and another review of the regular G400 ...

[Maggi]

Hi Nereid,

on my system using the PD5.13 gave me 71.1 fps for Timedemo 1 in 1024x768x16bpp ...
(Celery300A@112MHz FSB > 504MHz)

you could try a FSB of 112MHz and use for example PowerStrip to increase the speed of the G400.

Or just wait for the next release of PD


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Cheerio,
Maggi

I used to have some posts in my record and hopefully some of the guys 'n' girls will still know me and my system ...

[This message has been edited by Maggi (edited 07-15-99).]

[Kruzin]

Well, Gumby, lets see...I play the game on-line only. I use a modem. In order to get a playable game without packet loss, I have to set cl_maxfps to 25 (30 if it's a good night). At 1600x1200x32 in the various tiemdemos, I get 21-28 fps. (including massive and crusher).

Seems to me like it works out just right, huh? (not that I play that crusty old game very much these days)

[Nereid]

Thanks Maggi, il try with the FSB, my G400 seems not to like overclock at all it hangs randomly after few minutes of 3D gaming.

Kruzin: the current minimum FPS to play Q2 with no hassle in any situation and/or map in multi with a LPB connection is 60 in demo1. I understand the soft player may find 25-30 acceptable, but you have to understand there is a LOT of people out there playing Q2 as main multiplayer game, and all this people is greatly involved in the V3/TNT2/G400 contest.
The proof: all vendors released as fast as possible a Q3 compatible driver, and I hope this is a signal they understand that quakers and high-end multiplayers in general (HL, Unreal, Sin etc) are a strong component of their market.
Maybe Matrox (and you ?) doesn't think so, and I think the poor OGL support is the proof of it... what a pity, cause with (little ?) efforts the G400 would probably beat the competitors (speaking of performance and robustness of course, cause quality is undoubtly top-notch already).
So, where is the problem in admitting that by now (5.13) the G400 is the worst choice for a quaker? Saying "It goes smooth on 1600x1200x32" is misleading.
I really hope things will change with future releases of the drivers, but I fear Matrox is losing the train of the online gamers for the second time.
I don't argue if this is right or not, companies exist to make decisions and (possibly) earn money, and there are many high-end users who doesn't care about online games at all, and for them, the G400 is surely the best choice. But as you are disappointed by a review which doesn't consider in the proper way some aspect of the card (the aspect YOU like), I and many others are tired of hearing words about the future OGL support... release it, or face the reality: worst OGL support around.

I am one of the first who likes this card, but I can't stop wondering why you Matrox hardcore fans, all cool guys from what I've read in this forum in the last months, keep trying to convince people that G400 is the best card for a Quaker or heavy gamer in general. BY NOW it's not and people doesn't care if it MAY BE in the future (and past experiences with the G200 aren't of help...).

Sorry for the long post and if I seem too aggressive due to my approximative english, I simply would like to see this forum more as a real help for people interested in the matrox cards, including quakers (and real help means telling the truth about the flaws), not as a place where people simply says "Boys, how cool this baby is".

Peace and love

Nereid

[Ghost]

This has been going on for almost a year Nereid. You should have seen the fantastic exaggerations people said about the G200 as being the best and blah blah blah.

"The truth... will set you free."

G

[This message has been edited by Ghost (edited 07-15-99).]

[Ghost]

Woops.

[This message has been edited by Ghost (edited 07-15-99).]

[Gurm]

Nereid,

Please don't get us into another argument about 30fps vs. 60fps., ok? Your eyes (and mine, and everyone else's) can only record 30-ish DISTINCT images per second. Add motion blur on top of that, and it SEEMS as though you can tell the difference between, say, 50 and 60. Or 40 and 50. Or 40 and 60. But if you were to look at it blurred, there's just no way.

So let's not draw this out. If you _require_ 60fps at 1600x1200x16 then no, the G400 isn't for you. But you can't really tell me, either, that your monitor looks good at 1600x1200. I have the nicest 17" monitor on the market and it looks lousy above 1024x768. My friend's 19" Philips (.22) looks horrible about 1280x1024. Do you really have a 25" monitor to throw that resolution at?

I'm not a Matrox fanatic, I'm a reality fanatic. And currently the Matrox G400 Max (not the regular, I know that) is the fastest thing you can get at higher resolutions. Period.

- Gurm

[rickT]

the whole point of fps isnt what our eyes can see and cannot see. The reason gamers like high frame rates is when you increase the amounts of polygons on screen you lower the framerate and increase the fillrate, and in multiplayer or very complex scenes it can be very noticeable.

Example: You have a card that does 40fps with no action on screen, but throw 10 guys on screen and the fps drop 20fps. You will definately have a percievable drop in framerate, but a card that is doing 60fps and drops 20fps is gonna be much less noticeable - crusher is a good benchmark for that

[Gurm]

Yes, but if I could theoretically (Permedia3 maybe) get a card that maintained a mostly constant framerate, I don't care whether that rate is 30 or 3000...

- Gurm

[Ron]

I would like to point out to those who use Quake performance as "the" benchmark that not everyone plays Quake. A casual survey of all the computer users in my office, approximately 60 people, revealed that not one of them actually plays the game anymore. They got tired of it and moved on to something a little more challenging. Some of us actually use our computers for things like "work" and therefore greatly appreciate the sterling video quality of Matrox cards.

"Tired of hearing about Q1-Q47"

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BH6 450A 128MB CW7502B CDR SR8583 DVD SBlive! Value Hollywood + AL320N USR Sportster etc. Oh, 8MB G200 Mystique too!

[LAMFDTK]

Can't fight city hall.

[This message has been edited by LAMFDTK (edited 07-15-99).]

[Kruzin]

I won't argue with the FPS counters. If they want to beleive that the "need" 60fps, fine. I know the truth, and am willing to put my HPB, cl_maxfps=25 slow count, and TRUE skillz up against any of ya

A GOOD player knows what kind of fps he/she needs..and it sure aint 60! (I'm not saying 60 isn't nice, but it's not realistic for modem users, and most cable users (who also limit their fps to 40 or less most of the time))

Like I said, I'll take you fps counters on, preferably in HL or TFC, since Q2 is such an old, boring game now...as long as I can get a ping of <300, I'm good to go against ANY lpb

Here's a few samples of what a steady 25fps in an on-line game can produce

<IMG SRC="http://xplorenet.com/~hti/HLSCORES.jpg" ALT="25FPS IS ENOUGH!" BORDER="0"></A>

Now, how in the world do you expect to make me beleive I need 60fps when I score like this at a steady 25? The proof is in the pics (most of those where even on my G200 )

[This message has been edited by Kruzin (edited 07-15-99).]

[Nereid]

Gurm: you missed the point.
I don't want to start a FPS debate.

BTW, I have a 21" monitor and yes, 1600x1200 looks really cool on it
Surely I don't play any game at that resolution, cause they are too choppy. But my desktop is set at that resolution and text is clear and perfect.
I just argued about the way some matrox fans post informations on the card: this can drive people who has different interests/needs to buy a card they will not like.
About the eye debate: human's eye can't tell the difference ON THE CONTENT of single frames in a stream of 30+ fps, but it will GREATLY perceive the smoothness of a change of view in the stream itself since the eye is comparable to an analog receiver, not a digital one (i.e. your eye is not a video camera and is not limited by a frame rate); if you don't believe this, simple think at the fact that no matter how fast you or your eyes move related to the space, your visual perception remains smooth (which doesn't mean you can tell what you are viewing).
Just try to make a 360 degrees turn in any game as fast as you can. The more FPS you have, the more realistic it will be, and the more faster you'll be able to change your point of view in the game, making the in-game movement behave like your real eye.
This is a very different but also important thing when you play, and you can't compare playing to simply watching a video.
I agree with you on one thing: this card rocks at the higher resolutions

Kruzin: THIS is the way to tell things since YOU don't need more than 30 fps to play, G400 is great for you in Q2, too. But I can swear upon my head that if you try 70+ fps gameplay and then revert back to 30, you'll find the game unplayable
You must differentiate from a guy coming from a G200 and one coming from 2 Voodoo 2 in SLI mode. The first will find the G400 gameplay marvelous, the second at the limit of playability.
I'm doing a relative judgement: in absolute, the G400 performance is more than adeguate to play any game, but relatively speaking, TNT 2 Ultra and V3 give you better performance and feelings when playing first person games.

Anyway, have fun, whatever card you have

Nereid

[Genom]

Just tossig in my 2 cents. Midtown Madness at 1600x1200 with high quality textures, high detail models, high quality lighting and everything else turned up ROX on my NOT OC G400. Never drops under 25fps. Proof that the hardware CAN do cool shit (TNT only did 640x480 in the same game and couldnt handle the high res textures too well) in D3D. This is why the lack of openGL performance (yes, it works, but as we can see, NOT up to D3D speeds) disapoints me sicne I really really really love playing Half-Life. And what Nereid says is partially true. I love the higher res on the G400 and image quality but when I get into heavy deathmatching on a lan I pop in the tnt and run 800x600 for the faster response.

OK, Maybe more than .02 but there ya go.

[SlurpDog]

Nereid: Before I got my G400, I did all my gaming on V2-SLI. Since I got the G400, I haven't used the SLI once, except to show someone just much the image quality sucks in comparison. I'm playing mostly at 1152x864, and will go higher when I get a faster CPU (goddamn Celeron..). In my experience it isn't that you can't go back to 30FPS having had 60, but that you can't go back to 1024x768x16 having used 1280x1024x32.