🚀 go-pugleaf

This isn't related to hardware performance, but in my experience Diamond's
technical support has been *terrible*.  I've had my Diamond Stealth card
several months and they still haven't provided bug-free drivers for
Windows 3.1 (640 X 480 X 256 and 640 X 480 X 32K).  The standard excuse 
has been, "We're waiting for new drivers from Binar."  And, instead of 
automatically sending updated drivers to customers who have reported 
problems, Diamond's response was, "No, we don't have enough resources
to do that.  But you can try calling us once a month or so."  Or I was 
welcome to browse their bulletin board--both at my (long distance) 
expense.

When version 1.0 of their drivers--the ones that came with my board--
failed to work correctly (trashed characters on the screen), I called 
and Diamond sent me version 1.1.  This fixed that problem, but some 
items wouldn't print properly on my LaserJet printer.  Although it took 
me a long time to identify a problem with printing being caused by a 
display driver, the second person I spoke with did ackowledge this as a 
known problem.  (The first simply wasted a week or so by sending me 
another disk of buggy drivers.)  As usual, the suggested strategy
was "try again later."

About a week ago I wrote them a letter reiterating my problems with
versions 1.0 and 1.1 and inquiring about newer drivers.  Yesterday I 
received another disk of drivers from them and--guess what?--they're 
yet another copy of version 1.1.  (Yes, I checked.  All the file dates 
are the same as before.)  It seems like whoever sent the disk didn't 
even bother to read past the first line in my letter (which was brief 
and clearly described which versions I already had tried).

I'm pissed.  My advice to anybody considering a Windows accelerator card 
is to buy anything but Diamond if you care about support.  I'm currently 
using the generic S3 drivers from Microsoft, but my measurements show 
that they're slower than the optimized (but unusable) drivers provided 
by Diamond.  Also, the ones I have don't support the 32K color mode.  But,
unlike Diamond's, at least they do work reliably.

Frank Calloway