Diamond Monster3D-2 Voodoo2

The Pentium II test system AnandTech used featured an ABIT BX6 Motherboard, and a Pentium II - 400. Removing the system's case cover and finding two unoccupied PCI slots, a rarity in the cases of most tweakers who happen to have quite a few PCI peripherals, the two 12MB Monster 3D II's were installed and connected properly by the SLI cable on the inside and connected to the Matrox Millennium II AGP with the pass-through cable on the outside.

Firing up the system told Windows 95 that it was time to whip out the dusty 'Add New Hardware Wizard' as it detected not one, but two PCI Multimedia Devices (because of the two boards installed). Using the supplied Diamond Monster 3D II Installation CD the Windows 95 Monster 3D II DirectX 5 drivers were quickly found and configured for use with the two boards that found a home in the test system. Upon rebooting everything seemed to be normal, no problems, and at the same time no useless space consuming toolbars on the desktop, nothing but simplicity in its purest form.

Further inspection will reveal a new tab under your Display Properties Control Panel properly entitled Monster 3D II. From this tab you can adjust gamma settings, overclock your card, and enable/disable common Voodoo² performance enhancing settings such as Wait for V-Sync.

The major strong point of the Diamond Monster 3D II is its game bundle, Diamond chose to include full versions of Rage's Incoming, Battle Zone, and Monster Truck Madness 2, with the 12MB card. Owners of the 8MB card will be blessed with Special Edition versions (basically like large demos) of Jedi Knight, Shadows of the Empire, and X-Wing vs Tie Fighter. Unfortunately the only full version of a game bundled with the 8MB card is Heavy Gear, a bit of a disappointment for those of you that can't fund the 12MB's desires, but offset by the inclusion by quite a few shareware/special edition titles.

Of course you'll pay for the bundle of these software titles with the card, however surprisingly enough the cost is barely any different than other Voodoo² based cards with an inferior software package. Diamond earns the A+ in the Ease of Setup/Bundled Software Category, as they have managed to put together a piece of art worthy of the priceless Diamond title.