I realize they are old, not much different then the 4500's, and most were recalled back to Hercules when they announced that they weren't going to release them. I also know that I have a much better chance of getting hit by a bus than I do finding one of these cards but I'm still looking for one. Just thought I'd throw this up here just in case.

jandarsun8 wrote on 01.04.08 at 00:08:33:

I realize they are old, not much different then the 4500's, and most were recalled back to Hercules when they announced that they weren't going to release them. I also know that I have a much better chance of getting hit by a bus than I do finding one of these cards but I'm still looking for one. Just thought I'd throw this up here just in case.

They were never released, same as the Videologic board. They were based on the Kyro II SE chipset, which if I recall correctly was right before STMicro withdrew from the discrete graphics market, subsequently the boards from Hercules and Videologic weren't put on the market. I was searching for one since ages, then I read that.

Edit : Found were I read it :


Quote:

Luckily ST Micro did not pull out of the discrete graphics market before helping to produce the enhanced KYRO II SE chip for Imagination Technologies (Series 3 PowerVR technology). This new chip was unveiled on the 13th March at CeBIT alongside two boards, the Vivid!XS Elite from VideoLogic (who changed their name to Pure Digital on July 15) and the 3D Prophet 4800 from Hercules. Despite an increased clock speed from 175MHz to 200MHz, the new KYRO II chip performed no better than a RADEON 7200. Poorly optimized drivers were probably to blame, and although such teething problems would normally be corrected, the withdrawal of ST Micro effectively pulled the rug from under the poor little Kyro. Both boards from Videologic and Hercules never made it to market.

http://accelenation.com/?ac.id.123.8

Yeah, I realize that they were never out to the general public but there was a couple hundred of the cards made from what I've heard. There was some cards that were sent out to a couple of websites for benchmark testing and couple of people on some of the old Kyro forums have posted pics of the cards (which I'm guessing might have been employees that grabbed the cards).

The V5 6000 was never released but are still floating around so it's not to unreasonable that a couple are out there. It's just a matter of finding them.

I was interested to see what this Kyro 2 lookes like so I googled it up.
First image I find results in this link:

http://www.pvr-extremist.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=6&PN=1

It looks like its in the hands of mikepedo now. Mike is a member of
3dfxzone aswell so its not difficult to dig up some contact information.
I would suggest you make him a good offer, beware though that he
also has a V5 6000, so he is probably a collector of rare videocards.

However, like gdonovan often says: "nothing ventured nothing gained"

Cool, thanks Omega. I seen the forums and the pics before (used to be a member over there till it basically died) and I thought the name sounded familiar but couldn't place it. I'll have to get a hold of him and see if he's interested in getting rid of it or if he knows of any leads as to where to find one.

I'd love nothing more then to get a V5 6K but at over a grand, for me I just can't justify it right now.

Ah sweet, never knew people got them, I thought they never had left the factory. :)

Wonder if it ever had "working" TnL like they said it would do? :-/

From my understanding, it was still a software based "enhanced" TnL emulator on it that they incorporated into the 4500 drivers for the last two or three releases. Hardware TnL was supposed to go into the Series 4 but we all know what happened after the Kryo II's so...

Wasn't it just a speedbumped Kyro II core?

Yeah, pretty much. I still want it though but yeah it was basically just an oc'd 4500.

I suppose I could just use white out on one of the 4500 I have and pen in a number 8.  ;D

Have you talked to mikepedo? I'm curious what he has to say.