Testing a Diamond Edge 3D Card & Sega Saturn Interface

[@Carambal81]

This is the video where you got the card: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nV6thKWKadGsoJo I was the one who donated it, together with the MSX computer. Recognized it straight away by the writings next to the sound outputs. I'm happily surprised to see the review, because I had also forgotten about this card. Thanks for awakening those nostalgic feelings! :)

[@LGRBlerbs]

Ahh yes, thank you! I knew MN12bird also gave me a bunch of cards at the same time back then, but I couldn't recall where each one of the cards had come from. Much appreciated all these years later :)

[@stephenharris5532]

You can even see the bent pin is still there, waiting all these years to be bent back and used.

[@rich1051414]

Before things were labeled Pink, Black, and Green for Mic, Input, and Output, respectfully.

[@SolidSonicTH]

How do *I* come into the possession of one of these?

[@eDoc2020]

@@rich1051414 Black? I thought line in was usually light blue.

[@Rabbit_AF]

I like that Clint's reflection on the monitor makes it look like he is in the cockpit on Descent.

[@stevethepocket]

Oh geez, imagine a driving or flying game that has the option to use your webcam to superimpose your reflection on the windshield. It could even integrate with your greenscreen if you have one, since a lot of people have those now for video conferencing.

[@alexsilva28]

Lol it does!

[@MN12BIRD]

Cool dude I do remember sending you a box full of old ISA and PCI cards and this card looks familiar but can't say for sure it was me that sent you this one. Good chance though. Glad it worked anyway all these years later.

[@jtolson]

Classic gaming with the bird!

[@aliendave]

Bird!

[@Bannanawaffles2]

Made me hella nostalgic to hear you get a shoutout here :)

[@BobbyOxygen]

I did some digging on why there would be a Edge 3D only version of Descent, and managed to piece together a possible explanation; The Edge 3D was co-developed by SEGA. SEGA had a pipeline for porting Saturn games to the NV1. Interplay had a cancelled port of Descent for the Saturn (A quote goes: "Internal builds were created and were reportedly playable"). And Interplay loved to get Descent bundled with PC accessories, 3D cards in particular (Like Descent 2:Destination Quartzon for the Diamond Stealth 3D). Well, both Saturn & Quartzon are more like long demos, like a shareware episode. That also explains the Saturn in Destination Saturn.

[@CptJistuce]

I have always assumed it was Destination Saturn because you went to the planet Saturn.

[@thepirategamerboy12]

The regular PC version of Virtua Cop/Squad has NV1 support included, no need for a specific release. It make it a tad annoying to play on a computer with any different Nvidia card, too, because the setup will detect those as an NV1.

[@LGRBlerbs]

Sweet, I'll have to try my disc out with this setup!

[@gravitone]

@@LGRBlerbs battle arena toshinden also has NV1 support built in.

[@MegaManNeo]

It would have been really cool if SEGA just decided to release an entire Saturn on a PCI card just like that 3DO card is a thing.

[@Thekinggamelon]

14:03 Ahhh, Descent, my childhood, my father's favorite action game to play back then. A trilogy that aged well, in my opinion.

[@mikeziniti]

Descent was the best. Spent my freshman year in college (1995-1996) playing that when I should’ve been studying. Used software called Kali to play over the school’s network. Good times.

[@Brianybug]

I remember seeing this and the 3DO PC add on kit at our local Babbages in the mall near where we live. Definitely an interesting genre of PC add ons you will never see again in stores.

[@bluephreakr]

It would be rather interesting for sure if console manufacturers brought to the fore a PC card and respective software to make their PC intoo a games console that could accept use of proprietary games images, either encrypted to be decrypted using a service or using discs with similar images. It might be beneficial for console makers like Microsoft who would simply skip the need for a proprietary console when there are enough people into PCs and those looking for gaming hardware n the cheap could use these devices as a way to get into games without worrying about them being snapped up by crypto nerds if the video hardware was intentionally gimped to provide minuscule hash rate.

[@pogman15]

i used to hoard peoples old junk pc's - i remember seeing those sega saturn ports and kept the breakout card (i might also have the NV-1) - i still have them sitting here, never knew what they were for :D ~20 years later ive stumbled upon the answer here

[@lw2266]

Interesting piece of tech, also I appreciate the sort of off-the-cuff video without the script every now and then :) Keep on making videos and I'll do my best to keep on watching them!

[@LGRBlerbs]

Unscripted ramblings are what this entire extra channel is for, so I'm glad!

[@LarixusSnydes]

Love the detailed silk screen data on this PCB. Very informative and great while repairing.

[@DragRedSim]

“Was just going through my storage and organising things the other… month” why do I feel so called out by this

[@ojkolsrud1]

I'm guessing that the reversed and orientation options are there if you were to mount such a system in an arcade cabinet. It wasn't uncommon to have the monitor facing upwards, then a mirror at 45 degrees above it you'd look at.

[@eDoc2020]

In such a case (running from a standard PC) I would expect the monitor to be modified so the desktop would also be corrected.

[@ojkolsrud1]

@@eDoc2020 Good point! But it's cool they gave the user the option from within the "emulator".

[@wishusknight3009]

@@eDoc2020 If it was a purpose made machine, it would boot strait to the game.

[@Typo205]

This is one of the most Blerb-y Blerbs on the channel. Its so unprepared and mumbly and charming

[@elbiggus]

Descent seems to have some weird deal going on with the resolution; in some places parts of the geometry seem to be higher resolution than others - for example at around 17:12 the lower edge of the first slightly darker panel on the left hand side of the wall is definitely less chunky than the light grey ones nearby - so who knows what's up with that.

[@LGRBlerbs]

Glad it wasn't just me seeing things! Really does look off.

[@RubyRoks]

I wonder if you could put this not-quite-ConsoleCard, the 3DO card and the NEC PC-FXGA card into a single system (as well as a more capable 3D card) for the ultimate As-Many-As-Possible-In-One 90s gaming PC

[@gumbi79]

thats what i wanted to see

[@freedustin]

Yoshi's Boxx vibes.

[@LGRBlerbs]

@@gumbi79 Unfortunately I don't own the 3DO or PC-FXGA cards myself. Only borrowed them for those videos!

[@gumbi79]

@@LGRBlerbs ahh would of been a cool build though

[@NozomuYume]

Need to also grab the Megadrive ISA card out of the Amstrad MegaPC too! It's an ISA card so it onstrains motherboard choice for our super system a bit, but doable. =)

[@3vi1J]

So much nostalgia! This is one of the first 3D cards I ever owned for the PC. It was great in '95, but not long lived before we all moved on to RIVA and other cards.

[@rabiroden]

Retro-bit has recently started producing official(!) Saturn repro controllers with USB support, including wireless ones. They're supposed to be pretty good. I know the last official Saturn USB controllers Sega produced like 15 years ago were a pretty hot commodity for some. People love them d-pads.

[@ultimateman55]

15:51 clasic LGR moment right there.

[@K.D.H.]

Thanks for the fun videos! No worries about the bar lines or smooth endings. Your content is enjoyed and appreciated.

[@CMA_The_Dope_Man]

MN12BIRD! I remember him from the 2009-2010 era of KZbin. He was one of the guys that got me into Sega Genesis modding long time ago.

[@CommodoreFan64]

He still uploads, but it's a bit more sporadic these days, still quality content.

[@timbroughton560]

Love the Saturn controller! Retrobit makes modern ones with USB/Bluetooth/2.4ghz! I used mine to beat Jump King, and I think that's proof of its quality

[@Waccoon]

Gosh, now this is a blast from the past. I remember seeing the NV-1 and Virtua Fighter being demoed at a trade show and... it was kind of underwhelming for the time. Back then we were all pissed to know that all the cards coming out required games to be ported for each architecture. It wasn't until the 3DFX stuff came out that anyone even bothered with dedicated 3D hardware. I had one of the dreaded Virge "decelerator" cards which I got almost for free. It made a good 2D-only card when I finally got my hands on the first 3DFX card that required the video pass-though. 8) I still wonder how different the industry would have been if Commodore managed to get the Hombre chipset out the door. With that architecture, they wanted to do OpenGL as standard from day one. That really might have shaken up the market, if only to help legitimize the use of a standard graphics API. Not having any standard APIs really crippled the PC gaming market for at least 5 years.

[@ofoosy]

I'm glad I found the interface on eBay before this video was posted!

[@JeffBilkins]

We had this in our cheap first family pc; it was perfect for that age of Windows 95 multimedia hype. For games it had issues but I was still young and naive at the time so I just fought through the hassle and learned a lot. The dual gamepads were awesome for multiplayer though.

[@livefreeprintguns]

Oh man the NV1 chipset! That is taking me way back! Love these blerbs!

[@slyfoxkgar]

cool, I used to sell these at wholesale. we had a demo setup and people could not believe you could do this on a pc.

[@kale.online]

Please make more lgr foods. KZbin knows I like tech but I found this channel because of a bagel sandwich

[@LuisMendez-up5te]

LOL, I remember buying a Diamond 3d Accelerated card from Circuit City. I bought it to play Descent, but I couldn't tell the difference between the accelerated version and the Software version so I returned the card. Later on I bought my first Diamond VooDoo.

[@quanquin3822]

Destination Saturn is the first 15 levels of the original Descent. It was bundled with PCs back in the day.

[@LGRBlerbs]

This Diamond Edge 3D version wasn't bundled with any PCs though, to my knowledge. From what I gather this was one of the original pack-in games from Diamond.

[@Ametisti]

I remember the original video on one of these. As a controller junkie I loved it, and want one. Never had a Saturn, but I have a mildly dodgy USB Saturn controller and it's a really nice shape and d-pad (though said dodgy one has a slightly crap mechanism for it)

[@pandacongolais]

Descent musics are awesome ! I'm still listening the midi files from time to time !

[@neuro_davinci]

I looked to buy one of these after your last vid about it, it was way too expensive. Just looked again... ouch!

[@babbaloerie]

There was one of these for sale in my area recently. It's asking price was €300. Same goes for any 3dfx card on sale. Collecting vintage hardware is becoming an expensive hobby.

[@Di3mondDud3]

@@babbaloerie its wild, i got a pci voodoo 3 3000 for free from my high school back in 2017 or 2018. It was worth like 100 bucks then. And its just going up.

[@michaelfingers7726]

It was expensive and silly then and it's only gotten worse over the years. Now you need to have a computer and OS old enough and still working to buy an expensive add on card to play a child's handful of games that...are they really worth this much effort to play?

[@keithmichael112]

@@michaelfingers7726 that's what I was thinking - it's just 6 games, just get a Saturn

[@TheMC1X]

@@michaelfingers7726 Nostalgia is really a bitch. Also, most people threw 90's hardware by the mid 2000's, contributing to the rarity of some of these stuff. A friend gave me a Voodoo 3 2000 AGP for free and now they're asking for it 50-70€. Fuck man.

[@zeron851]

If i had to guess, descent might be sending the sound effects through the card itself(which is disabled.) Could be that music has no issue with external sound devices but sound effects are hard coded to the card's output.

[@Bakamoichigei]

Lucky score on the controller port bracket! I would've just sussed out the pinout for the headers and bought some Saturn controller extension cords though. 🤔 (But I'm just kinda hardcore like that.)

[@dalejohn609]

7:02 I believe those options are for projections from the rear or upside down from the ceiling by a projector of some sort.

[@WickedGamerCollector]

I think you buy so much stuff you pile it up and forget about it ? Even so... i have this problem 😆 Edit - Great Find and love it when you go into your Duke Nukem Voice sometimes .... Groovy ! 😎

[@julien2983]

I would love an lgr video on the Saturn, it's such a great machine!

[@u0aol1]

I love the rolling line, it's a nostalgia trip for me

[@6581punk]

Used to look at these Saturn games and think "wow". It was only a few years after we had been used to sprite scaling games.

[@AintNobodyAtAll]

I kinda think the Sega sprite scalers look better these days!

[@tslim250]

Yeah actually Clint, its kinda interesting how the nvidia chips were back then. There were several oddballs over the years. One notable one was based on the riva 128 chipset. The stb velocity 128 as it was dubbed was a varient that offered tv out and svideo out as well. Very cool stuff for the infancy of nvidia.

[@bland9876]

TV out? you mean coaxial? that would be a pretty horrendous way to use a computer. I'm glad modern PCs finally have tv out but it is HDMI no need to go hmm is this a monitor or a TV I'm using?

[@JallenMeodia]

I'm glad I viewed the thing that you showed. Please show more things, ideally that Saturn retrospective you never got around to, so I may view those as well.

[@spragzpc1]

Video games 🎮 came such a long way in a short periodof time ..its was such a trip to come home to your windows 98 pc an fireup some games 😉..especially knowing not alot of ppl had computers in they home 🤭

[@IRWPD]

Seeing Saturn ports running a PC is cool. But I can imagine back in the day it would have be mind blowing.

[@gotkline946]

that was one of my favorite videos

[@gotkline946]

old vintage lgr hits the spot

[@devikwolf]

The best part of this video is Clint's ghostly reflection in the monitor during Panzer Dragoon, like some sort of episode of Fact or Fiction.

[@Darxide23]

According to my research, Destination Saturn wasn't related in any way to this card. That's probably why the controller doesn't work with it. It was a demo that was bundled with various hardware, the one example I found was with the Gravis Phoenix controller. It's supposed to have the first 15 levels and a "special multiplayer map" whatever that is. It's apparently called Destination Saturn because level 15 is Saturn and that's where the demo ends. No relation to the Sega Saturn. As for the Gravis Phoenix, they don't seem to be terribly rare or anything, but I can only locate a single picture of the box the thing came in and it's a very small, very poor resolution image and all of the text is illegible so I can't verify that firsthand.

[@Frostfly]

I get a lot of happy from the happy Clint reflection in that monitor

[@homeoftheinepttulpagamer]

When the camera shook, my first thought was "woh! That table is going nuts!"

[@cameron398]

Funny to realize the amount of effort you plY a Sega Saturn game on a PC. Clint's excitement makes it all worth it.

[@bentsound]

The CC called the crinkling of the wrapper in the beginning, "applause" !

[@dave4shmups]

Cool blerb! The wall textures looking different in Descent might be because this card-like the Saturn-used quadratic texture rendering. At least that’s what I’ve read.

[@CrimsonDragoon23]

Hey Clint, might I suggest checking out the Fenrir for the Sega Saturn??? Long story short, it's an ODE (Optical Disc Emulator) that lets you replace the Disc Drive, and runs all of your ripped games off of a Micro SD Card.

[@LGRBlerbs]

Yeah it's something I'd like to grab! ODEs have really taken off the last few years

[@CrimsonDragoon23]

@@LGRBlerbs I just got my Fenrir last Christmas, and it's easily worth every penny.

[@brady4222]

Maybe some games require the onboard sound card of the Diamond Edge 3D

[@Pathos312]

Huh, pretty neat. As a previous Saturn owner, I feel of the small minority to state that I approve.

[@Toonrick12]

...Oh so THAT'S what he means by all those squares making a circle!

[@bensaisakura4322]

Beautiful video as always. Having played Descent for 90% of my childhood... i can say that the game without sound is VERY disconcerting ahah. Also.. the lighting effects were slightly off? Also yeah.. that resolution seems lower than the standard 640x480... so i guess they had to scale it? Thus the low res textures maybe... It felt like you were having the textures of a game at 320x240 or something similar....

[@BrassicGamer]

Great to have that (otherwise redundant) card working as intended, even if it was, ultimately, underwhelming. Glad I can experience it through you rather than hunt one down myself!

[@JustinEmlay]

The screen flip is odd. I wonder if it has anything to do with a mirrored type setup like an arcade.

[@crabcrabhathat]

man that panzer dragoon soundtrack is great

[@barttenbrinke2155]

I had this card back in the 90s traded it in pretty quick because the support in games was terrible :) I had all of those games too (they where packaged with it on mine). In hindsight I should have probably kept it 😀 Didnt the card have an audio out that had to loop back to the line in or something ?

[@VinnyVidiVintage]

I loved Descent.. didn't have that version, but I spent so many hours on that game as a kid!

[@sinisterthoughts2896]

Yay! LGR in the morning! And with a very interesting card indeed!

[@adriandangelo3029]

That's was my first LGR video. Thank for everything!

[@bengmo64]

I bet an open air test bench computer would be pretty handy for testing stuff

[@Kuikkamies]

Saturn's D-Pad is still unbeatable.

[@chazcov08]

Man, 1995 was way long ago. I think it was right after that I got my first nVidia Riva 128 card.

[@EvilTurkeySlices]

I’d bet the sound wasn’t working on descent as it probably is trying to use the integrated sound card on the Edge 3D.

[@LGRBlerbs]

Sound doesn't work out of the gate with the Edge 3D card either actually. Not sure what's up!

[@vetzRetro]

@@LGRBlerbs That's really strange! As far as I can remember I only got sound in Descent when using the output from the Edge 3D card, and sound effects is present in the comparison video between the NV1 and DOS version I made back in 2013.

[@thelaughingmanofficial]

You have a video of the 3240XL model you did 7 years ago. Is that an upgraded version of this one?

[@wraithcadmus]

QUADS FOR DAYS! Okay that's a little unfair to the Saturn's render pipeline, but it remains rather unusual.

[@bluephreakr]

Nothing wrong with quads, they take less power to render funny enough.

[@wraithcadmus]

@@bluephreakr It made me scratch my head for ages why quads, but the penny dropped thanks to the (excellent) Digital Foundry Retro vid on Tomb Raider, where it shows how a quad is a scaled sprite.

[@bigcheeses]

that reverse option is probably for arcade cabinets with a reflected CRT

[@2tailedfox711]

That's odd. My compaq presario Pentium 1 machine came with destination saturn, but it didn't have an nvidia anything in it. It also played in dos as far as I recall. And yes it was destination Saturn. Folder name I think was 'destsat' it also came with magic carpet and something else I cannot recall. All in a cd folio.

[@yakrayakra5]

NIce, I have this card as well. My Dad got it is a old PC tower. Haven't done anything past making sure it still works.

[@gamingblowsofficial]

This card is both awesome and absolutely dreadful. My favorite kind of retro tech.

[@grumpyoldwizard]

Along time ago I got two Diamond 3DFX cards I hooked up in SLI. It would have been in the late 90’s. I was crazy about games. I got rid of em when I moved years ago, but I with I had given em to you.

[@NirnBootMod]

I have 5 official SEGA Saturn USB pads. They made like 8 or so colors, like completely white (this one came with Puyo Puyo for MAC in Japan), there is also a metallic blue, pink, and even a gold. I have never seen even a picture of the gold one. These came out during Windows XP era. Probably only in Japan.

[@BrightSpark]

I wonder if early Saturn PC emulators made use of this card for some extra performance...

[@trzy]

Nope. The card actually didn't have much to do with the Saturn hardware other than Nvidia's NV1 architecture rendered textured quads, which were similar to what one of the VDPs on the Saturn did, but it was an entirely different architecture and the Saturn VDPs did a lot of other stuff that this wouldn't have helped with.

[@Twintania]

it wouldnt be a nomral day of retro computing without windows 95/98 doing something strange

[@Cheeseburgermafia]

Descent: Destination Saturn felt to me like it was halfway between the shareware version and the full version, with some levels altered, swapped, or omitted. I noticed it as a pack-in demo included with some PCs.

[@asimian8500]

*The Japanese Saturn controller is the best gamepad of all time* . I have original Saturn controllers with Raphnet and Bliss adapters (polling at 1000 MHz) as well as genuine Saturn controllers with a USB interface.

[@LGRBlerbs]

Ahh Raphnet, that takes me back! I remember their SNES parallel port adapter. Have you by chance tried Retro-Bit's USB Saturn pad? I've been meaning to pick one up to see how close it is to the original, being officially licensed by Sega and all.

[@LuteTheNeko]

@@LGRBlerbs I have 1 of the retro it Saturn pads and in my experience it feels really close to an original pad. I love using it to play burning rangers.

[@asimian8500]

@@LGRBlerbs I have the Slate Gray, Retro-Bit USB Saturn pad. It's close to the genuine controller. I don't use wireless because of input latency. It's a little bit stiffer but with use it will wear down for that buttery smooth feeling. In general, new Saturn controllers (I have some new old stock) are fantastic out of the box. In the past, there was a company which licensed Saturn controllers and used the same moldings and process but made them USB compatible. I'm wondering if Retro-Bit is using those moldings.

[@chriswy697]

One of these cards was used several years ago to create a Saturn dev box and resurrect the found Sonic Xtreme beta builds.

[@MaximilienNoal]

Love me some Panzer Dragoon ! Lovely music and such a poetic game.

[@clebbington]

I don't know why I could watch videos on bespoke accelerator cards like this forever but golly gee, I sure could

[@Arivia1]

Ah that Descent music, brings up memories of Alien Vendetta and Sunlust (the second one not a direct rip, just reminds me of Neo Georuru)...

[@johnmercer8412]

Video timing is interesting, I've just started looking for a PCI 3d accelerator card. Not much out there that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

[@VertexTuner]

I just read a startling claim that the NV1 isn't based on the Saturn but the other way around and SEGA's assistance helped nVidia to finalize their '3D accelerator' card, with it there is information about the NV2 which attempted to replicate Model 3 capabilities on a consumer level (in a way comparing NV1 to Model 2 like the N2 to Model 3) but due to a conflict with SEGA the NV2 was cancelled and work began on the NV3 which became later known as the Riva 256, ditching quads for tris.

[@NoNant55]

16:50 S3 VIRGE retrospective when?

[@joeganbogan270]

I'm sure they don't support it, but it'd be interesting to see if the first 2 Sakura Wars games worked with this card, considering their status as Saturn ports.

[@CheshireTomcat68]

Did Steven Wilson 'borrow' the Descent music for Personal Shopper?

[@vinacar]

I seem to remember playing Descent on my playstation with a demo disc but it had the full game but you had to open then lid at some point to hack it to let you keep playing it?

[@DigitalzombieDev]

That crinkle right at the start ... I've mistaken it for a splitsecond for applause.... Zombie approves.

[@XT-8147]

Would the sound oddness in Descent be the game using your configured wavetable goodness for the music, and trying to use the sound chipset on the Diamond Edge 3D that you disabled, for the sound effects?

[@LGRBlerbs]

Nah, it doesn't work with either sound card. Even with only the Edge 3D installed, there's no sound in Descent.

[@SirQuacksalotthe1st]

Its strange seeing this again been along time since weve seen it

[@stathissim]

mmm I remember watching that video back then! It was awesome just to think about

[@SoulMist17]

That port of descent probs wants the sound card in the diamond edge, for the sound to work.

[@SeraphimKnight]

Holy cow how has it been this long alreadu since the last DE3D video... No wonder I've been feeling like I've been getting old lately

[@davidromeroblaya7920]

"Playing Saturn games on W95." Nostalgia hits me like a wrecking ball.

[@10minGameplay1]

Shame that they didn't port more game for this

[@limrico]

I got the official CD kit with my Edge 3D card. It includes a driver CD, Virtua Fighter Remix, Panzer Dragoon and Nascar Racing. Please reply if someone needs a backup of those. I would really like to know where to get those saturn controller ports. My Edge card is almost complete, I’m only missing those ports :(

[@vengeance1701]

"My dear boy, I wrote it down so I wouldn't HAVE to remember!"