page_title: Diamond Multimedia
section_title: Viper
hierarchical_section_title: Diamond Multimedia / Graphics Cards / Viper
caption_attribution_description: Diamond Viper V770 Ultra "Rev C" 1999 on the white sticker: VIPER V770U ATX AGP 32MB T3 chip: nVidia TNT2 Ultra memory: 32MB SDRAM speed: 150MHz engine clock, 183MHz memory clock, 300MHz RAMDAC This card was Diamond's flagship before the S3 merger in 1999.
context_page_description: Diamond Multimedia is an American 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.
  The company was founded by Chong Moon Lee and H. H. Huh, who acted as the technical designer. Diamond Multimedia later merged with S3, Incorporated in 1999 after a long-time cooperative business arrangement, when S3 decided to expand their business from producing graphics chipsets to manufacturing retail graphics cards. The move paralleled the 1999 3dfx purchase of STB Systems, which changed 3dfx from a graphics chipset supplier to companies including Diamond, into a vertically-integrated graphics vendor and direct competitor to S3. However, the first major product after the merger, branded as the S3 Savage 2000, was a commercial failure.
context_section_description: 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.
  Partial listing of Viper-branded boards
  Diamond Viper Weitek 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 X1300 PCI-Express
  Diamond Viper ATI Radeon X1800 PCI-Express
caption: Viper V770 Ultra - Diamond's flagship before the S3 merger
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