Good bye, cruel Matrox.......

[Maniac]

As a mostly satisfied G400 owner, I can safely say that this card was a very positive step for Matrox in becoming a true 3D powerhouse. Innovative features and a much improved(ok so the G200 had next to none)Opengl implementation. So lets see Mystique 170\220 laughable card, next to no 3D special effects(although Motoracer played very well) vastly inferior to Voodoo1/Rendition Verite boards. G200 - quantum leap in terms of functionality and speed, still provided disappointing performance when compared to Voodoo2/TNT.
G400 - finally Matrox has arrived and provides a solution that delivers top notch performance in nearly every category. Next generation - well lets just say I have it on good authority that this trend will continue and finally the others will be playing catchup!

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Celeron 300A@464 2.0V, Abit BH6 G400 16meg DH@150/200, Western Digital Expert 18gig, Ricoh mp7040A, Pioneer 6X DVD slot load, Motorola Cable Modem w/DEC ethernet card, Soundblaster 32PNP

[DentyCracker]

No win2k drivers huh. Explain this ftp://ftp.matrox.com/pub/mga/millg400/beta_w2k/w2k_490.exe guess they said let's wait till Pige is really pissed, then we release drivers muhahahaha. Grins evilly

[SCompRacer]

Yo, DK, I upgraded from a P II 400 to a P III 500 a month ago and you will be pleased with the performance increase.

Got velocitized after a short time and even O/C the darn thing with a 112 FSB. Mo better, 560 MHz. Made we wish I had a 133 FSB setting.

Power is addictive, just like N2O, spray and pray...

[tish beta2]

Dentycracker, those drivers have been on every G400 vanilla/32/max cd-rom which came with your card.

Ok this time you can install them by selecting "Search for a sutible driver for my ...." instead of the "Display a list of the known driver for this ...."

Ok you get one less warning and OGL applications can now get OGL software support.

But that's about it. They are just like the old NT 4.0 4.12 drivers I've been using since I got the Max a month ago. Eh not exactly, I had to rip out my awe64 soundblaster to get it to boot without a BSOD. I'll try make it work later...

Matrox are way way behind the competition when it comes to driver development. They just suck, maybe they need more programmers, maybe their programmers aren't as good as the competitors, and finally it's not so easy to find good programmers these days, they tend to get stuck in companies who pay them gooood

I belive, when win2k get's finally released, then the TNT2 can play 40% of games in win2k, 3dfx's voodoo3 can play 55% (due to glide) and G400 can't even get quake 3 quit stop giving that annoying "GLW_StartOpenGL() - could not load OpenGL subsystem".

And don't come to me and say win2k weren't made for gameing. Then I'll scream loud into your left ear.

My voodoo2 can play 30% of my 3d games, my old TNT can play 20% of my 3d games, and with a little patches and time I bet both of them can play 70% of them. And this is just the 3D games.... 2D games usually work (starcraft, total annihilation series, TS)

Just my Ant Rant errr....

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How come, just as the rocket is launching, the astronauts don't also shoot some fireworks out the window? It would make the whole takeoff look more impressive.

[paulcs]

Geez, I think we flamed him off the forum. Not good. Look at his profile. Look who he works for (maybe). That's some email address. The Great Satan, Santa Clara, USA. Maybe he could have gotten us a bulk discount on PIII's.

In any case, he's a smart guy and a computer professional. I think sometimes we want something to work a certain way so badly, when it doesn't, we get a little miffed. If people here appear to be over-reacting, its because we've all heard it before, and its getting a little tedious.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[SCompRacer]

Computer professional maybe, but after that professionalism ends. I do not mind a good debate, but leave the insults out of it. It started on the first post. It only angers others and insults start flying back. Next thing we know, thermo-nuclear post wars.

If you state your reasons why you have this card, then basically get told you made a poor choice based on standards you chose not to use, it is no longer a debate but an argument that will never be resolved.

[DK]

SCompRacer,
That much of an increase, cool, didn't really think I would notice it. Haven't put it in the case yet, waiting on new Asus P3 Mobo cause I couldn't find jumper settings for P2B, wanted to get away from that anyway. Waiting on Duke Forever for the spray & pray, looks like it'll be a long wait too.

Derek

[SCompRacer]

I'm screwing around at work now (lunch, midnight shift) so I don't have any 3D MARK 99 numbers to throw at you, they are at home. Something about the SSE instructions in there, but hell I don't know this is not my field of expertise.

I have a P2B-LS, and you should be able to go to ASUS site and get updated jumper info. I could not stand to have something lying there, within reach and not use it!

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P III 500 @ 560 via 112 FSB, ASUS P2B-LS, 1010 BIOS, w/256 MB 8ns ECC RAM, ECC Enabled since 5.13 driver release, current 5.25 drivers, dual 9 GB Cheetahs, 10 GB IDE DiamondMax, Plextor Ultraplex/Plexwriter 8/2/20, Hitachi IDE DVD CD ROM, SCSI ZIP Insider, G400 MAX, SB Live, Sigma Hollywood + DVD decoder, US Robotics 56K Sportster, Sony GDM400PS, UMAX 2400S SCSI scanner, Soundworks 5.1, HP 6P Laser & 890C, LAN & USB enabled. SB Live shares IRQ w/MAX, bus mastering enabled, Win98 SE and NT 4.0 SP4.

[[Pige]]

Hi,

Yep I do work for the mighty Chipzilla but the basterds have no form of staff purchase scheme ;(

If they had, I'd up my Duel Celery to Dual PIII600 and all would be happy, well almost.

Thanks for the few people that have read through my rantings and looked at points I was trying to stress.

I never really meant to say that the G400M is a bad card but it is important that people understand that you really need a highend rig, to get the best out of it. If you don't your rig will only amplify the G400M's weaknesses.

The diffrence between a TNT2 and a G400 on a Celery 450, medium range 21" monitor is negligable and the TNT2 was less than half the price.

My advise to poeple who are intending to buy the G400 is to take a good look at what rig they are running and what it will be used for.

This card is not suitable for myself in it's current state and I feel that by the time Matrox has ironed out all the problems the next generation cards will be out. Matrox has come to the game just a little to late with this card.

As to the argument that I just want to run benchmarks and play Q3, thats just bollox..... my main beef has been :

1) Lack off Win2K drivers.
2) The fact they appear to be developing drivers for SSL and 3DNow only.
3) The hype that although there was a problem with OGL, they would have drivers out to resolve this shortly.
4) The way pre-orders were delt with and the wait.

Having a go at my spelling was a cheap shot and no I'm not admin but a tech engineer (our spelling is allowed to be crap).

Pige



[This message has been edited by [Pige] (edited 10-01-1999).]

[[Pige]]

I just read my original post and there was nothing that either said the card was bad or to insult anyone, apart from may be Matrox's Marketing Dept.

Although the manner in which it was written, does get across the frustration that I feel with this product.

The thread then progressed quite light hartedly with a good humored pisstake out of my nick...... that was untill the zealots came out to play.

Pige

[This message has been edited by [Pige] (edited 10-01-1999).]

[LAMFDTK]

"blow sunshine up each other's tailends"

Good stuff... oooooooooBaby

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PIII-450@504, 128 HDSRAM, Asus P3BF, G400/32, SBLive!, Nokia 447Xi 17", oh yea, a nice floppy drive

[tish beta2]

Ya

Arr arrr!

[DentyCracker]

I'm not that much of a gamer, but after Fifa99 looked good on my friend's machine last year (Millennium II PCI + Canopus 12MB VooDoo II). I got a G200 shortly after that. Last week I was at her house and started up Fifa99.... and didn't even play one game. The G200 has spoiled me, if it doesn't look good I can't play it no matter how smooth it is. I'll be getting a MAX or a Marvel G400 around November when I buy my 600 Athlon. In the meantime this machine will be going to my brother. I have an old Pentium Pro MB and bought an Inwin Q500 case and ATI Charger (hey it was US$28) to use in the interim. I have lots of little HDs around the house to use. Unreal tournament looks great on the G200 and (to me) is quite playable in single player mode. On the internet I am meat. If you happen to see or frag Cracker online that's me damn the 650ms ping time!!
About win2k support I don't think Matrox is going to allow the situation where games can't run under 2000 using matrox cards. The G200 was supported in build 1877. And yes I agree that sometimes the people here get a little bit emotional, but they are human aren't they.

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Cracker_99
VA-503+rev 1.2A, 450 MHz K6-III, 96 MB EDO DRAM, 10 GB Maxtor HD, SB Live!, Millennium G200 8MB AGP, AVerMedia TV98, AOPEN CRW 9420, FPS 1000, 2 MS SideWinder Gamepads
Win98 (2222A), BeOS 4.5.2, RedHat 5.2 with Kernel 2.2.12

[Kx30]

ahahah , Kruzin just can´t wait to start a new flame war because with all the good flame partners/discussion partners left this forum has become way too boring for him
Man , he is really an addict

Pige , don´t listen to him , Matrox is his god and those discussions whether g400 has flaws or not were there since this chip is on the market . For him there is just one rule : g400 good and perfect , all different thinking persons have to be banned ...unfortunately ant is helping him with this "holy war" so you better be quiet if you want to stay in this forum (no matter if you are right or not , just be quiet )

p.s.: of course some of the banned people are still here



[This message has been edited by Kx30 (edited 10-02-1999).]

[tish beta2]

Yeah!! Like mee!!! Arr arr!



Anywho, I thought I'd teach you old geezers a little about reality, life and FPS!



Here's 15 minutes of my life-experiences:

I thought I'd install BattleZone just to play it all over again one more time. And also to test out the G400 Max alittle! Now, I downloaded the latest patch and enabled Large Assets in the render.cfg file to get awe explosions and higher res textures.

I played for a while, and went to bed. Next evening I thought I'd look alittle closer in the render.cfg file. There I found A way to display the FPS/polygon count and change to higher resolutions. First I played at 640x800 and got about 100fps. As I played it yesterday. ooohhh so smoooooth! Then I upped it to 1024x768. I got 'bout 60 fps. hmmm... not so smooth anymore! how come?! well, when that big-bad-heavy hover-tank turns and bounces slowly as a big fella like that do, the FPS is very noticable.

Hey what can I say, my monitor was at 85Hz! I desided to turn the res down to 800x600, and there I get a good 80-90 fps. Perfect! it's smooth, yet detailed enough to look "G400'ish"! BTW, the radar was so too small at 1024x768 for me.

So there you have it, FPS is king, and shall always be.

So what the hell am I doing when I run around in Quake 3 with an FPS of 30-40 in multiplayer? Well, mouse-look and simulated hover-tank-look is two completely different things. Then it's so many rockets, and firecrackers and shotgunning it just isn't too nesessary.

Ok maybe the railgun would be nice to use at long range with 80fps...

And last, but not least, I have actually never seen/played quake3@more than 40 fps. So who knows, maybe when the TurboGL finally comes out and give me the ability to play 8x6@80 fps, I would refuse to anything else?

So, now, when someone say "I'm like FPS but I'm the image-quality kinda gye" I am very sure he hasn't "been there" or "seen that" or "noticed this" etc. etc.....

Matrox flushed 3dfx's "FPS is king" saying, but by golly, the reality is SO relative!

Eh... my 2 cents?
thanks. Game on! or something