New Drivers for G400 and RRG-series

[DART]

Hi All,

Just got an e-mail from Matrox support. Just thought you folks might want to read it.

Hello

Sorry for the delay

Unfortunately, the current Video Tools for the RRG are not compatible with
the Millennium G400's display drivers. A revision of the Video Tools is in
development, but a specific release date for that revision is not available.

Regards
Marc C



At 12:21 PM 7/5/99 -0400, you wrote:
>I just bought the G400. I also bought the RR G-series which is advertised to
>be compatiable. However, I cannot install the video tools that it requires.
>The installer does not detect a Matrox board (?).
>
>Please advise ASAP.
>
>Thank you,
>Dan

I don't know about you, but A company that states compatibility should assume that its customer base will presume that it will WORK!

I'm pissed because I cannot use something I just paid $200 dollars for!!

What's up Matrox?

[Kruzin]

**sigh**

Here we go again.

http://forums.gagames.com/forums/For...ML/002103.html

Do your homework next time. We all already knew about this situation, and as an informed buyer, you should have as well.

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P2-350(@103*4=412), Asus P2B(1009), 128meg PC100, MillG400 32meg(PD5.20.???), CL SB Live!Value, CL PC-DVD, Mitsumi CD-R, WD UDMA 8.4&6.4 gig, (2)USR 56k(multilinked), 3Com 905B-TX, etc...

[GinoCyber]

Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh, I've just come to a conclusion that the IQ of the general public has really dropped a few notches.

I wonder if these people were experiments for test tube babies or just part of some experiment that went bad

Ciao

[LAMFDTK]

Give the guy a break....

[Kruzin]

Well, ya gotta admit it's kinda annoying. These people have no problem finding murc and these forums to bitch and complain...one would think that they could take the same effort before spending hundreds of dollars, and just do a little research. It's not like it was a dark secret that the vid tools for G400 aren't out yet. It's been the topic of many threads and news posts at murc for weeks.

Maybe it's just me, but I prefer to make informed purchases, and tend to look closely into the products I buy before dropping that kind of cash.

[Uwe]

Hi Kruzin,

I totally agree with your opinion.
During the last weeks we have more and more complaints of uninformed and impatient users, which should have been able to use the forums to get all necessary information before.

It`s really annoying and boring.

Bye, Uwe.


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ICQ 41229870

[Steve C]

Damn users, eh?
If only they didn't exist..... bliss!

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Yeah, you know the score...
(ICQ: 29468849)

[OrangeJulius]

--------------
Damn users, eh?
If only they didn't exist..... bliss!
--------------

Exactly, Steve! You've just repeated the tech support mantra heard across the world, even tho they have dozens of easy to get to FAQs and fax-back-the-answer options people still call up to get the answer.

He was trying to be helpful to others by posting an e-mail he got from matrox tech. Maybe he helped others who didn't know about it yet..

Do give the guy a break. He didn't do anything wrong. Failing to search through a few message forums or scrolling way down the news at MURC ain't no crime.

Some of you guys come down so hard, cheezus..

[DART]

Boy, Some of you are too damn intelligent!

Please excuse my naivete! Just thought I'd help. . . Didn't think I would be ridiculed for it. . .geez.

I think the question here is will the RR series work now??
The answer is, of course, no. Not yet.

When I purchased the G400 I DID my research. When I asked a Matrox representative if the RR would work they replied with the simple affirmative - yes.

What they did'nt tell me was when. However if you check their web site, It does say the drivers will be available in JULY 99!!

From what I've heard, Matrox isn't exactly punctual. . .

[Gurm]

Folks,

Be glad we're not all waiting for multimedia drivers from ATI. They still haven't "officially" released the drivers that allow you to use the TV-tuner card with their Rage128, and that's been out for 6 months now!

- Gurm

[chuck]

See? They still have two weeks.
Piece O'Cake!
chuck

(formerly cjolley untill gag lost every trace of my existence exept that cjolley is in use)
we do need to call it gag from now on

[Arschloch]

DART,

When it comes to some drivers, Matrox and punctual don't belong in the same sentence... unless there is a "not" in between the two. Take this from a Quake fiend who waited months upon months for the Open GL ICD to actually be faster than the D3D wrapper. I finally gave up in April, and bought a Voodoo3 2000. But speaking of the Open GL ICD, I never got to try out the "final" release of the drivers. What is the ICD like in Q2 on the G200? Did it finally surpass the performance of the wrapper?

[billko]

You guys:

I can see where DART is coming from. Matrox *does* have a (recent) history of claiming one thing on the box, while the users are experiencing quite another. It gets frustrating.

HOWEVER...
This is how I go about buying computer equipment in general:

1) read up on advertizements, boxes, labels, web site spec sheets, etc.

2) narrow it down to a few products that look good, then

3) do *intensive* research on those products, including scanning for newsgroups (he most definitely would have heard about the problem there), and forums (how do you think I got here???)


(Most) computer companies aren't in the business to rip you off. Matrox certainly isn't. When I bought my G200, I knew exactly what was in store for me. I read the forums, and realized it might be tough for me to use it with my Super7 motherboard. And, boy was it! But it was worth the effort.

Matrox may be screwy in that its marketers and it engineers aren't on the same page (I think Dilbert works there), but they make good products.

One question, though: why would it take so long to redevelop something that seems to only need a simple patch? There must be something more than a mere registry shuffle to make the video tools incompatible.

Bill

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People call me a computer god; I remind them that I am merely a minor deity...

[Haig]

Hi Bill,

"why would it take so long to redevelop something that seems to only need a simple patch?"

If the timings were the same between both the G200 and G400 cards, you would have had the drivers out by now.

We could of easily down clocked the g400 whenever we detected a RRG on it and released the drivers, but folks wouldn't like that too much

So instead, we found a way around it so that the G400 would stay as fast and make the capture work properly at the current g400 clock speeds.

Haig

[rekamlias]

I have purchased several cards from Matrox before and I have seen delays in drivers and drivers that did not work all that well BUT they did straighten it out. As far as, hardware's bios, drivers and software goes it will always take time to get the bugs out(its got to work with all your other junk too). For marketing and sales department it is easy to sell hardware that is not software complete (it does not cost anything to set up an ftp site unlike the old days when some chap had to lick the envelope and stamp the 5 1/4 inch floppy disk came in). The RRG will work just fine in a month or less. (thats my prediction) I called matrox tech support for the RRG i bought before ordering a g400 max and they said drivers would be rady by release of the MAX (but hindsight said it will be later). it was like that for my Mill2 and the 3month late release of my RR for that. My advice is don't panic it will be ready before the g800 comes out!