Some of the problems exhibited by the Viper II are shown in the three screen shots below. Note the glitch originating from the Falcon's tail, as well as the purple outlines surrounding the cockpit of the P-51.

Fig. 12. Viper II P-51 Purple Cockpit Outlines- How Rude!

Fig. 13. Falcon 4.0 Graphical Anomalies...Interesting

Fig. 14. Buy 11 Frames Per Second, Get Unreadable Fonts Free!!

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These are just some of the problems we encountered, and we have numerous similar screen shots in the aforementioned folder. These problems remind us of the first set of drivers that came with the original Voodoo2 cards: they were eventually fixed. We also encountered a few lockups and crashes during game play with the Viper. The other two cards never crapped out once during the entire testing process.

The Viper also would not run Flanker 2 in 32-bit color no matter what we tried. The game would simply crash to desktop before it even loaded, and one of the COMBATSIM.COM staffer's who was a member of the F2 development team tried every trick in the book to get it to run with no success. Also worth mentioning is the fact that the T&L engine is not currently working with the current drivers. Diamond's tech support department didn't have any information regarding this when we talked to them. Actually, that's not quite true. The guy did say, "umm, err, ahh", but we haven't found these "options" in the control panel yet.

Considering that the Viper II can be had for as little as $149.00, and the drivers are still in a very early stage of development, it is difficult to say if this card will eventually be a smart buy. It certainly doesn't outperform any of the current cards, and if you own a Voodoo3, TNT2, or GeForce board, you probably won't be impressed if you switch to a Viper II if all you will be using it for is combat sims.

The Viper II does show some promise, and if the driver issue is sorted out, it has the potential to be a giant killer, especially once the S2000+ chip is released, rumored to be in the 200 MHz range. Until then, the Viper II is a mediocre product at best. For now, we recommend against purchasing this card for simulation gaming due to less than average performance, stability issues, and graphical glitches.

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