How do I identify my video card?

Video cards are not always clearly marked or identified. Sometimes it is difficult to determine what video card you have installed. I found this on the diamondmm.com web site some time back and have used it many times. You could navigate to it by going to http://www.diamondmm.com then navigating to Legacy Graphics - Identifying your video card

The following link may work: Video ID

Here is the main concepts of the page.

METHOD #1 - Run Debug program:

1. From a DOS prompt, Win 3.x, Win9x, WinNT, or Win2K command prompt type DEBUG and press Enter.
2. A single dash will appear at which point type DC000:35 and then press Enter (DC000:50 may also work for newer cards).
3. You may need to type D at the second dash and press Enter for all of the information to appear.
4. You will observe the following screen:
   
   
   Your video card model description will appear on the right side of the screen.
   
   In this case the card is identified as:
        Model: Edge 3D 3000 Series
        BIOS: Vers. 1.00
        VRAM: 4Mb
   
5. To exit from Debug, press Q at the dash and then press enter.

METHOD #2 - Run MSD

MSD or Microsoft Diagnostics for Win3.1 and Win95 is a program that you can use to obtain some information about your computer.

If you are running the OEM version of Win95, MSD can be found on the Windows 95 distribution CDrom in X:\OTHER\MSD.EXE (X:\ = your cdrom drive letter).

1. From a DOS prompt, Win 3.X, or Win95 command prompt type MSD. You will be presented with the following screen:
   
   
   
   
2. Press "V" for the Video display adapter. You will be presented with the following screen:
   
   
   
   "Video BIOS Version" is where you will see the model type of you video card displayed. In this case the card is identified as:
        Model: Edge 3D 3000 Series
        BIOS: Vers. 1.00
        VRAM: 2Mb
   
   Note: MSD run under Win3.x/W95 may incorrectly report amount of VRAM. Debug or physical inspection is the best method for accurate identification.

Bus Types

ISA - Industry Standard Architechture



A 16-bit slot which is the oldest of the bus types. It is typically still found in many computers in use today. Generally used for modems and older sound cards.

VLB - VESA Local Bus



A 32-bit slot which was originally designed for 486 systems. Generally used by video cards and hard drive controller cards, these slots are not plug-n-play.

PCI - Peripheral Component Interface



Also a 32-bit slot which is mainly found in Pentium Class systems but can also be found on some 486 systems. Generally used by IDE/SCSI controllers, video cards, network cards, video capture boards, and some sound cards.

AGP - Accelerated Graphics Port



This newest bus was designed to be used exclusively by the display adapter. Newer motherboards will usually have one available AGP slot for a disply adapter. Operating systems that support AGP cards are Win95B*, Win98, Win98SE, NT 4.0*, and Windows 2000.

There are some other bus types. Two such buses are:

• MicroChannel: a proprietary bus type designed by IBM which is not widely used.
• EISA: an ISA slot with a wider datapath which also is not widely used.

ISA cards should work in these slots, but only with 16-bit performance.