What was the most powerful graphics card around 1982-1989

[Bonzilink]

Like what was the RTX 2080ti at the time? Some graphics card with that could render some "realistic" graphics. 

[XR6]

There wasn't really GPUs as such. 

Usually the microprocessor had the graphics built in, kinda like an APU. 

GPUs as we know them started to become a thing around 1994-1995.

[Bonzilink]

Just now, 1kv said:

Usually the microprocessor had the graphics built in, kinda like an APU. 

 

Well at least something?

[XR6]

Just now, Bonzilink said:

Well at least something?

Honestly the closest thing to a GPU would be the graphics boards inside of arcade machines, otherwise it's just built into the microprocessor.

[buzzinkeegs]

7 minutes ago, Bonzilink said:

Like what was the RTX 2080ti at the time? Some graphics card with that could render some "realistic" graphics. 

ATI EGA and VGA Wonder series towards the latter of your time scape

[Bonzilink]

Ok, so if this was rendered in the 80s, what graphics chip would it have.

[Enderman]

There were no graphics cards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_processing_unit

[Bonzilink]

1 minute ago, Enderman said:

There were no graphics cards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_processing_unit

Hey Ender, just asking are you the guy from Youtube, right. The one that messes with Windows?

[Bonzilink]

Just now, Bonzilink said:

Hey Ender, just asking are you the guy from Youtube, right. The one that messes with Windows?

wait nvm

[Enderman]

1 minute ago, Bonzilink said:

wait nvm

Wrong one haha

[Neo-revo]

18 minutes ago, Bonzilink said:

Ok, so if this was rendered in the 80s, what graphics chip would it have.

i remember rooting around boxes cause i wanted the find all-in-wonder card or something or rather that we got way back in the day that i ran cad programs on at home pre 2000... .

 

i found it... had 128mb of ram, (and that was BOSS)

[Enderman]

28 minutes ago, CUDAcores89 said:

Actually, there were graphics cards as early as 1981, but they were very primitive in nature. The oldest one I can remember is the IBM monochrome display adapter for the IBM 5151 PC:

 

http://www.wikiwand.com/en/IBM_Monochrome_Display_Adapter

 

Graphics cards did exist then but 95% of the time, the CPU was used for graphics since back then most things were done on monochrome monitors or they were text based like MS DOS. Very few systems back then ever came with a graphics card.

 

All video cards back in those days were never used for gaming since they cost too much. They were used mostly for productive work.

Pretty sure a display adapter is different from a graphics card.

I don't call my DP to HDMI converter a graphics card.

That thing just adapts from a slot to a display so it can output text, not any graphics.

 

Apparently the geforce 256 was the first GPU? or did 3dfx release one before that?

[buzzinkeegs]

4 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Pretty sure a display adapter is different from a graphics card.

I don't call my DP to HDMI converter a graphics card.

That thing just adapts from a slot to a display so it can output text, not any graphics.

 

Apparently the geforce 256 was the first GPU? or did 3dfx release one before that?

the wonder series were marketed as some of the first consumer graphics cards / adons and the question asked was about graphics cards not gpu's

[TrigrH]

1 hour ago, Enderman said:

Pretty sure a display adapter is different from a graphics card.

Actually no, the kind of display adapters that go inside a PC are still technically a GPU and have onboard VRAM. They are just not designed for any significant compute tasks, a modern day variant would be an nvidia NVS.

Quote

A video card (also called a display card, graphics card, display adapter or graphics adapter) is an expansion card which generates a feed of output images to a display (such as a computer monitor). Frequently, these are advertised as discrete or dedicated graphics cards, emphasizing the distinction between these and integrated graphics. At the core of both is the graphics processing unit (GPU), which is the main part that does the actual computations, but should not be confused as the video card as a whole, although "GPU" is often used to refer to video cards.

 

Most video cards are not limited to simple display output. Their integrated graphics processor can perform additional processing, removing this task from the central processor of the computer. For example, Nvidia and AMD (ATi) produced cards render the graphics pipeline OpenGL and DirectX on the hardware level. In the later 2010s, there has also been a tendency to use the computing capabilities of the graphics processor to solve non-graphic tasks.

 

[Neo-revo]

1 hour ago, Enderman said:

Pretty sure a display adapter is different from a graphics card.

I don't call my DP to HDMI converter a graphics card.

That thing just adapts from a slot to a display so it can output text, not any graphics.

 

Apparently the geforce 256 was the first GPU? or did 3dfx release one before that?

They still call GPUs display adapters in computers...

what you are talkign about is just a adapter CORD (cable)  whatever you want to call it  to connect the display adapter to a display..

Spoiler

1 hour ago, buzzinkeegs said:

the wonder series were marketed as some of the first consumer graphics cards / adons and the question asked was about graphics cards not gpu's

Yea the all-in-wonder series

[Mira Yurizaki]

During the 80s, I'd argue Commodore and Atari computers were probably the most graphically capable computers since they were built with games in mind. Towards the tail end of the 80s, both company's computers were capable of doing things the 16-bit console generation was doing in its heyday. In fact, the Apple IIGS was supposedly a compatible development computer for the SNES since the two shared the same CPU.

[X_X]

CGA and EGA before VGA

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Graphics_Adapter

[GreyDoesWindowsStuff]

On 12/16/2018 at 5:09 PM, CircleTech said:

Actually, there were graphics cards as early as 1981, but they were very primitive in nature. The oldest one I can remember is the IBM monochrome display adapter for the IBM 5151 PC:

 

http://www.wikiwand.com/en/IBM_Monochrome_Display_Adapter

 

Graphics cards did exist then but 95% of the time, the CPU was used for graphics since back then most things were done on monochrome monitors or they were text based like MS DOS. Very few systems back then ever came with a graphics card.

 

All video cards back in those days were never used for gaming since they cost too much. They were used mostly for productive work.

First ATI Video Cards Started in 1986.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATI_Wonder_series

There is the link for extra details.

[jones177]

On 12/16/2018 at 7:41 PM, Bonzilink said:

Like what was the RTX 2080ti at the time? Some graphics card with that could render some "realistic" graphics. 

Truevision TGA cards were #1. They had 24 bit color but they were classed as frame buffers since you rendered to them. 

 

I used several makes of 24 bit cards at the end of the 80s.

My Amiga computers used Fircracker 24 bit cards and Opel Vision cards.

The last one I bought for the Amiga was NewTek's Video Toaster that was for video editing. It was the most expensive at $5000.

Output was to NTSC monitors.

 

They were the only way I could see my 3D renderings in full color before printing since computer displayed were either 8 or 16 colors back then.

 

 

 

[whm1974]

3 hours ago, jones177 said:

Truevision TGA cards were #1. They had 24 bit color but they were classed as frame buffers since you rendered to them. 

 

I used several makes of 24 bit cards at the end of the 80s.

My Amiga computers used Fircracker 24 bit cards and Opel Vision cards.

The last one I bought for the Amiga was NewTek's Video Toaster that was for video editing. It was the most expensive at $5000.

Output was to NTSC monitors.

 

They were the only way I could see my 3D renderings in full color before printing since computer displayed were either 8 or 16 colors back then.

IBM did released a fixed-function accelerator for the PS/2 Line of Computers called the 8514. But it only the MCA Bus and not ISA.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_8514

[jones177]

1 hour ago, whm1974 said:

IBM did released a fixed-function accelerator for the PS/2 Line of Computers called the 8514. But it only the MCA Bus and not ISA.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_8514

I never used a PS/2s. Just clones and Amigas. 

I continued to use the Amiga 24 bit cards even after all my rendering was done on PCs since I had so much money in them.

Back then my computers cost more than the car I drove.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[whm1974]

3 hours ago, jones177 said:

I never used a PS/2s. Just clones and Amigas. 

I continued to use the Amiga 24 bit cards even after all my rendering was done on PCs since I had so much money in them.

Back then my computers cost more than the car I drove.

Well that was Computers back then. I used to own a PS/1 ~94 to ~95.