G400 questions/concerns

[whee]

I've been planning on getting a new graphics card soon, and the g400max looks nice, but I have a few questions about it:

1) When are the g400max's going to be showing up in stores? I need to get another card really soon (by the end of july at the latest; my 2mb virge and vd2 just isnt cutting it anymore)

2) I'm also worried about the status of the opengl icd. I dont think its that easy to do a fully featured icd, and from the way matrox has handled the g200 icd, I cant trust that they'll have a decent icd this time around.

3) Is the g400 really cpu dependant? I waste most of my time playing games like quake2, so good performance in intense situations is a must (most of the g400 crusher benchmarks I've seen have the g400 not doing too hot, I pull off 41fps on my vd2 at 800*600 :/).

Those are the things I'm concerned about the most; I've considered getting a hercules tnt2 ultra, but I really want environmental bump mapping, better 32bit performance, and the higher quality at higher reses :/

[This message has been edited by whee (edited 06-29-99).]

[Helevitia]

whee!!!

I like the name Anyhow, on to the questions.

1. According to everything I've read and seen, most people should start getting boards(g400 max) that they've ordered between July 16th thru July 23rd from Matrox. Some online stores say July 7th, some say July 13th, some say not until the end of July. I ordered mine on Sunday and then emailed them asking when I should get it and they said the end of July.

2. Go read the benchmarks for yourself. Check out Anand, Tom hardware, Firingsquad, sharkyextreme, fastgraphics, and of course, our own personal Ant Basically from what I've seen, the G400 lacks a lot in 640x480 or 800x600, but improves significantly with 1024x768, comes close to the other cards with 1280x1024, and meets or beats at 1600x1200 with almost no performance hit with 32bit enabled. Also, Ant and some of the Beta Boyz say that the OpenGL ICD has improved a decent amount to close the gap even more with the other video cards. I'm not sure if the lower resolutions have improved though.

3. The card is CPU dependent and defnitely improves with each higher CPU. If you play D3D games(and I'm sure you do) you will see the the G400 is neck and neck with any other card out there or smokes it. It especially performes well with higher resolutions and almost no performance hit with 32bit. Like I said, check out the reviews and see for yourself.

I should also mention that the OEM G400 singlehead version is out and probably attainable at computer shows although I haven't heard anyone from the US get one yet.

TNT2U is a good card, but for the same price, you jsut get more features with better quality and comparable or better scores with D3d and decent scores at higher reolutions with OpenGL. Of course, drivers will mature and the OpenGL drivers can only get better from here on out. Hope this helps.

Dave