Diamond Viper ATI X1300 PCI 256MB Video Card

Comment: I bought this video card to get Vista up to the 2.0 rating needed to run Aero. My Dell server does not have an AGP or PCI-Express slot so this PCI card seemed like a good compromise. Getting the Vista driver installed is tricky since Vista installs a default video driver as soon as you turn on the PC with the card installed. Once the default driver is installed, you can't install the AMI Vista driver. Switching PCI slots and setting the AMI driver installation program in your Startup folder let's you get the AMI driver installed before Vista installs the default video driver.

Anyway, once I got the AMI driver installed my system had the 2.0 rating I was striving for. I turned on Aero and my dual 2.8GHz Xeon with 2GB memory and Fast Ultra-Wide SCSI drives became so slow I had to turn Aero off. The video is slow but useable with Aero turned off.

One thing I liked is that you can hook up two monitors to this card. One uses the digital output and the other uses the analog output. Both monitors work in the extended desktop mode at 1600x1200 32-Bit.

1/2008: A new driver is now available and Vista Aero runs fine (ok, pretty good) at a rating of 2.3.

Comment: Like the previous reviewer said, drivers dont work. Had to download drivers from ATI website. I dont know why they claim it's vista ready because, although its enabled, the premium Aero version is extremelly slow. I have to turn it off just to be able to work. Bought it for running vista premium cant even run it.

Comment: well, I was in the same position as another reviewer here and needed a Vista compliant VGA card. I bought it and unfortunately it has been nothing but trouble. The drivers do not work and there is no real tech-support. You have to go to Diamond's web site and click on chat with a rep. and having chatted many hourrrrrs with these folks, still no resolution. I am about to throw everyting in the box and return it as I am tired of chatting ;(

Comment: I bought the Diamond ATI x1300 PCI card for my son's Dell, which used integrated graphics and has only PCI slots. For anyone in a similar postion who wants to play Battlefield 2, the answer is, yes, it will play Battlefield 2 with most of the graphics settings set to "low." I'm sure we're missing plenty of eye-candy but it was a lot cheaper and easier than upgrading the mother board or replacing the entire machine.

Installation was easy but slow.

I previously tried a Radeon 9250 in the same machine and it would not play Battlefield 2. I think the key is that the x1300 supports DirectX 9.x.

Comment: I upgraded to Vista Ultimate and it worked fine except for that the cool visual features like Aero and flip 3D didnt work because my old Radeon 9250 card didnt support them.

I got this card and it was a breeze to install all of Vista's visual features work perfectly...

I would reccomend this card to anyone who has an older system with only PCI slots whose video card doesn't support Aero.

If you want to upgrade to Vista without buying a new system, this is a relatively inexpensive option. And it does the job.