Yep, even though my Monster II has been lost to time somewhere out there for a good 20 years, I vividly remember always having to stick with the Diamond drivers back then.

The Rage Pro was a really nice piece of hardware that was SEVERELY limited in 3D applications by inadequate drivers for the majority of its useful life. The 2D side was excellent for the day, not quite a Matrox Millennium, but well above average, especially in media playback. Honestly I don't know …

Blizzard has patched up Diablo II quite well over the years on a technical level. Almost all of the effects are replicated in the D3D renderer and there's basically no hassles when running on a modern PC (aside from scaling issues stemming from the low resolution and 4:3 aspect ratio). There's also …

I mean wouldn't that Riva128 still be way under powered with a 700 MHz Athlon? There's a Geforce2 MX400 listed on ebay right now for 17 bucks shipped that seems like a nice pairing for that system. I'm sure you could find other cards of a similar vintage around that price as well.

Nothing stands out to me aside from it being a VERY nice, clean example. Hopefully someone else can fill in the gaps for you.

Sounds vaguely similar to some designs Leading Edge made. There was a recent thread (Leading Edge Model M MP1676L) about an older model, but I know they hung around until the 486 era.

Looks solid to me, should perform just a touch behind something like a Voodoo 3 or a Tnt2. What CPU are you pairing it with?

2D quality is solid, you can find AnandTech's original review from back at release over there still. Phil did a nice review over here a couple years back as well (https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=48925). If you can find a Rage128 Pro they are clocked higher, a good 33% or so if I remember …

A quick glance on ebay shows plenty of PCI Rage128 cards out there for $40 or less and they would be a huge upgrade over that Virge.