Greetings, Starfighter (July 17, 2017)

Bandit LOAF

Long Live the Confederation!
Did you know that Lockheed Martin build a real starfighter to play Wing Commander? Well, kind of. Today we have an interesting oddity in Wing Commander history: the packaging for a Real3D Starfighter AGP graphics card. The Starfighter was an Intel i740-based graphics card created in coopration with the Real3D division of Lockheed Martin (really!) The first AGP version was released in early 1998, shipping alongside a special 'cut down' version of Wing Commander Prophecy (specifically, the first CD of the game, with a card at the end suggesting you purchase the rest from Origin.) A PCI version was released later, but it's not clear whether or not it included the Prophecy OEM demo. Want to play the odd version of the game itself? You can grab a copy here.






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Original update published on July 17, 2017
 
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Are there screenshots of this card in action? What did it have to offer for prophecy that any other direct3d card might not have?
 
Absolutely nothing! It's an odd marketing agreement, since Prophecy really wanted a competing 3dfx card...

(But I did buy the card pictured and will record a video when it's set up!)
 
Back in the day this card was hailed for it's image quality.. but it did not match the framerate and "cheat visual quality" of the 3DFX, and it was a commercial failure.. I used to work at a computer retailer back then, and was building away unsold i740 retail cards in discount bundles back in the day.. never saw this bundle though...
 
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