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**bacon** · 16 May 2001, 03:21

Rags nVidia may seemingly produce a lot of drivers but these are leaked version, the last official version was 6.50 I believe. And the ICD has not changed in these drivers since then so it doesn't matter which drivers you pick, they all perform the same in openGL.
I also don't understand your comment on updating the drivers, you simply double click on the setup.exe and they are updated after restart.....??????????

[This message has been edited by bacon (edited 16 May 2001).]

**Rags** · 16 May 2001, 05:37

Rags: if Matrox drivers are so good, why do you have send lists with daily observed bugs? The G4x series has been out for a couple of years and the OGL standard hasn´t changed much, has it?
Why should we regard this as good?

No matter what you think, there is no such thing as a perfect driver that will run everything. The idea is to make sure that drivers get a good walk through and as much feedback is given about particular problems as possible so that they get addressed. nVidia's drivers aren't perfect, in fact they are far from it.

Rags nVidia may seemingly produce a lot of drivers but these are leaked version, the last official version was 6.50 I believe. And the ICD has not changed in these drivers since then so it doesn't matter which drivers you pick, they all perform the same in openGL.

Yeah, I know they are "leaked", and I do know they don't officially update their drivers very much....is that supposed to be something good? I don't think it is. Their release drivers aren't problem free, and if you need a specific fix for a problem, you are needing to go to a leaked driver to look for the fix, and that can be very frustrating when you have 14,000 different leaked versions to choose from. And the ICD does NOT perform the same between released drivers. Sorry.

I also don't understand your comment on updating the drivers, you simply double click on the setup.exe and they are updated after restart.....??????????

????????????? is right, I don't know what the hell you are talking about

Rags

**bacon** · 16 May 2001, 07:35

I was refering to you talking about 'cringing' when you have to update.

It's second only to nVidia (if you happen to pick the right driver by chance, but even then you have to cringe when you need to update it)

.

And staying that the ICD performs differently under various driver revisions is a complete lie.Check here.

**DosFreak** · 16 May 2001, 10:10

Yeah, the OGL ICD has been pretty much the same for a long time now (perfect compared to any other card on the market). Most changes have been made to the DX portion for DX8/Whistler GDI.

Also on some driver version Nvidia has the same installation routine as Matrox. Simple double-click on the setup.exe and the drivers install. Also it's in Add/Remove.

There are hardly 14,000 different leaked versions of Nvidia drivers. Just look at the version off the official drivers. It's common sense that anything after is a later version. Also with all of the sites that do driver comparisons it requires barely an effort to view a webpage.

nVidia's drivers aren't perfect, in fact they are far from it.

Compared to ATI/Matrox/S3/3DFX Nvidia's drivers ARE perfect.

**Rags** · 16 May 2001, 10:17

The ICD doesn't perform the same between driver revisions, this is because the ICD is dependent on the drivers as well.

14,000 is obviously an exageration, but I guess someone like you has to take everything literally

nVidia's drivers are from perfect, they lack many features that Matrox users have been enjoying for years. And they are not known for being really SMP friendly either.

Rags

**bacon** · 16 May 2001, 12:33

they lack many features that Matrox users have been enjoying for years

Thats funny Rags, because nvidia users have been enjoying hardware accelerated features that Matrox users hasn't for years now as well.

**DosFreak** · 16 May 2001, 13:06

SMP is fine here and as of a couple thousand driver versions ago I don't experience FPS degredation at high resolutions when using SMP.

ex:

Quake 3 1024X768X32bc all to MAX

R_smp0/1

76/76

Before it would be like 10-15fps lower or somesuch.

**Indiana** · 16 May 2001, 13:30

Originally posted by DosFreak:
Compared to ATI/Matrox/S3/3DFX Nvidia's drivers ARE perfect.

Yes, that's very true. NVidias reference drivers are very good. But unfortunately you're sometimes lost with the drivers of one of the card vendors as I was with my Asus V3400TNT - the NVidia drivers worked perfectly (especially in EVERY OGL app you could think about) but didn't know the Chrontel chip the Asus cards use for TVout. So you were stuck with Asus' drivers and they were the most crappy POS I ever installed on a computer, with the Creative SBLive! drivers coming a close second.

And Rags, please try MameGL on your oh so wonderful Matrox ICD - then try it on any ATI/NVidia card, hell even Voodoo3 works. Or some of the OGL scene-demos. Or OGL screensavers. Or GLXS-mark - wait they've fixed it recently, maybe they feared it'd become popular... (While Matrox do support all popular OGL games you're most often stuck if you try to run any "non-mainstream" OGL app )

NVidias OGL is by far the best the "consumer market" has to offer (together with 3DLabs if you want to count them to the consumer-market). Maybe that's just due to NVidias knowledge "lend" from SiliconGraphics, but the consumer simply doesn't care.

**Joel** · 16 May 2001, 16:43

When was the last time you saw your collegue load up his excel spreadsheet whilst reading his mail on outlook on the second screen?

Just this morning.

Joel

**Rags** · 16 May 2001, 17:11

Thats funny Rags, because nvidia users have been enjoying hardware accelerated features that Matrox users hasn't for years now as well.

Matrox users have been enjoying hardware accelerated features that nVidia users haven't for years now And for me, it's far more important to have drivers that support my card's features and allow me to adjust those features to my heart's content. nVidia's don't do this, their reference drivers for twinview still suck ass, they still don't have a way to lock in refresh rates in win2k without resorting to silly third party apps, and they don't have user retainable modes for different log ons. Don't even get me started on the lack of hotkeys and saved video modes.

unfortunately you're sometimes lost with the drivers of one of the card vendors as I was with my Asus V3400TNT - the NVidia drivers worked perfectly (especially in EVERY OGL app you could think about) but didn't know the Chrontel chip the Asus cards use for TVout. So you were stuck with Asus' drivers and they were the most crappy POS I ever installed on a computer, with the Creative SBLive! drivers coming a close second.

Thank you very much, you have made my point quite nicely.

And Rags, please try MameGL on your oh so wonderful Matrox ICD - then try it on any ATI/NVidia card

Sorry, but I don't use Mame, so it means absolutely zero to me. But I have read many posts from fellow Radeon users that complain about Mame in particular not running in win2k. I still fail to see what you are trying to prove to me. I already said that nVidia's ICD is better than any of the other consumer mfrs out there, but you still seem like you have to put yourself in instaneous nVidiot babble mode. Try this, go back and read what I wrote...everything I wrote, not just the select parts that suit you.

hell even Voodoo3 works.

Kind of, but you know better, especially when win2k is brought into the picture.

Or some of the OGL scene-demos.

I have, they run fine. There are some that have errors on my Radeon that work fine on my G400 and vice-versa.

GLXS-mark

Oh, wait, I have been able to run it for some time, so your point is lost.

While Matrox do support all popular OGL games you're most often stuck if you try to run any "non-mainstream" OGL app

I agree with you, the apps that get used the most are the ones that Matrox is focusing on at the moment.

NVidias OGL is by far the best the "consumer market" has to offer

So you are just repeating what I already said.

Rags

**omegaRED** · 16 May 2001, 17:42

Errr, Rags, i dont mean to say the others are right & you`re wrong, but i think you`re just trying too hard and run the risk of being marked as a "Matrox die-hard", and being over-protective of Matrox. I havent had ANY problems with my drivers, not ever, and IMO, the MAtrox drivers, in general, are the BEST! I havent seen drivers who allow the user ULTIMATE control of, say, the monitor modes, refresh, size etc.etc.

ANY driver is bound to have errors, did anyone ask himself WHY there are so many NVidia drivers, even unofficial? They fix bugs in every release, so the NVidia drivers must be LOADED with bugs.

Bacon:

nvidia users have been enjoying hardware accelerated features that Matrox users hasn't for years now as well

You`re talking Hardware (GFX-Card), not software (drivers)

------------------
Seth, are you ok ?
I`m peachy, Kate. The world is my oyster.

**Rags** · 16 May 2001, 17:48

Nope, I am not trying hard at all, if I was going to try hard, I would compile a list of all the bugs I have found with my V7700, but this isn't a thread about bugs, it's a thread about Matrox's OpenGL. I already agree that the Matrox ICD is below that of nVidia so I don't see why they are harping on that point. If they want to bring up other things, that's fine, I will address them. I am not a die hard Matrox fan, if I was, I wouldn't have purchased other video cards, and am reporting it how it is.

Rags

az · 16 May 2001, 21:20

I think the problem might be, that while you don't mean to be overly protective of Matrox and while you admit that nVidia's OpenGL drivers are better, you failed to give the impression that you think so

AZ

**almghty** · 17 May 2001, 18:40

Who was that wise guy that wrote he saw his collegue with a dual screen

Unfortunately I woke up today and looked through the floors of IBM here and failed to see a single dual screen config..of course IBM is probably not the corporate customer Matrox was referring to. :P

The point of the post wasn't about which hardware had the best features ..T&L, vertex shading ..etc etc.

IT was more about OpenGL. The premise for OpenGL is to provide a layer for programmers so that the app can function on all graphic cards provided the vendor implements their ICD. Since using the g450 I noticed the ICD was not up to scratch and wanted to see if everybody was happy ..couldn't be bothered or very unhappy.

Discussion can always generate change. The change I am after is more resources allocated to the development of the ICD. Surely getting ONE decent programmer working fulltime on the ICD is not too much to ask?

I dont really want to see a nvidia debacle with their beta driver releases ..more controlled quarterly releases tackling the most severe issues.

As good as the matrox support forum is ..it can get better with a more streamline driver release. With all the problems with various apps and games ..not FPS related ... one should expect a driver release in june/july ..but i highly doubt it.

Even though Nvidia dont come out and say it ..its obvious OpenGL is their preferred API .. .. Matrox dont have to say it ..just perfect it and people will know.

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