The Stealth II 3D graphics card from Diamond, is based on the Rendition Verite 2100 chipset. The V2100 is the younger brother of the V2200, found in the Hercules Thriller 3D. Even though the V2100 has a slower RAMDAC(170Mhz) compared to the Thriller 3D(230Mhz), the refresh rates supported are sufficient for normal fatigue free work. But then the 2D performance of the V2x00 chipset family is not any where near the Matrox Millenium to function as a professional card. The targetted customers of the Stealth II are the sub $1000 PC buyers, people want a perfect compliment for their MMXs, K6s or Cyrix MIIs, based on the socket 7 architecture. The price/performance ratio of the Stealth II is unbeatable. For a more detailed insight into the Stealth II, this is the place to go.
If you happen to be one of those who is about to install a Stealth II on your pc, the following installation tips will be found useful. For those of you who have already installed their Stealth IIs, the postulates presented at the end of this article will be interesting.
 

Installation Procedure:
 

1. If you are installing the card on your old pc, make sure you select the Standard Display Adapter(VGA) as your display adapter under Windows 95 Display properties. - IMPORTANT!
2. Open the computer cabinet case, and locate a free PCI( Peripheral Connect Interface) slot. Usually these are white or cream in colour, & are smaller than the other type( ISA). If your pc already has a VGA card installed, remove that card from its position. Be sure to disable any on board graphics, that you motherboard might have.
3. Insert the Stealth II card into the PCI slot in such a way that it is screwable to the cabinet. DO NOT exert heavy force, but push in the card firmly in place.
4. Make sure that there is sufficient breathing space for th card. The further the card is away from your hard disk, the better. DO NOT insert the card into the last PCI slot( nearer to the ISA slots), which is probably shared. If you abide by step 1 skip step5.
5. If you are doing a fresh install of Windows95, select the custom setup option. If the Hardware detection wizard has not recognized a standard PCI-VGA card, you select VGA as your card. Also noting down your monitor settings, select the same monitor under the monitor option. Continue with the installation.
6. When Win95 reboots, it displays a message that a new PCI-VGA compatible display adapter has been found & asks you to select a driver for it. Click 'Do not Install Driver', & continue. Open your Device Manager &  double click Other Devices, highlight the PCI VGA-Compatible Display Adapter & select properties. Change its driver to Standard Display Adapter(VGA). Reboot.
7. After reboot if your driver CD is in the CD-ROM drive, it will auto run. Follow the steps thereafter to complete the installation.
8. Close the Cabinet!

Postulates to Remember:

1. DO NOT overclock the card if you are worried about the Warranty. The warranty becomes void if you tamper with the card.
2. If you care least about the warranty, go here to pick up some good overclocking utilities.
3. If you have flashed your card VESA BIOS to the new 1.36 version, the card defaults to 55/110Mhz setting. Diamond people believe that the card can safely handle this speed. But from my experience, I can say that if you have the new bios, get a overclocker to reduce the speed! At 55/110Mhz setting, the card is very fond of the BSOD( Black Screen of Death) bug. On some cold boots, windows95 loads to a blank screen. On reboot with normal mode, gives a display adapter problem error. On restart the situation becomes normal. I have set up my card to run at 50/100Mhz. With this setting, I have not even once encountered the BSOD problem in three months!. So untill this bug is ironed out, do not clock it to 55/110Mhz.
4. Some times the screen may become garbled when you restart in MS-DOS mode after a long Win96 session. Do not worry. Just type "mode co80" and hit enter. Viola! your screen returns to normal.