Diamond Multimedia
Encyclopedia
Diamond Multimedia is a company that specializes in many forms of multimedia technology. They have produced graphics cards, motherboards, modems, sound cards and MP3 players, however the company began with the production of the TrackStar, a PC add-on card which emulated Apple II computers. They were one of the major players in the 2D and early 3D graphics card competition throughout the 1990s and early 2000s.
Originally founded by Chong Moon Lee and H. H. Huh (the technical designer), Diamond Multimedia was merged (after a long-time companionship) with S3, Incorporated
in 1999. The merger was mostly due to S3's willingness to expand their trade from simply producing graphics chipsets to retail graphics cards. The act is somewhat similar with the 1999 3dfx
purchase of STB Technologies. The merger was hoped to boost the company's overall capabilities by combining the resources of S3 and Diamond, who were quite close partners over the preceding years. Unfortunately things did not go so well. The greatly anticipated S3 Savage 2000
was a failure, and the excitedly growing 3D sound card market nearly fell apart with the loss of Aureal Semiconductor
.
With these market failures, the new combined Diamond/S3 company decided to change direction and leave the PC addon-board market. SONICblue was formed. Diamond Multimedia resurfaced in 2003 after the brand and assets had been purchased by Best Data. Diamond again built expansion boards.
(when DOS performance was important in the late 80's and early 90's,) but as Microsoft Windows gain market share, it was later relegated to the cheaper, value-oriented chips in low-cost implementations.
Early on, popular chips on Speedstars were Tseng Labs
ET4000(A/X). They were consider the best implementation of ET4000 series card on the market and easily besting offerings from Trident Microsystems
and others in many cases.
A listing of some of the Speedstar boards
The Stealth cards of the 2D era were usually based on GUI
accelerators from S3 Graphics
. This line from Diamond is one of their oldest, spanning back to the early '90s. The line started with the most rudimentary of 2D accelerators, but today displays the latest in 3D chips. Initially the Stealth line was Diamond's high-end lineup, but as time progressed the line became more of a mid-range/low-end selection. With more than adequate performance in most cases, the Stealths offered excellent value. This line was Diamond's most popular.
Notable members of the Stealth family have been the Diamond Stealth 3D 2000, by far the most popular S3
Virge-based board. The Diamond Stealth32, using the popular and impressive Tseng Labs
ET4000/W32p chipset, was capable of impressive price/performance, especially in DOS. The Diamond Stealth64 Graphics 2001, with the ARK 2000PV/MT chipset, was known for excellent DOS performance at the time. The Diamond Stealth II S220, using the Rendition
Verite V2100 2D/3D accelerator, was popular with enthusiasts for its excellent price/performance for both 2D and 3D gaming. In fact a BIOS was released by Diamond for the Stealth II S220 which brought its clock speed up to the same level as the high-end Verite V2200 chip, resulting in equal performance at a significantly lower price.
In the middle of the Stealth line-up, Diamond chose to implement a numbering scheme to differentiate their cards in a new way. For example, the Diamond Stealth Video VRAM
was rechristened the Diamond Stealth Video 3xxx. The numbers had more than a random meaning. Specifically, they tell the buyer the card's memory amount and type. The Stealth Video 3240 uses VRAM (3), is equipped with 2MB initially (2), and is upgradeable to 4MB (4). If the first digit is a (2), then the card uses plain DRAM
.
The numbering scheme confused many people since Diamond just renamed current cards with new names. The Stealth Video 3240 was simply the old Stealth Video VRAM. New cards did also use the scheme, however, such as the S3 Trio64V+ cards.
A partial selection of Stealth models
The Diamond Edge 3D was the first consumer 3D accelerator card, based on the NVIDIA
NV1
chipset. The boards were strangely all-encompassing designs. The chipset included full 2D/3D acceleration, an audio engine capable of General MIDI
synthesis, and the ability to use Sega Saturn
controllers.
The architecture of the NV1
predates the Direct3D
philosophy and, as such, game compatibility was a problem with the Diamond Edge boards. Limited and slow Direct3D-supporting drivers did eventually show up, but the boards were simply not up to the task and were unacceptably slow and buggy. It didn't help that the audio section of the card was not particularly excellent either, receiving luke warm reviews regarding MIDI quality (extremely important during the card's time).
The Monster3D line was based on 3dfx Voodoo Graphics and Voodoo2
chips - as such, they had no on-board 2D and thus had to be used with a separate VGA card, connected externally. Both Voodoo and Voodoo2 based offerings were in production until the STB-3dfx merger. The series was highly successful and, for a significant part, responsible for the 3D Graphics revolution of the mid-late 1990s. 3dfx's Voodoo chipsets were revolutionary and for several years (approx. 1997-1999) were simply the fastest hardware for 3D gaming acceleration in both the arcade market and home PC arena.
A critically acclaimed feature of the Monster 3D II (and all other Voodoo2 boards) was the capability to connect two identical boards in a SLI
(Scan-line Interleave) configuration. In SLI, a pair of Voodoo2 boards splits the effort of rendering the 3D scene, allowing performance to be nearly doubled.
The Viper line was Diamond's high-end offering. Initially it consisted of a graphics accelerator board for VLB or PCI that was a combination of two graphics chips. For non-GUI environments such as DOS, the original Viper used an Oak Technology
OTI-087 display chip with its own 256 KB DRAM. This chip was rather slow and basic. The Viper SE card moved to a Weitek 5186 chip with 1 MB DRAM for non-GUI functions. For GUI environments such as Windows, the Viper cards used a Weitek
graphics co-processor which accelerated many drawing functions and performed very well for its time. The original Viper used the Weitek P9000/P9001, while the Viper SE used a Weitek P9100, both lines equipped with 2-4 MB VRAM. The separate slow DOS chip was a problem for owners who played DOS games because these chips were quite slow and had limited and buggy VESA BIOS Extensions
implementations. While the GUI accelerator was very capable, drivers from Diamond were rather buggy and were only revised a few times during the lifetime of the card.
Towards the end of the 1990s, the Viper line consisted of NVIDIA-based graphics cards. The Diamond Viper V330 used the highly-integrated RIVA 128
accelerator that featured very capable 2D, 3D and video acceleration. The later Diamond Viper V550 and V770 utilized the RIVA TNT
and RIVA TNT2
accelerators which were evolutions of the RIVA 128.
In 1999, Diamond was acquired by S3 Graphics
and became primarily a supplier of products based upon their graphics accelerator chips. The Diamond Viper II Z200 was based upon the S3 Savage 2000
, a supposed NVIDIA GeForce 256
killer. Unfortunately the chip itself was not fully functional and the drivers were very buggy.
A selection of Viper boards
The FireGL team was bought by ATI
in 2001 once the combined Diamond/S3 dropped out of the graphics market to form SONICblue
. ATI continues the Fire GL lineup.
Diamond has also preparing an upcoming video card as of September 2007, based on the latest-generation R600
graphics core, the same core used for FireGL V8650 and V8600 cards, but altered the PCB design and also renamed as VFX 2000 series professional workstation graphics card, with at least 2 GB GDDR4
memory onboard.
The Diamond Monster Sound gaming sound card series was a very innovative line. They were the first to really push the envelope in the at-the-time bleeding-edge PCI audio card market. The Monster Sound cards were among the first to support hardware mixing acceleration with Microsoft
's new DirectSound
and DirectSound3D audio API
s. Most, if not all, also supported Aureal's burgeoning A3D
API.
The original Monster Sound card was highly innovative in this regard, but also controversial because it basically broke DOS
game compatibility which was still critical at the time. DOS game audio was only functional within a Windows 95
DOS box, which was a finicky way to try to run these old games. It came equipped with a 2MB AdMOS MIDI daughterboard.
The Monster Sound M80 was similar to the original monster sound, but lacked 4 speaker support. It also had a reduced quality AdMOS MIDI daughterboard (1MB).
Monster Sound MX200 was known for its excellent General MIDI
quality because of the high quality patch set (licensed from Roland) it was equipped with on its 4MB Dream daughtercard. Otherwise it was technically identical to the original Monster Sound.
The Diamond Monster Sound MX300 was based on the Vortex2 audio ASIC
from Aureal Semiconductor
. It was a revolutionary step forward in gaming audio, with impressive 3D audio positioning and other innovative effects. Utilizing the then state-of-the-art Aureal A3D
2.0 3D audio API, the MX300 was capable of producing startlingly immersive audio. Its capability to turn simple stereo speakers into a 3D-audio experience was clearly ahead of the pack for the time, and is unique in its presentation compared to even the renowned and far newer Creative Audigy 2 series.
Monster Sound MX400 was advertised as being one of the first sound cards with hardware MP3
decoding acceleration. Unfortunately this was hardly a worthwhile reason to buy the card because the central CPUs in PCs at the time were more than capable of handling MP3 playback. It was also somewhat complicated to make use of the MP3 acceleration because special software was needed to use it.
The Vortex2-equipped MX300 was a notably superior card for 3D audio. Unfortunately Aureal had gone into bankruptcy and was dissolved so their next-generation chips never saw the light of day. Diamond was forced to go with ESS's less powerful chip to be able to continue the line. The MX400 was the last of the Monster Sound cards.
, one of the first consumer MP3 players, but they soon sold their MP3 player line and no longer provide support for it. The RIAA had been upset about the possibility of digital music sharing when the product was launched.
.
s after purchasing Micronics Computers Inc. in 1998.
These kits bundled a 'feature reduced' (several pin headers and other parts not installed) full length PCI MPEG2 analog overlay decoder card made by divion. This card connected to the VGA card with an external passthrough cable, a 3.5mm (1/8") external patch cord to the soundcard's line-in jack, and the analog audio cable from the included Toshiba SD-M1002 DVD-ROM drive connected to the divion card while a second cable passed the audio on to the soundcard's internal connector.
Diamond also made kits called the Maximum DVD 1500 and 2500. (Hardware specifications unknown.) The drivers and player software for these are not compatible with the DVD 1000 and 2000. They are a slightly newer product with the 'Navigator' player software having a cleaner user interface.
None of these DVD kits are DirectX
compatible and as the drivers are the VxD
type they will only work with Windows 95
through 98SE
. Dual-layer DVD
s are not supported in original Windows 95 or 95a, but are in the various versions of 95 OEM Service Release 2. Windows 98 or 98SE is not recommended due to problems that may happen with video color and alignment. Only the bundled player software can use the hardware MPEG2 decoding of the card.
Originally founded by Chong Moon Lee and H. H. Huh (the technical designer), Diamond Multimedia was merged (after a long-time companionship) with S3, Incorporated
S3 Graphics
S3 Graphics, Ltd is an American company specializing in graphics chipsets. Although they do not have the large market share that they once had, they still produce graphics accelerators for home computers under the "S3 Chrome" brand name.-History:...
in 1999. The merger was mostly due to S3's willingness to expand their trade from simply producing graphics chipsets to retail graphics cards. The act is somewhat similar with the 1999 3dfx
3dfx
3dfx Interactive was a company that specialized in the manufacturing of 3D graphics processing units and, later, graphics cards. It was a pioneer in the field for several years in the late 1990s until 2000 when it underwent one of the most high-profile demises in the history of the PC industry...
purchase of STB Technologies. The merger was hoped to boost the company's overall capabilities by combining the resources of S3 and Diamond, who were quite close partners over the preceding years. Unfortunately things did not go so well. The greatly anticipated S3 Savage 2000
S3 Savage
Savage was a product-line of PC graphics chipsets designed by S3.-Savage 3D:At the 1998 E3 Expo S3 introduced the first Savage product, Savage3D. Compared to its ViRGE-derived predecessor , Savage3D was a technological leap forward...
was a failure, and the excitedly growing 3D sound card market nearly fell apart with the loss of Aureal Semiconductor
Aureal Semiconductor
Aureal Semiconductor Inc. was an American electronics manufacturer, best known throughout the mid-late 1990s for their PC sound card technologies including A3D and the Vortex The company was the reincarnation of the, at the time, bankrupt Media Vision Technology...
.
With these market failures, the new combined Diamond/S3 company decided to change direction and leave the PC addon-board market. SONICblue was formed. Diamond Multimedia resurfaced in 2003 after the brand and assets had been purchased by Best Data. Diamond again built expansion boards.
Speedstar
Diamond's earliest line, now defunct, was the Speedstar series. The line started out as the best ISA graphic card that outran everything else on the market under MS-DOSMS-DOS
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
(when DOS performance was important in the late 80's and early 90's,) but as Microsoft Windows gain market share, it was later relegated to the cheaper, value-oriented chips in low-cost implementations.
Early on, popular chips on Speedstars were Tseng Labs
Tseng Labs
Tseng Laboratories, Inc. was a maker of graphics chips and controllers for IBM PC compatibles, based in Newtown, Pennsylvania, and founded by Jack H-N Tseng....
ET4000(A/X). They were consider the best implementation of ET4000 series card on the market and easily besting offerings from Trident Microsystems
Trident Microsystems
Trident Microsystems is a supplier of display-processors for flat panel displays . At one time, Trident was also a supplier of PC graphics chipsets and sound controllers.- History :...
and others in many cases.
A listing of some of the Speedstar boards
- Diamond SpeedStar (Plus/24) Tseng Labs ET4000AXTseng Labs ET4000The Tseng Labs ET4000 was a popular graphics accelerator chip during the early 1990s, commonly found in many 486 and compatible systems.At introduction , the original ET4000 was notable for its outstanding host-interface throughput...
ISA - Diamond SpeedStar 24 Tseng Labs ET4000Tseng Labs ET4000The Tseng Labs ET4000 was a popular graphics accelerator chip during the early 1990s, commonly found in many 486 and compatible systems.At introduction , the original ET4000 was notable for its outstanding host-interface throughput...
ISA - Diamond SpeedStar 24X WDWestern DigitalWestern Digital Corporation is one of the largest computer hard disk drive manufacturers in the world. It has a long history in the electronics industry as an integrated circuit maker and a storage products company. Western Digital was founded on April 23, 1970 by Alvin B...
90C31 ISA - Diamond SpeedStar Pro Cirrus LogicCirrus LogicCirrus Logic is a fabless semiconductor supplier specializing in analog, mixed-signal, and audio DSP integrated circuits . They are presently headquartered in Austin, Texas. Their audio processors and audio converters are found in many professional audio and consumer entertainment products,...
CL-GD5426/5428 ISA/VLB - Diamond SpeedStar 64 Cirrus Logic CL-GD5434 ISA/PCI
- Diamond SpeedStar Pro SE Cirrus Logic CL-GD5430 VLB/PCI
- Diamond SpeedStar SuperVGA Tseng Labs ET4000 ISA
- Diamond SpeedStar A50 SiSSilicon Integrated SystemsSilicon Integrated Systems is a company that manufactures, among other things, motherboard chipsets. The company was founded in 1987 in Hsinchu Science Park, Taiwan.-Business:...
6326 AGP - Diamond SpeedStar A55 S3S3 GraphicsS3 Graphics, Ltd is an American company specializing in graphics chipsets. Although they do not have the large market share that they once had, they still produce graphics accelerators for home computers under the "S3 Chrome" brand name.-History:...
Trio3DVirgeA virge, from the Latin virga, is a type of rod, made of wood.Originally it was one or more branches used as an instrument for corporal punishment, or as a riding crop.It is presently best known as the ceremonial staff of the Anglican...
AGP - Diamond SpeedStar A70 SiSSilicon Integrated SystemsSilicon Integrated Systems is a company that manufactures, among other things, motherboard chipsets. The company was founded in 1987 in Hsinchu Science Park, Taiwan.-Business:...
6326 AGP - Diamond SpeedStar A90 S3 Savage4S3 SavageSavage was a product-line of PC graphics chipsets designed by S3.-Savage 3D:At the 1998 E3 Expo S3 introduced the first Savage product, Savage3D. Compared to its ViRGE-derived predecessor , Savage3D was a technological leap forward...
AGP - Diamond SpeedStar A200 S3 Savage4 AGP
Stealth
Gui
Gui or guee is a generic term to refer to grilled dishes in Korean cuisine. These most commonly have meat or fish as their primary ingredient, but may in some cases also comprise grilled vegetables or other vegetarian ingredients. The term derives from the verb, "gupda" in Korean, which literally...
accelerators from S3 Graphics
S3 Graphics
S3 Graphics, Ltd is an American company specializing in graphics chipsets. Although they do not have the large market share that they once had, they still produce graphics accelerators for home computers under the "S3 Chrome" brand name.-History:...
. This line from Diamond is one of their oldest, spanning back to the early '90s. The line started with the most rudimentary of 2D accelerators, but today displays the latest in 3D chips. Initially the Stealth line was Diamond's high-end lineup, but as time progressed the line became more of a mid-range/low-end selection. With more than adequate performance in most cases, the Stealths offered excellent value. This line was Diamond's most popular.
Notable members of the Stealth family have been the Diamond Stealth 3D 2000, by far the most popular S3
S3 Graphics
S3 Graphics, Ltd is an American company specializing in graphics chipsets. Although they do not have the large market share that they once had, they still produce graphics accelerators for home computers under the "S3 Chrome" brand name.-History:...
Virge-based board. The Diamond Stealth32, using the popular and impressive Tseng Labs
Tseng Labs
Tseng Laboratories, Inc. was a maker of graphics chips and controllers for IBM PC compatibles, based in Newtown, Pennsylvania, and founded by Jack H-N Tseng....
ET4000/W32p chipset, was capable of impressive price/performance, especially in DOS. The Diamond Stealth64 Graphics 2001, with the ARK 2000PV/MT chipset, was known for excellent DOS performance at the time. The Diamond Stealth II S220, using the Rendition
Rendition (company)
Rendition was a maker of 3D graphics chipsets in the mid- to late-90's. They were known for products such as the Vérité 1000 and Vérité 2x00 and for being one of the first 3D chipset makers to directly work with Quake developer John Carmack to make a hardware-accelerated version of the game ....
Verite V2100 2D/3D accelerator, was popular with enthusiasts for its excellent price/performance for both 2D and 3D gaming. In fact a BIOS was released by Diamond for the Stealth II S220 which brought its clock speed up to the same level as the high-end Verite V2200 chip, resulting in equal performance at a significantly lower price.
In the middle of the Stealth line-up, Diamond chose to implement a numbering scheme to differentiate their cards in a new way. For example, the Diamond Stealth Video VRAM
VRAM
Video RAM, or VRAM, is a dual-ported variant of dynamic RAM , which was once commonly used to store the framebuffer in some graphics adapters....
was rechristened the Diamond Stealth Video 3xxx. The numbers had more than a random meaning. Specifically, they tell the buyer the card's memory amount and type. The Stealth Video 3240 uses VRAM (3), is equipped with 2MB initially (2), and is upgradeable to 4MB (4). If the first digit is a (2), then the card uses plain DRAM
Dynamic random access memory
Dynamic random-access memory is a type of random-access memory that stores each bit of data in a separate capacitor within an integrated circuit. The capacitor can be either charged or discharged; these two states are taken to represent the two values of a bit, conventionally called 0 and 1...
.
The numbering scheme confused many people since Diamond just renamed current cards with new names. The Stealth Video 3240 was simply the old Stealth Video VRAM. New cards did also use the scheme, however, such as the S3 Trio64V+ cards.
A partial selection of Stealth models
- Diamond Stealth VRAMDynamic random access memoryDynamic random-access memory is a type of random-access memory that stores each bit of data in a separate capacitor within an integrated circuit. The capacitor can be either charged or discharged; these two states are taken to represent the two values of a bit, conventionally called 0 and 1...
S3S3 GraphicsS3 Graphics, Ltd is an American company specializing in graphics chipsets. Although they do not have the large market share that they once had, they still produce graphics accelerators for home computers under the "S3 Chrome" brand name.-History:...
-911/924 ISA - Diamond Stealth 24 S3-801/805 ISA
- Diamond Stealth 24 VLB S3-805 VLB
- Diamond Stealth Pro S3-928 ISA/VLB
- Diamond Stealth SE S3-Trio32 VLB/PCI
- Diamond Stealth64 Graphics2001 ARK 2000PV/MT PCI
- Diamond Stealth32 Tseng Labs ET4000/W32pTseng Labs ET4000The Tseng Labs ET4000 was a popular graphics accelerator chip during the early 1990s, commonly found in many 486 and compatible systems.At introduction , the original ET4000 was notable for its outstanding host-interface throughput...
VLB/PCI - Diamond Stealth64 DRAMDynamic random access memoryDynamic random-access memory is a type of random-access memory that stores each bit of data in a separate capacitor within an integrated circuit. The capacitor can be either charged or discharged; these two states are taken to represent the two values of a bit, conventionally called 0 and 1...
S3-864/Trio64 VLB/PCI - Diamond Stealth64 Video DRAM S3-868 VLB/PCI
- Diamond Stealth64 VRAM S3-964 VLB/PCI
- Diamond Stealth64 Video VRAM S3-968 VLB/PCI
- Diamond Stealth64 Video 2001 S3-Trio64V+ PCI
- Diamond Stealth64 Video 2121 S3-Trio64V+ PCI
- Diamond Stealth64 Video 2201 S3-Trio64V+ PCI
- Diamond Stealth64 Video 2001 TV S3-Trio64V+ PCI
- Diamond Stealth64 Video 2121 TV S3-Trio64V+ PCI
- Diamond Stealth64 Video 2201 TV S3-Trio64V+ PCI
- Diamond Stealth64 Video 2200XL VLB/PCI
- Diamond Stealth64 Video 2120 S3-Trio64 VLB
- Diamond Stealth64 Video 2200 S3-Trio64 VLB
- Diamond Steatlh64 Video 2500 ProMotionAT24 PCI
- Diamond Stealth64 Video 3200 S3-Vision968 VLB/PCI
- Diamond Stealth64 Video 3240 S3-Vision968 VLB/PCI
- Diamond Stealth64 Video 3400 S3-Vision968 VLB/PCI
- Diamond Stealth 3D 2000 S3-ViRGEVirgeA virge, from the Latin virga, is a type of rod, made of wood.Originally it was one or more branches used as an instrument for corporal punishment, or as a riding crop.It is presently best known as the ceremonial staff of the Anglican...
PCI - Diamond Stealth 3D 2000 Pro S3-ViRGE DXVirgeA virge, from the Latin virga, is a type of rod, made of wood.Originally it was one or more branches used as an instrument for corporal punishment, or as a riding crop.It is presently best known as the ceremonial staff of the Anglican...
PCI - Diamond Stealth 3D 3000 S3-ViRGE VXVirgeA virge, from the Latin virga, is a type of rod, made of wood.Originally it was one or more branches used as an instrument for corporal punishment, or as a riding crop.It is presently best known as the ceremonial staff of the Anglican...
PCI - Diamond Stealth 3D 4000 S3-ViRGE GX2VirgeA virge, from the Latin virga, is a type of rod, made of wood.Originally it was one or more branches used as an instrument for corporal punishment, or as a riding crop.It is presently best known as the ceremonial staff of the Anglican...
AGP - Diamond Stealth II S220 RenditionRendition (company)Rendition was a maker of 3D graphics chipsets in the mid- to late-90's. They were known for products such as the Vérité 1000 and Vérité 2x00 and for being one of the first 3D chipset makers to directly work with Quake developer John Carmack to make a hardware-accelerated version of the game ....
Verite V2100 PCI - Diamond Stealth II G460 Intel i740Intel740The Intel740, or i740, is a graphics processing unit using an AGP interface released by Intel in 1998. Intel was hoping to use the i740 to popularize the AGP port, while most graphics vendors were still using PCI. Released with enormous fanfare, the i740 proved to have disappointing real-world...
AGP - Diamond Stealth III S520 S3-Savage4 LT AGP
- Diamond Stealth III S540 S3-Savage4 Pro/Pro+S3 SavageSavage was a product-line of PC graphics chipsets designed by S3.-Savage 3D:At the 1998 E3 Expo S3 introduced the first Savage product, Savage3D. Compared to its ViRGE-derived predecessor , Savage3D was a technological leap forward...
PCI/AGP - Diamond Stealth III S540 Xtreme S3-Savage4 Xtreme AGP
- Diamond Stealth S60 ATIATI TechnologiesATI Technologies Inc. was a semiconductor technology corporation based in Markham, Ontario, Canada, that specialized in the development of graphics processing units and chipsets. Founded in 1985 as Array Technologies Inc., the company was listed publicly in 1993 and was acquired by Advanced Micro...
Radeon 7000 AGP - Diamond Stealth Express ATI Radeon X300SE PCI-Express
Edge 3D
NVIDIA
Nvidia is an American global technology company based in Santa Clara, California. Nvidia is best known for its graphics processors . Nvidia and chief rival AMD Graphics Techonologies have dominated the high performance GPU market, pushing other manufacturers to smaller, niche roles...
NV1
NV1
Nvidia NV1, manufactured by SGS-THOMSON Microelectronics under the model name STG2000, was a multimedia PCI card released in 1995 and sold to retail as the Diamond Edge 3D. It featured a complete 2D/3D graphics core based upon quadratic texture mapping, VRAM or FPM DRAM memory, an integrated...
chipset. The boards were strangely all-encompassing designs. The chipset included full 2D/3D acceleration, an audio engine capable of General MIDI
General MIDI
General MIDI or GM is a standardized specification for music synthesizers that respond to MIDI messages. GM was developed by the MIDI Manufacturers Association and the Japan MIDI Standards Committee and first published in 1991...
synthesis, and the ability to use Sega Saturn
Sega Saturn
The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console that was first released by Sega on November 22, 1994 in Japan, May 11, 1995 in North America, and July 8, 1995 in Europe...
controllers.
The architecture of the NV1
NV1
Nvidia NV1, manufactured by SGS-THOMSON Microelectronics under the model name STG2000, was a multimedia PCI card released in 1995 and sold to retail as the Diamond Edge 3D. It featured a complete 2D/3D graphics core based upon quadratic texture mapping, VRAM or FPM DRAM memory, an integrated...
predates the Direct3D
Direct3D
Direct3D is part of Microsoft's DirectX application programming interface . Direct3D is available for Microsoft Windows operating systems , and for other platforms through the open source software Wine. It is the base for the graphics API on the Xbox and Xbox 360 console systems...
philosophy and, as such, game compatibility was a problem with the Diamond Edge boards. Limited and slow Direct3D-supporting drivers did eventually show up, but the boards were simply not up to the task and were unacceptably slow and buggy. It didn't help that the audio section of the card was not particularly excellent either, receiving luke warm reviews regarding MIDI quality (extremely important during the card's time).
- Diamond Edge 3D 2xx0 SGS STG2000 (nVidiaNVIDIANvidia is an American global technology company based in Santa Clara, California. Nvidia is best known for its graphics processors . Nvidia and chief rival AMD Graphics Techonologies have dominated the high performance GPU market, pushing other manufacturers to smaller, niche roles...
NV1NV1Nvidia NV1, manufactured by SGS-THOMSON Microelectronics under the model name STG2000, was a multimedia PCI card released in 1995 and sold to retail as the Diamond Edge 3D. It featured a complete 2D/3D graphics core based upon quadratic texture mapping, VRAM or FPM DRAM memory, an integrated...
) PCI - Diamond Edge 3D 3xx0 nVidia NV1NV1Nvidia NV1, manufactured by SGS-THOMSON Microelectronics under the model name STG2000, was a multimedia PCI card released in 1995 and sold to retail as the Diamond Edge 3D. It featured a complete 2D/3D graphics core based upon quadratic texture mapping, VRAM or FPM DRAM memory, an integrated...
PCI
Monster3D
Voodoo2
The Voodoo2 was a set of three graphics processing units on a single chipset, made by 3dfx. It was released in February 1998 as a replacement for the original Voodoo Graphics chipset. The card ran at a chipset clock rate of 90 MHz and used 100 MHz EDO DRAM, and was available for the PCI interface...
chips - as such, they had no on-board 2D and thus had to be used with a separate VGA card, connected externally. Both Voodoo and Voodoo2 based offerings were in production until the STB-3dfx merger. The series was highly successful and, for a significant part, responsible for the 3D Graphics revolution of the mid-late 1990s. 3dfx's Voodoo chipsets were revolutionary and for several years (approx. 1997-1999) were simply the fastest hardware for 3D gaming acceleration in both the arcade market and home PC arena.
A critically acclaimed feature of the Monster 3D II (and all other Voodoo2 boards) was the capability to connect two identical boards in a SLI
Scan-Line Interleave
Scan-Line Interleave from 3dfx is a method for linking two video cards or chips together to produce a single output. It is an application of parallel processing for computer graphics, meant to increase the processing power available for graphics. SLI from 3dfx was introduced in 1998 and used in...
(Scan-line Interleave) configuration. In SLI, a pair of Voodoo2 boards splits the effort of rendering the 3D scene, allowing performance to be nearly doubled.
- Diamond Monster 3D 3dfx Voodoo1 4MB PCI
- Diamond Monster 3D II 3dfx Voodoo2 8MB PCI (2MB video RAM, 6MB texture RAM)
- Diamond Monster 3D II 3dfx Voodoo2 12MB PCI (4MB video RAM, 8MB texture RAM)
- Diamond Monster 3D II MEGAMonster bundle (Monster 3D II, MEGAMonster Voodoo2 companion board, MEGAMonster (SLI) cable) (a Voodoo2 SLI bundle offered by Diamond)
- Diamond Monster Fusion Z100 3dfx Banshee 16MB PCI/AGP (Referred to as the "Mon Fusion" by the sticker on many cards)
Viper
Oak Technology
Oak Technology was a supplier of semiconductor chips for sound cards, graphics cards and optical storage devices such as CD-ROM, CD-RW and DVD. In 2003, it was acquired by Zoran Corporation....
OTI-087 display chip with its own 256 KB DRAM. This chip was rather slow and basic. The Viper SE card moved to a Weitek 5186 chip with 1 MB DRAM for non-GUI functions. For GUI environments such as Windows, the Viper cards used a Weitek
Weitek
Weitek Corporation was a chip-design company that originally concentrated on floating point units for a number of commercial CPU designs. During the early to mid-1980s, Weitek designs could be found powering a number of high-end designs and parallel processing supercomputers...
graphics co-processor which accelerated many drawing functions and performed very well for its time. The original Viper used the Weitek P9000/P9001, while the Viper SE used a Weitek P9100, both lines equipped with 2-4 MB VRAM. The separate slow DOS chip was a problem for owners who played DOS games because these chips were quite slow and had limited and buggy VESA BIOS Extensions
VESA BIOS Extensions
VESA BIOS Extensions is a VESA standard, currently at version 3, that defines the interface that can be used by software to access compliant video boards at high resolutions and bit depths...
implementations. While the GUI accelerator was very capable, drivers from Diamond were rather buggy and were only revised a few times during the lifetime of the card.
Towards the end of the 1990s, the Viper line consisted of NVIDIA-based graphics cards. The Diamond Viper V330 used the highly-integrated RIVA 128
RIVA 128
Released in late 1997 by Nvidia, the RIVA 128, or "NV3", was one of the first consumer graphics processing units to integrate 3D acceleration in addition to traditional 2D and video acceleration...
accelerator that featured very capable 2D, 3D and video acceleration. The later Diamond Viper V550 and V770 utilized the RIVA TNT
RIVA TNT
The RIVA TNT, codenamed NV4, is a 2D, video, and 3D graphics accelerator chip for PCs that was manufactured by Nvidia. It was released in mid 1998 and cemented Nvidia's reputation as a worthy rival within the developing consumer 3D graphics adapter industry. The first RIVA TNT based card released...
and RIVA TNT2
RIVA TNT2
The RIVA TNT2 was a graphics processing unit manufactured by Nvidia starting in early 1999. The chip is codenamed "NV5" because it is the 5th graphics chip design by Nvidia, succeeding the RIVA TNT . RIVA is an acronym for Real-time Interactive Video and Animation accelerator...
accelerators which were evolutions of the RIVA 128.
In 1999, Diamond was acquired by S3 Graphics
S3 Graphics
S3 Graphics, Ltd is an American company specializing in graphics chipsets. Although they do not have the large market share that they once had, they still produce graphics accelerators for home computers under the "S3 Chrome" brand name.-History:...
and became primarily a supplier of products based upon their graphics accelerator chips. The Diamond Viper II Z200 was based upon the S3 Savage 2000
S3 Savage
Savage was a product-line of PC graphics chipsets designed by S3.-Savage 3D:At the 1998 E3 Expo S3 introduced the first Savage product, Savage3D. Compared to its ViRGE-derived predecessor , Savage3D was a technological leap forward...
, a supposed NVIDIA GeForce 256
GeForce 256
The GeForce 256 is the original release in Nvidia's "GeForce" product-line. Released on August 31, 1999, the GeForce 256 improves on its predecessor by increasing the number of fixed pixel pipelines, offloading host geometry calculations to a hardware transform and lighting engine, and adding...
killer. Unfortunately the chip itself was not fully functional and the drivers were very buggy.
A selection of Viper boards
- Diamond Viper WeitekWeitekWeitek Corporation was a chip-design company that originally concentrated on floating point units for a number of commercial CPU designs. During the early to mid-1980s, Weitek designs could be found powering a number of high-end designs and parallel processing supercomputers...
P9000 VLB/PCI (Released 1993) - Diamond Viper SE Weitek P9100 VLB/PCI
- Diamond Viper PCI Weitek P9100 PCI
- Diamond Viper Pro Video Weitek P9100 VLB/PCI
- Diamond Viper V330 nVidia Riva 128 AGP
- Diamond Viper V550 nVidia Riva TNT AGP
- Diamond Viper V770 nVidia Riva TNT2 AGP
- Diamond Viper II Z200 S3 Savage 2000 AGP
- Diamond Viper ATI Radeon X600PRO PCI-Express
- Diamond Viper ATI Radeon X1800 PCI-Express
FireGL
Diamond's workstation-class 2D/3D graphics cards.The FireGL team was bought by ATI
ATI Technologies
ATI Technologies Inc. was a semiconductor technology corporation based in Markham, Ontario, Canada, that specialized in the development of graphics processing units and chipsets. Founded in 1985 as Array Technologies Inc., the company was listed publicly in 1993 and was acquired by Advanced Micro...
in 2001 once the combined Diamond/S3 dropped out of the graphics market to form SONICblue
S3 Graphics
S3 Graphics, Ltd is an American company specializing in graphics chipsets. Although they do not have the large market share that they once had, they still produce graphics accelerators for home computers under the "S3 Chrome" brand name.-History:...
. ATI continues the Fire GL lineup.
- Diamond Fire GL 1000, based on the 3Dlabs3Dlabs3DLABS was the name of the fabless semiconductor company that originally developed the GLINT and PERMEDIA high-end graphics chip technology that was used on many of the worlds leading computer graphics cards in the CAD and DCC markets, including its own Wildcat and Oxygen cards.In 2006 the company...
Permedia NT and GLint chip - Diamond Fire GL 1000 Pro, based on 3Dlabs3Dlabs3DLABS was the name of the fabless semiconductor company that originally developed the GLINT and PERMEDIA high-end graphics chip technology that was used on many of the worlds leading computer graphics cards in the CAD and DCC markets, including its own Wildcat and Oxygen cards.In 2006 the company...
Permedia2 chip, PCI/AGP interface - Diamond Fire GL 2000
- Diamond Fire GL 3000
- Diamond Fire GL 4000
Diamond has also preparing an upcoming video card as of September 2007, based on the latest-generation R600
Radeon R600
The graphics processing unit codenamed the Radeon R600 is the foundation of the Radeon HD 2000/3000 series and the FireGL 2007 series video cards developed by ATI Technologies...
graphics core, the same core used for FireGL V8650 and V8600 cards, but altered the PCB design and also renamed as VFX 2000 series professional workstation graphics card, with at least 2 GB GDDR4
GDDR4
GDDR4 SDRAM is a type of graphics card memory specified by the JEDEC Semiconductor Memory Standard. It is a rival medium to Rambus's XDR DRAM...
memory onboard.
Monster Sound
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
's new DirectSound
DirectSound
DirectSound is a software component of the Microsoft DirectX library for the Windows operating system. DirectSound provides a low-latency interface to the sound card driver and can handle the mixing and recording of multiple audio streams....
and DirectSound3D audio API
Application programming interface
An application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...
s. Most, if not all, also supported Aureal's burgeoning A3D
A3D
A3D was a technology developed by Aureal Semiconductor for use in their Vortex line of PC sound chips to deliver three-dimensional sound through headphones, two or even four speakers. The technology used head-related transfer functions , which the human ear interprets as spatial cues indicating...
API.
The original Monster Sound card was highly innovative in this regard, but also controversial because it basically broke DOS
DOS
DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...
game compatibility which was still critical at the time. DOS game audio was only functional within a Windows 95
Windows 95
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products...
DOS box, which was a finicky way to try to run these old games. It came equipped with a 2MB AdMOS MIDI daughterboard.
The Monster Sound M80 was similar to the original monster sound, but lacked 4 speaker support. It also had a reduced quality AdMOS MIDI daughterboard (1MB).
Monster Sound MX200 was known for its excellent General MIDI
General MIDI
General MIDI or GM is a standardized specification for music synthesizers that respond to MIDI messages. GM was developed by the MIDI Manufacturers Association and the Japan MIDI Standards Committee and first published in 1991...
quality because of the high quality patch set (licensed from Roland) it was equipped with on its 4MB Dream daughtercard. Otherwise it was technically identical to the original Monster Sound.
The Diamond Monster Sound MX300 was based on the Vortex2 audio ASIC
ASIC
ASIC may refer to:* Application-specific integrated circuit, an integrated circuit developed for a particular use, as opposed to a customised general-purpose device.* ASIC programming language, a dialect of BASIC...
from Aureal Semiconductor
Aureal Semiconductor
Aureal Semiconductor Inc. was an American electronics manufacturer, best known throughout the mid-late 1990s for their PC sound card technologies including A3D and the Vortex The company was the reincarnation of the, at the time, bankrupt Media Vision Technology...
. It was a revolutionary step forward in gaming audio, with impressive 3D audio positioning and other innovative effects. Utilizing the then state-of-the-art Aureal A3D
A3D
A3D was a technology developed by Aureal Semiconductor for use in their Vortex line of PC sound chips to deliver three-dimensional sound through headphones, two or even four speakers. The technology used head-related transfer functions , which the human ear interprets as spatial cues indicating...
2.0 3D audio API, the MX300 was capable of producing startlingly immersive audio. Its capability to turn simple stereo speakers into a 3D-audio experience was clearly ahead of the pack for the time, and is unique in its presentation compared to even the renowned and far newer Creative Audigy 2 series.
Monster Sound MX400 was advertised as being one of the first sound cards with hardware MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
decoding acceleration. Unfortunately this was hardly a worthwhile reason to buy the card because the central CPUs in PCs at the time were more than capable of handling MP3 playback. It was also somewhat complicated to make use of the MP3 acceleration because special software was needed to use it.
The Vortex2-equipped MX300 was a notably superior card for 3D audio. Unfortunately Aureal had gone into bankruptcy and was dissolved so their next-generation chips never saw the light of day. Diamond was forced to go with ESS's less powerful chip to be able to continue the line. The MX400 was the last of the Monster Sound cards.
- Diamond Monster Sound PCI
- Diamond Monster Sound M80 PCI
- Diamond Monster Sound MX100 PCI
- Diamond Monster Sound MX200 PCI
- Diamond Monster Sound MX300 AurealAureal SemiconductorAureal Semiconductor Inc. was an American electronics manufacturer, best known throughout the mid-late 1990s for their PC sound card technologies including A3D and the Vortex The company was the reincarnation of the, at the time, bankrupt Media Vision Technology...
Vortex2 PCI - Diamond Monster Sound MX400 ESS Canyon3D PCI
Sonic Impact
The Sonic Impact was the value-oriented sound card line from Diamond. Whereas the MonsterSound lineup was targeted at no-holds-barred gamers, the Sonic Impact cards were more generally aimed, and were cheaper and less powerful. Still the lineup consisted of several capable cards.- Diamond Sonic Impact S70 ESS Maestro2 PCI
- Diamond Sonic Impact S90(A/B) Aureal Vortex1 PCI
- Diamond Sonic Impact S100 ESS Allegro PCI
XtremeSound
Diamond XtremeSound is the first sound card line launched after the company's restructuring in 2003.- Diamond XtremeSound - 5.1/16 bit Sound Card (XS51) C-MediaC-MediaC-Media Electronics, Inc. is a Taiwanese computer hardware company that manufactures processors for PC audio and USB storage, and wireless audio devices.-Products:-PCI audio:*CMI8338*CMI8738-SX*CMI8738-LX*CMI8738-MX*CMI8768...
CMI8738-LX PCI - Diamond XtremeSound - 7.1/24 bit Sound Card (XS71) C-MediaC-MediaC-Media Electronics, Inc. is a Taiwanese computer hardware company that manufactures processors for PC audio and USB storage, and wireless audio devices.-Products:-PCI audio:*CMI8338*CMI8738-SX*CMI8738-LX*CMI8738-MX*CMI8768...
CMI8768 PCI - Diamond XtremeSound - 7.1/24 bit Sound Card with Dolby Digital Live (XS71DDL) C-MediaC-MediaC-Media Electronics, Inc. is a Taiwanese computer hardware company that manufactures processors for PC audio and USB storage, and wireless audio devices.-Products:-PCI audio:*CMI8338*CMI8738-SX*CMI8738-LX*CMI8738-MX*CMI8768...
CMI8768+ PCI
Rio PMP300
Diamond's innovation created the Rio PMP300Rio PMP300
The Rio PMP300 was a portable consumer MP3 digital audio player , and was produced by Diamond Multimedia. It was introduced September 15, 1998, and it shipped later that year.-Features:...
, one of the first consumer MP3 players, but they soon sold their MP3 player line and no longer provide support for it. The RIAA had been upset about the possibility of digital music sharing when the product was launched.
SupraMax DSL modems
The SupraMax line is a popular value DSL modem line. The brand has a lineage going back to Supra, Inc.Supra, Inc.
Supra, Inc., previously known as Supra Corporation, were best known as manufacturers of modems for personal computers, but also produced a range of hardware for the Amiga, including SCSI controllers, memory boards, and processor accelerators....
.
Diamond Micronics motherboards
Diamond began manufacturing PC-compatible motherboardMotherboard
In personal computers, a motherboard is the central printed circuit board in many modern computers and holds many of the crucial components of the system, providing connectors for other peripherals. The motherboard is sometimes alternatively known as the mainboard, system board, or, on Apple...
s after purchasing Micronics Computers Inc. in 1998.
Maximum DVD
Diamond was an early (1997) entrant into PC DVD kits with their Maximum DVD 1000DB-VAR (Value Added Reseller) and 2000-RETKIT (RETail KIT).These kits bundled a 'feature reduced' (several pin headers and other parts not installed) full length PCI MPEG2 analog overlay decoder card made by divion. This card connected to the VGA card with an external passthrough cable, a 3.5mm (1/8") external patch cord to the soundcard's line-in jack, and the analog audio cable from the included Toshiba SD-M1002 DVD-ROM drive connected to the divion card while a second cable passed the audio on to the soundcard's internal connector.
Diamond also made kits called the Maximum DVD 1500 and 2500. (Hardware specifications unknown.) The drivers and player software for these are not compatible with the DVD 1000 and 2000. They are a slightly newer product with the 'Navigator' player software having a cleaner user interface.
None of these DVD kits are DirectX
DirectX
Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay,...
compatible and as the drivers are the VxD
VxD
VxD is the device driver model used in Microsoft Windows/386, the 386 enhanced mode of Windows 3.x, Windows 9x, and to some extend also by the Novell DOS 7, OpenDOS 7.01, and DR-DOS 7.02 multitasker...
type they will only work with Windows 95
Windows 95
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products...
through 98SE
Windows 98
Windows 98 is a graphical operating system by Microsoft. It is the second major release in the Windows 9x line of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on 15 May 1998 and to retail on 25 June 1998. Windows 98 is the successor to Windows 95. Like its predecessor, it is a hybrid...
. Dual-layer DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
s are not supported in original Windows 95 or 95a, but are in the various versions of 95 OEM Service Release 2. Windows 98 or 98SE is not recommended due to problems that may happen with video color and alignment. Only the bundled player software can use the hardware MPEG2 decoding of the card.