standards existed, many cards had different rendering results, so you manually fixed everything. Of course now you have the official remasters, but the original games were never perfect ootb. The DOS version was fine, but you would absolutely NOT be playing it on a k6-2 that was terrible at software mode. Pentiums were extremely expensive to be buying the latest version, so most people were using older systems, and most stores sold older systems. Walmart value. But then you'd get that free game like fury 3 or whatever. I wish people would upload more footage of how cool the gaming and computer sections were back then. TnT cards first and last good value Nvidia cards.

[@PROSTO4Tabal]

I have this card in my 3dfx Quantum 3D Quicksilver II machine

[@TronixGuy93]

I remember using that card for my gaming setup sales back in the day. I would accept 64MB DIMM (128 with firmware modification). I could get them CHEAP. For workstation, Some gamers would pay for them. For added compatibility use nvemulate. This will resolve missing textures entirely. Doubling frame rates in many cases.

[@retr_os]

I had one of these AccelGraphics in 2002. I remember that I payed like 400$ for an AMD Athlon @ 800Mhz/256MB and a 6 bay tower case (I really wanted that case) and an unknown long PCI video card with a RAM stick...

[@stonent]

I had a card like this that was IBM branded that I bought for about $30 at a used computer store. I knew it was special and older but I wanted to try it. I put it in a dual Pentium Pro system and it rendered all the GL games I threw at it beautifully but at maybe 2 or 3 frames per second. I ended up not keeping the card as my curiosity had been satisfied at that point.

[@3Dima]

Maybe a driver problem. If hardware or driver doesn't support required OpenGL functions, game switches to software (CPU) OpenGL rendering with typical 1-3fps. Driver issues and updating them every month or so - a very common things in 3D-acceleration beginning era.

[@retr_os]

Indeed 1-3 FPS is too low for this card. Also you should check opengl32.dll both inside Windows and in the game directory (if present).

[@stonent]

@@retr_os Well it was 20 years ago and I no longer have the card.

[@helmargesel3972]

Thanks for the Video 👍 👏

[@turbinegraphics16]

Pretty incredible performance for Wolfenstein, from what I've seen that was designed for geforce 2.

[@retr_os]

Let's not forget that runs on a 3.4Ghz Intel Core i3/13th Gen (More about NT 4.0 on modern hardware here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/q6HYhqeCoLOJoLs )

[@efpcvintageplanet3406]

Spettacolo 🤩

[@darylallen2485]

Hey, just letting you know there are normal people in the world who don't care how you pronounce id software. Thanks for the vid.

[@retr_os]

Meanwhile... I made a new video about another professional card ( kzbin.info/www/bejne/p4XJlWtuqrR9d5Y ) and this time it was "iD"... I couldn't beat the system....

[@aikidoboynj]

Never heard of this wow.

[@retr_os]

How about this one: Intergraph RealiZm II? kzbin.info/www/bejne/p4XJlWtuqrR9d5Y

[@TatsuZZmage]

Wonder if the TPM header on the Motherboard would work with a dISApointment for isa.

[@retr_os]

Hard to say, not all TPM headers are the same. I have a socket 1150 motherboard with ISA slots and they work only under a custom XP VM... Apparently they cannot be accessed from DOS. That's another dISAppointment... :)

[@mrwang420]

I wish they made GDDR expansion cards for pcie that you can install and it'll give gpus today access to more vram instead of sharing system memory which is much slower. There's really nothing stopping them from doing this. AMD gpus would be the easiest to do this with. Could utilize Crossfire ability to make it work.

[@retr_os]

I wish they put more effort in optimizing games and game engines for PC. PlayStation 3 launched in 2007 had 256MB video memory and 256MB main memory... A few years later, let's say 2011..., you could already buy 2GB video cards for PC. But wait, Battlefield 3 launched in 2011 required 4GB memory and DX11 1GB video card ... while it was running in full HD on a PS3 with 256MB main memory and 256MB video memory - looking almost identical...

[@RTPJu]

Correction... there was 96% of official inflation from 1997 to 2024, so the card cost is $6,849.33... is there any card costing that?

[@retr_os]

Right now you can order a PNY NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada Generation Graphics Card for as low as.... $7,267.99 -> www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1753962-REG/pny_vcnrtx6000ada_pb_rtx_6000_ada_generation.html

[@Nick_Lavigne]

Kingpin life of crime should work

[@retr_os]

Yeah, this is one of my favorite games. I have the original game installed on my PC but it all ends with a "Tragic error"... I should reinstall it or look for another version.

[@SlowSpyder]

Couldn't find the specs at Techpowerup :(

[@retr_os]

This card belongs in a museum...:) www.vgamuseum.info/index.php/cpu/item/512-accelgraphics-eclipse

[@jimmybailey7198]

So one must build their own drivers if one wants to use it on something besides NT 4,

[@retr_os]

Something like that, but in 1997/98 for a workstation OS you had to pick between NT 4.0 and NT 4.0 if you wanted the best software and hardware support. BTW, I'm working right now on another 1998 workstation OpenGL card - Integraph Realizm... It will be available on my main channel: www.youtube.com/@O_mores

[@rinat8469]

Thx

[@awaysounds]

wait. you was able to install windows nt on modern motherboard and cpu? how? and it is see ddr 4 16gb ram! what the hell?

[@retr_os]

Oh, yes! This is my specialty... :) NT4 it's a 32bit OS can see only 4GB of RAM. On this Intel 13th Gen only 2GB. On my Ryzen 3900X config can use almost 4GB. Check out this playlist: kzbin.info/aero/PLomaAsb2xNcAHzbyhLMWzhFMnddzVGwWy

[@3Dima]

Why Half-life and RTCW (Q3 engine) doesn't run properly?

[@retr_os]

RTCW runs pretty good if you ask me, with less artifacts than I encountered on another OpenGL card tested recently. (Intergraph RealiZm II : kzbin.info/www/bejne/p4XJlWtuqrR9d5Y ) Half Life I really don't know why it's not working at all, but I'm sure I don't have the updated version.

[@skaven_]

I've been searching for the background .mod music for years! Can you please tell me its name?

[@cv643d]

I have it in my collection, its called The Alibi by Jogeir Liljedahl, but I am sure there are loads of other versions of it in Amiga mod format.

[@skaven_]

@@cv643d 🎉🎉❤❤❤❤

[@retr_os]

Here we go: kzbin.info/www/bejne/j4fEna1pZcp0f9U

[@notjustforme]

Is that Drax playing in the background?

[@retr_os]

It's "The Alibi" by Laxity, I have it here on my channel ->> kzbin.info/www/bejne/j4fEna1pZcp0f9U

[@notjustforme]

@@retr_os Riiight, laxity. It's been a few decades. Thanks ^^

[@Uterr]

Are you sure it runs on 3d card and.not on built in to cpu graphics?

[@retr_os]

It's an Intel "F" CPU without built-in graphics. Now you have to pay like 15-20% extra for built-in graphics.

[@TheOrijinalPajeet]

rip Softimage

[@datasoftinc]

Omores, it is you?

[@retr_os]

C'est moi.

[@serow6]

I didn't realize how arrogant John Carmack was back then. Still brilliant but pretty full of himself. Guess all that Doom and Quake money went right to his head. Although this also explains is 'strong' views and ability to make 2.5 billion dollars disappear from Meta in the name of 'VR research.'

[@mirek190]

that test has no sense at all. ... 13th intel and win nt 4.0 ??? wtf

[@retr_os]

Why? It's just a fast "Pentium" CPU as far as Windows NT 4.0 cares. If you want to see more about NT 4.0 on modern hardware check out this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/q6HYhqeCoLOJoLs

I’m not a computer guy but for $3500 The cyber demons Better come out of the screen n Tell me they like my shirt

[@retr_os]

I guess in 1997 you could buy a bunch on workstations equipped with these $3500 cards and render some realistic dinosaurs for The Lost World: Jurassic Park released that year. (and make you money back)