What Architecture For the Next Board ?

[troop]

I wonder what hardware features the next generation of Matrox gaming board should have? The several competitors , S3 ,3Dfx and Nvidia , are releasing the details of their next items and I know the engineering architect for Matrox is considering which features will continue Matrox's supremacy in the accelerated graphics market . Perhaps we should assist here with suggestions on future features ?
I appears to me that all the available features of DirectX7 should be supported in hardware along with full screen anti-aliasing and texture compression ( or is that coded in Directx already ? ).
By and large , Playstation2 will set the standard. How far behind will the next generation of the Matrox board be ?


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In Harm's Way

[cjolley]

Do you think maybe you could wait until I at least have my MAX up & running this evening before starting this discussion?


chuck


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My MAX is on it's way!

[agallag]

Definitely needs a hotplate daughterboard. I want to be able to cook soup without leaving my desk.

Maybe a foot massager too...

[Jimmy]

Sometimes I just get sick of this.U buy a really cool 3D accel. today which is the best thing money can buy and after two months its ancient history and U can't play ant new games with it.I can't upgrade every year just throwing away my old hardware.How about something that lasts,that's worth your money.
Damn,anyway the only feature I wanna see is texture compression real-time.Then we won't have to spend money on 64MB of SGRAM as if anything uses 32MB today.Or even better an interface to connect some sort of add on like the Voodoo 2 SLI so we won't have to thow away the G400 when it's old.A 3D only version would be good too(like the older voodoo and PVR boards).Why would I want to throw away the good 2D Hardware of the G400 when the 3D HW gets old?


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-=Jimmy=-

[Jorden]

How about a 4x 512bit (1024 anyone??) pipelined CPU capable of doing everything but for "beam me up, Scotty". Ofcourse at least 128Mb SGRAM 5 or 4 nanosec. 4 monitor setup?? (videowall ability!!)

And all this for some 250 USD... within 6 months please

Ah, and a bug-free PD8.090.001 for Win9x
PD1.2.0000001 for NT
Win2K anyone??

Jorden.

[This message has been edited by Jorden (edited 09-15-1999).]

[SteveC]

And with the 4 head output, you get 4 flat panel displays....

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Cheers,
Steve

PS: Some or all of the above message may be wrong, or, just as likely, correct. Depends on what mood I'm in. And what you know. ;¬)

[tish beta2]

Bah, we don't need 4 head, we'll just buy a high-res projector

I'm in for the Win2k!
For specs, heres my whish-list:

- Adaptive Real-time sampling
- Level 3 Antialiasing
- Realtime Stereoscopic Rendering
- Field Rendering
- Dithered Motion Blur/Particle Blur
- Depth of Field with a level 4 Lens F-Stop

[Jorden]

Tish, question: How do you want the Realtime Stereoscopic rendering being done?? 1 or 2 monitors simultaniously?? Or do you want the special Matrox GX-800 glasses^TM??

Jorden.

[This message has been edited by Jorden (edited 09-15-1999).]

[Maniac]

How about something that lets me keep my celery for awhile longer. I've heard that with the Geforce all you really need is a P2-266!

[SteveC]

tish - only stereoscopic? I want at least quadroscopic or better still surround vision. Oh yeah, I forgot something - we only have two eyes. D'oh!

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Cheers,
Steve

PS: Some or all of the above message may be wrong, or, just as likely, correct. Depends on what mood I'm in. And what you know. ;¬)

[GD]

Hi there!

All I want is a chip faster than any other which will hit the market for at least 3 months after G-xxx's release (or whatever). And drivers to be able to support 2 or more CPUs (If there is no T&L on board).

Fully accelerated DVD would be nice... With a high end line doubler...

I hope it will be faster that the high end version of Glaze 3D...

[Ali]

I think Dual head is here to stay from Matrox (good thing too), but they should improve on it so you dont have to re-boot to get in and out of it.

also, I like the idea of buying a base video card (G800 or whatever) that is VERY fast, but has a slot so you can add another chip to it in 6 months rather than buying a whole new card.

I think S3 has it right with fill rate for this generation. Im looking for at least S3 2000 speed there, and ignore the T&L for now. Maybe have an add-on chip for that later.

This way you buy the G800 (4 pipelines), a couple of months later get the T&L add-on, then a few months after that get the second G800 chip to slot onto your origional card (8 pipelines).

This would get people locked into Matrox for 2 video card generations, so it has to be good for Matrox, its also good for us, cos well buy Matrox anyway (I think).

I know the origional card will cost more, but I think it would be worth it in the long run.

Ali

[Dz]

My imagination:

Matrox G512GP™ features:
1024bit Dual Bus, VCQ4, Symmetric Rendering Architecture
5TextureEngine™ Integrated Geometry Processor
1333Mtexel/s min
1333Mpixel/s min
20M triangles/s min
Single pass quad texture, trilinear/anisotropic filtering, EMBM
Environment Mapped, Cube, Dot product, Emboss Bump Mapping in hardware.
All DX7, FXT1 Texture Compression supported in hardware.
DualHead™ Display with each has it own UltraSharp RAMDAC (400Mhz)
All buffers supported (Z-Buffer, Stencil, Accumulation)
Complete DX7 implementations.
16MB eDRAM memory, 2 SGRAM DIMMs (3 to 6ns) slot for memory upgrade (16, 32, 64, 128, 256 DIMM module) for possible Maximum 512MB memory.
3 open slot for 5TextureEngine™ for possible 5333Mtexel/s/Mpixel/s, 80M triangles/s.
AGP 2/4X, all AGP features supported.
2D/3D resolution of 2048x1536X32
DX7, OpenGL
ERP US299. For 16MB eDRAM, 32MB SGRAM 4ns

[Jorden]

errr Dz, would your card still run on a normal PC?? Or would we need a G5, 1 GHz CPU minimal??

Jorden.

[Dz]

Min a PC with PCI 2.0 Slot, For PCI configuration, onboard SGRAM min is 64MB. All AGP functionality will redirect to the onboard memory 