When I received an evaluation unit of the Diamond Viper V330 graphics card, I was sceptical. Here was a box clearly stating, if you play games, buy me.
The reality of this exceptional card is a little different. While one of the main target audiences for high-end video cards is arcade game aficionados, a high-end card such as the Viper V330 has a place in any power user's system.
The card promises true 128-bit Windows acceleration. Compared with 64-bit and 32-bit cards this promises marked improvement in speed.
Add to it four megabytes of video random-access memory, support for resolutions up to 1600 x 1200 at high refresh rates and built-in Mpeg-I full-screen video support and you have a card that seems promising.
My tests suggest the adapter lives up to most of the promise. Installation is easy: remove the existing PCI graphics card, drop the Viper into the slot and start Windows NT in low-resolution (640 x 480) mode.
Next, put in the accompanying installer CD-Rom which knew I was running Windows NT and offered to install the drivers and support utilities for that operating system. After a reboot, everything was working.