Rare Graphics Cards - Trident Blade XP

[@matcarfer]

I remeber when I had a BLADE 3D (not XP) this card from a noname brand. It was terrible, and it was great. I played Q3A (640x480x16) with it many years. This card had reference drivers from Trident, so I visited the website everyday to get new drivers. Thing is, opengl icd driver was not that up to date, and discovered that JATON website (which made some Blade3D cards) had newer ICD OpenGL driver, and I used that to get better quality and better speed on OpenGL games such as Q3A. LOVED this card, as I could play LAN Q3A matches with my friend that had a Voodoo2, and bought many magazines with Demo CDs so we exchanged them all the times. Oh my god, what a great time it was.

[@hulkaman1a]

I love this series. You guys deserve more subscribers!! Great job!

[@KabelkowyJoe]

BTW. 2001 was time when DivX came out, there was market for TV tuners and multimedia 2D accelerators for transcoding and display (not MPEG2 anymore but more modern). What was missing from most of these GPU's to be even good 2D cards (including Matrox) - lack of support for overlay, support for ICT transform (jpeg,mpeg) exept for ATi and NVidia (since GeForce). From that perspective it would be much better for companies such as Trident, Matrox, SiS to introduce good 2D accelerators instead 3D. To add support for MPEG4 decoding, smooth 2D video scaling, MP3 compression and what have you. Meanwhile i had Radeon PCI those cards are much better option than anything, watching - TV was possible with overlay support even on 300MHz CPU watching DivX full screen using Radeon PCI. While even combo of 1GHz Pentium 3 and i815 could not decode MPEG2 on full screen. Introduced in 2003 GeForce 4 Go 32MB do have DXVA support meaning that even in 2020 is capable to decode HD videos full screen using 20% of 1GHz Pentium M CPU instead 100% witch is not possible on other GPU's of that time. And it's possible to watch h264 480p in dedicated player thanks to both DXVA and overlay witch last feature is not supported by browsers thats why its more CPU demanding. Even more modern Radeon X1500, 1950, HD2400 is not supporting DXVA feature in LAV all is done via CPU despite those cards consume up to 100W. Had to upgrade GPU in mine mom's Pavillion SFF PC to some modern Radeon 7470 so she will be able browse internet. Meanwhile old obsolete GeForce 4 Go in TC1100 is still capable to even play KZbin 360p using UC Browser can even do it on full screen 640x480 because it was great 2D accelerator either. While GeForce 6100 for example IGP chokes even to play DVD smooth on 2 core 2GHz CPU. It's matter of drivers and cut down 2D accelerator in favour 3D MPEG2 decoders went out of business, Transmeta x86 was based on these MPEG DSP chips. But why none of these companies manufactured DivX MPEG4 enabled , 2D video accelerators, video In, video out, video transcoding helpers (DVD->DivX) instead we had so much competition for 3D market. I think answer is patents and Microsoft. I bet 3Dfx would be still here if they never built in 2D graphic, never own STB let companies such as Trident, SiS manufacture 2D accelerators for them and good 2D drivers support for every existing OS. Its not just hardware - everything has to be made in drivers exept some calculations sent to GPU instead CPU memory. 2D graphics it's not so easy task as everyone expect. Try to use Matrox cards except for Pharelia to watch movies - good luck. Trident should not even try to have 3D support should let use DSP and programmers to do some other 2D related task using these.

[@intrinia]

11:10 HALF-LILF-LIFE ... got me confused there for a second. :D

[@Quailstorm]

CyberBlade XP2 (Trident 9960) is still DX6 only, no full DX7 support and no T&L, but it actually runs Half-Life 2. It was used in VTBook 3D. Click on my channel, it is the latest 3 videos right now.

[@rasz]

pcmcia video card! now that is a piece of oddware :)

[@PixelPipes]

The first 3D accelerator I tried to game on was a Trident Blade 3D chip integrated into my family's Compaq Presario. Did an OK job at Star Wars Episode 1 Racer! I wonder what relation that chip had to Trident's products.

[@AshtonCoolman]

This card is the most trouble free AGP card I own. It's slow, but stable. It even works in my Ali Aladdin V Super Socket 7 board without crashing constantly. That chipset is one of the first and worst AGP-capable chipsets ever.

[@pascalmariany]

My Toshiba laptop has this card. Together with a Celeron 1.33GHz and 256MB ram a fun machine to play old games with ranging from 1994 - 1999. Need for speed for example!

[@Malheirods]

hi, that's very interesting. What is the exact name ?

[@ilyakcasovich1482]

@@Malheirods i have similar notebook, celeron 1100/128mb ram, his model: toshiba satellite s1800-314

[@SUCRA]

Lovely review and panorama. Thanks for this.

[@magub1993]

Great video, keep it up!

[@lfraser7128]

Thanks for the video, I just pulled out my first first computer and it actually had one of these, but the integrated version for laptops

[@tHeWasTeDYouTh]

you know things are bad when SIS is beating you

[@3DfxAslinger]

Wow it's 17 years ago, that the last trident chip for Desktop pcs comes out...

[@m9078jk3]

I see one Trident Blade T64 still available used for sale up on the USA Amazon website as I am writing this if you're a collector I don't see any on eBay though. Edit I purchased one completely new in the box a Jaton 3DForce G-32 (Trident Blade T64) which I will keep unopened (sealed).

[@tHeWasTeDYouTh]

Trident Microsystems was a fabless semiconductor company that in the 1990s was a well-known supplier of graphics chipsets used in video cards and on motherboards for desktop PCs and laptops. In 2003, it transformed itself into being a supplier of display processors for digital televisions (primarily LCD TVs) and achieved success starting from 2005, at a time when the global LCD TV market started showing strong growth.It filed for bankruptcy protection in January 2012[5] and the delisting of its common stock from the NASDAQ stock market was announced shortly thereafter.[6] they abandoned the GPU market.........serves them right

[@AshtonCoolman]

Hah I have one of these in a system right now! I've actually owned or currently own and use several of these rare, poorly performing cards that you've featured on this channel. I find this fact amusing.

[@thedopplereffect00]

I think back then, if you got this card at a good price, running it at 640x480 would have been perfectly acceptable.

[@cyberluke]

I have this in Toshiba Portege 2000 (Pentium III, 750MHz, 256MB Ram). Just got brand new battery. Very good portable PIII laptop. I might sell it on E-Bay in Europe.

[@Buck9292]

My first graphic card, it was awful even back then, upgraded to a beastly Radeon 9200 with 4 x the vRAM (128mb :P)

[@bozobuttz]

As a software engineer, this series of videos makes me wonder to what extent the drivers are limiting the true potential of the hardware. They probably did not have the time or resources to perfect the software, compared to the likes of 3dfx or nVidia.

[@vgamuseum]

I guess not enough manpower. After all 3D was all new at that time at consumer market and not everyone was lucky to get most of ex sgi and other workstation employees like 3Dfx. Even ATi had issues with image quality. I wonder how many small companies tried to make their own 3d chips. All of them were into 2d before and some even started as brand new and jumped right into 3d....

[@krzysztofj3977]

TNT2 Pro jest za szybka do porównania i w roku 2001 nie była już produkowana. W 2001 roku jeszcze były produkowane Riva TNT2 Vanta i M64 - obie z szyną pamięci 64bit. Mam Riva TNT2 M64 32mb z PCB 0208 (luty 2002 rok) i to jest rywal Trident Blade. W 2001 to były tylko wyświetlacze pulpitu, bo do aktualnych gier potrzebny był Geforce2MX. W 2001 kończono produkcje gf2mx i zastąpiono go gf2mx200 i gf2mx400. W lipcu 2001 kupiłem Herculesa 3D PROPHET 4000TX 32mb (KYRO 1) za 275pln (69$/80euro). Inne : najtańszy gf2mx200 (64bit)312pln, gf2mx400 (128bit) ~400pln, Geforce1 DDR ~350pln, Hercules 4500 64mb (KYRO 2) 550pln, Geforce2GTS 650pln. Mój KYRO 1 był tak szybki jak gf2mx400 :D ( language: polish )

[@dabombinablemi6188]

Still far better than the SiS 305, which was being manufactured when the Blade launched. So far, I still haven't found its 128bit version (300) for sale, so most cards have only around 1GB/sec memory bandwidth or even less. Even though some manufacturers occasionally splurge on the cards and physically they'd be of a high build quality (eg. Asus Pure V3005). At least Quake isn't bugged the way it is on the 305, and utterly broken as it is on the 315 (it causes havoc with all of my screens auto adjust).

[@willpitts5223]

11:11 Cool, my favorite game, HALF-LILF-LIFE!

[@KabelkowyJoe]

From what i reed here in comment section. You comparison with TNT2 Pro is invalid since when T64 came out, 2000-2001 there was already GeForce 2 level of performance there (and also 180nm just as Trident), TNT2 wasn;t manufactured anymore (obsolete process 220nm). What was available still on shelfs was Riva TNT2 Vanta i TNT2 M64 versions - half speed of graphic card you compared with. Later on GeForce 2 MX came out whiping out every other cheap 2D alternatives including Savage. You mentioned that but at least should compare with both M64 and GeForce to be fair because this was on market then. TNT2 were built in into chipsets but not Pro versions. This product still could be acceptable for OEM's. Also good practice but its fair to compare with product of SAME price.

[@THe-zr6hk]

I just wanna buy a retro gaming laptop with Ali CyberAladdin-T board which has Cyber Blade XP IGP. Don't want buy it anymore after watching your video. Damn.

[@AliYassinToma]

I have a trident blade t64

[@karathkasun]

Blade T64 is using vsync, which is why it is slower. AFAIK it was stuck on.

[@3DfxAslinger]

Maybe you can disable Vsync with the tool Powerstrip?

[@karathkasun]

@@3DfxAslinger nope, its a driver limitation. Had one of these back in the day, and none of the driver settings worked.

[@Romerco77]

This is not a fair comparison, the Trident was 3 times cheaper than the TNT2 Pro

[@vgamuseum]

Yeah and now you can see reason why...I needed some reference card for compare and what else should i choose from cards with same features (DirectX6)? TnT2 is well known and also easy to buy. My videos are not made as late review of cards (don't have right cpu anyway), but as warning for people doing retro setups. And also to see reasons why some cards failed so much when they were new....

[@mashakos1]

yeah I remember getting the Blade3D for $50 back in 1998. $50 brand new graphics card for 30fps performance? Was the best gaming deal of my life :) edit: the card could run quake 3 at 30fps when you set the colour depth to 16 bit instead of 32bit.

[@kaneCVR]

@@vgamuseum the tnt2 m64 wold have probably been a better choice to compare the bladeXP against...

[@vgamuseum]

​@@kaneCVR From historical point of view yes, but i'm testing them for retrograming point of view. And today's i see no reason for buying m64, when theres much more faster cards available. Person should be crazy trying to game on m64 these days.....we're not living in 2000 anymore with high prices for unbutchered Riva cards.

[@rasz]

Had different Blade/CyberBlade variants in laptops over the years (Porteges, even Thinkpads :/), but never even crossed my mind to try and play any games due to Trident name alone. Wow, it actually has usable drivers :o, no wonder OEMs picked it up for laptops, ~3 year old desktop performance level on the budget.

[@ZoomPicard]

Any chance you could cover number nines ticket to ride revolution 3d cards?

[@vgamuseum]

Have Revolution 3D, but only cheaper 4MB SGRAM version. Also Revolution IV 32MB. Will do some videos too, but not sure when. Also Revolution 3D might end in worst game cards, but its undecided....Must take a look at its results....

[@ZoomPicard]

Is there a rendention 3d as well? Back when 3dfx was a success everyman and his dog tried to get on the bandwagon and what resulted was some seriously lacklust efforts due to lack of buy in with pc makers and developers. A weird time and why half these crappy cards exist!

[@vgamuseum]

Think that you speaking about Rendition Vérité V2200....have it as well as V2100 model. But still missing oldest Verité 1000.

[@Raymoundish]

are you sure you have the latest drivers?

[@invikkk]

elixir.....

[@Fre1maurer]

Seems to be a pretty reliable and bug free card. And fast enough for a budget gaming rig up to games using the Quake2 engine. But Q3 marks the end of its lifetime. I am wondering how the card performs under DOS, especially with an eye onto the VESA compatibility.