Just my opinion, but for 3D gaming go with the TNT card.  Everything I've
seen has given me reason to prefer this card over the Banshee (I'm not sure
how they compare on price).  I use a TNT based card on a system running a
Celeron 300 Mhz (Actually at 300 MHz)  ;-) and the performance and visual
quality is fabulous.  I run Half Life at 640 x 480 and frame rates never
seem to take a noticeable hit.  I could play it at 800 x 600 (especially in
single player games) but notice slight frame rate drops during heavy
action.  This, however, is in part a limitation of the processor speed I
believe.  In (supposedly) objective comparisons I've seen, the STB velocity
is one of the best versions of TNT cards.  I have the Canopus Spectra 2500
but I don't think they make it any more.  Just my 2 cents but I feel a TNT
based card is worth the price if you do any amount of 3D gaming.  (I'm not
sure what they're running now, $100, $150).  Keep in mind to watch out for
games that require Glide only API.  Only 3dfx cards support that API.  It's
really not very often a problem whereas almost all games support either
Direct3D or OpenGL.  (Except for Tribes %$#@&*^&&^%).

I'm not sure how this is affected by 1X AGP, but .... if you're not in the
market just yet, keep your eye on the battle between Voodoo3 and the TNT2.
My bet's on the TNT2.  :-)

Bill


At 09:33 AM 4/5/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Mr Shaughnessy:
>        I would like to obtain better gaming graphics.  Is the Nvidia Riva
>TNT card
>1x?  Tom's Hardware rates it higher than the Banshee based cards.  What is
>your opinion?  Would a Diamond Riva TNT or STB velocity 4400 work in my
>machine?  Thanks for your help.
>

            PCBUILD maintains many useful files for download
              on our web site - visit our download page at:
                     http://nospin.com/pc/files.html