Yeah, it's another OT rant.. so sue me..

[motub]

Furthermore, that "6 months" isn't really even 6 months because if I bought a GeForce today... <u>three months</U> from today Nvidia will start pre-announcing their next "next-gen" card, to be released on some date very close to then (even though they will actually miss that date, and probably cut the specs, like 3dfx did) and making me feel like an idiot for not having waited a bit longer.... there's nothing that these cards offer that makes it worth it to me to play that game, frankly... but I've said all I possibly could on that subject in this thread, anyway...

And I'm sure those same people who claim bragging about one's video card isn't important are the same ones who brag about their Matrox cards when Matrox is on top.

And when would that be, Filmgeek ?? Only people <U>less</u> on top than us are Number Nine users...(lol)... Matrox cards are like a critically acclaimed film that no one goes to see... but it was a great film, a classic...!

I'll say again: These arguments seem to start because of different assumptions... assumptions that Matrox wants to be first in the consumer/hobbyist market (which it seems is not their goal)... assumptions that users who choose Matrox primarily want the same things from their video card as people who choose 3dfx cards or Nvidia cards (which clearly seems untrue if you read these forums).... what Matrox users mean when they call the GeForce sh*t, for that matter...

Maybe you're right, Filmgeek, I never had an Amiga, so I don't know, but I was a Mac user for a long time, so I probably have had a similar experience.

Yep, it's true, we're a bunch of intellectuals, proud of our discernment and disdainful of the crass glorification of gross numbers over the finer things like image quality and forward thinking technological features. Many of us even have legitimate reasons to be so discerning, such as needing to run design or image-editing or video production software... others of us just consider ourselves more tasteful than the common run. So when the rabble-rousers intrude, beating their drums for their 10000 fps in Q3Test... well what interest have we in such petty squabbling? If we wanted such things, we would have bought a V3/TNT2/GeForce ourselves, it's not like we don't research these things, and it's certainly not like we can't afford it... the price isn't any different than for the cards we <u>did</u> buy. And it gets a bit annoying... we don't go out en masse proselytizing for Matrox... but everybody feels like they should just barge in here and tell us why we're a bunch of a-holes for not appreciating those other cards. It's not like there's not 100 times the numbers of owners on the other side, but it seems that they just won't be happy till everyone bows down...

Really, Filmgeek, look again at the quote I started this with... go read the review as well, if you like, I'll add the link. "Bragging rights of having the fastest video card is worth something in this day and age". Is this an attitude I want to participate in? No. Does the GeForce, or V3, or TNT2 offer me anything else but that, over what I have now? No.

If and when some other card does, I'll buy it. Until then, I'll continue to resist such marketing aimed at the lowest common denominator... which I will never be.

Sorry for spilling the beans, you guys...

---------------
Holly

[Filmgeek]

The Rock,

I'm not going to address most of what you said because obviously I "don't know the biz". I'm not agreeing with you, but I can't really counter a blanket statement like that. So, I don't know the "biz", therefore NVidia isn't a model for success? Creating products that are better than the competitors and coming out with those products faster than the competitors is a bad thing? Like I said, if you believe that, I can't really say anything to change your mind.

But I do strongly disagree with you when you somehow imply that driver quality is better with Matrox than it is with NVidia. If anything I have found the opposite is true. The one and only thing that is really making me think about buying NVidia over Matrox again is the poor quality of M's drivers. NVidia's drivers are far superior to Matrox's in quality and speed. And the frequency that new drivers are released can't be beat. Sorry, but there's no way in hell I'm gonna say driver quality is a reason to stick with Matrox, even today.

And if there's any company guilty of milking, it's 3dfx, not NVidia. Those clowns haven't come out with an original design since the first Voodoo. Sure, it was kick ass design
at the time, but they sat on their collective asses after that, hoping to milk it as far as it would go, making slight modifications and hacks and selling it as if it were a new product each time. Whereas NVidia went from putting out absolute crap chips to putting out the some of the best performing chips in the market.

Filmgeek


[This message has been edited by Filmgeek (edited 01 November 1999).]

[Filmgeek]

motub wrote:

"I'll say again: These arguments seem to start because of different assumptions... assumptions that Matrox wants to be first in the consumer/hobbyist market (which it seems is not their goal)..."

WHAT IS THEIR GOAL? I really want to know. This is the problem I see for Matrox. If they don't want to be first, where do they want to place? Second? Is third OK? Who ARE they trying to sell their cards to? I'm talking about the Matrox that produces video cards, not the one that produces $12,000 Digisuites or $1200 RT2000's. So, it's not gamers, it's not hobbyist, and it's not 3D professionals(there are plenty of cards that are cheaper and/or better for this). So, what, it's CAD users, and Photoshop users? That's a pretty damn small market, and maybe that is what they're going for, but if it is, you can count me out, because even though I love my Matrox card in Photoshop, that's just the tip of the iceburg for what I do with my computer, and if Matrox isn't interested in the rest, I can take my business elsewhere.

And regarding the whole "having better taste" and other Mac/Amiga rhetoric: The Amiga's death and the Mac's limited success isn't some conspiracy to destroy companies which produce superior machines. These things happen because companies fail to adapt. They fail to look far enough into the future or simply limit their vision. And I'm not comparing people in this forum to just anyone who owned an Amiga, Mac, or any other cult computer. Hell, I once owned an Atari ST. I'm talking about the zealots who defended those machines in the face of all reason, logic and facts, even when the machines had no competitive edge, and the companies no longer existed. Those are the kind of people to whom I was referring.

Filmgeek


[This message has been edited by Filmgeek (edited 01 November 1999).]

[Jorden]

Seems this thread runs from an Off Topic to a my card is better than yours thread again.

Filmgeek, all The Rock ever so justifingly said was that having to spend $800 a year on videocards, just to stay on top, is plain stupid. I printed out this entire thread, and can't find any reference to him or someone else saying "that nVidia cards therefor suck" as you try to let us believe.

We're about so far in this thread that you say you like your G400, but that you think nVidia is more stable, better in drivers and in support, right?

But I do strongly disagree with you when you somehow imply that driver quality is better with Matrox than it is with NVidia. If anything I have found the opposite is true. The one and only thing that is really making me think about buying NVidia over Matrox again is the poor quality of M's drivers. NVidia's drivers are far superior to Matrox's in quality and speed. And the frequency that new drivers are released can't be beat. Sorry, but there's no way in hell I'm gonna say driver quality is a reason to stick with Matrox, even today.

Okay, why keep on pressing that you are right, and anyone else who answered in here is wrong? Or let me ask it simpler, why not leave this thread, go out and buy the GeForce?

Do not leave these forums, I'm not saying that!!! Unless you ofcourse come back to tell us to go out and buy the GeForce and trash our Matrox card

There's enough people on these forums with 2 or more videocards in and out of their home-PCs. I wouldn't want to say to you what you must buy in order for you to be happy.

Gives us some respect and do the same to us.

With regards,

Jorden.

[Himself]

Filmgeek scribe,

And regarding the whole "having better taste" and other Mac/Amiga rhetoric: The Amiga's death and the Mac's limited success isn't some conspiracy to destroy companies which produce superior machines. These things happen because companies fail to adapt. They fail to look far enough into the future or simply limit their vision. And I'm not comparing people in this forum to just anyone who owned an Amiga, Mac, or any other cult computer. Hell, I once owned an Atari ST. I'm talking about the zealots who defended those machines in the face of all reason, logic and facts, even when the machines had no competitive edge, and the companies no longer existed. Those are the kind of people to whom I was referring.

Heheh, advocacy is pretty much a virus, I agree, it takes perfectly reasonable people and turns them into cult member wannabes.
I tend to like a bit of this card, a bit of that one, but there is always something missing from each of them to nip any blind enthusiasm in the bud. (Mombo #5 )But you have to be able to spot the warts in the first place, it's getting to the point where you'd have to take courses in hardware design or something to shop for a video card.

Hmm, I don't paticularly care if Matrox succeeds or not, so long as there is room for improvement there will be competition from somebody. If they want my business they will have to offer what I want, if
they don't somebody else will. Simple. I would hope they would be listening to the market to find out exactly what it is people do want though for their own sakes.

Having said that, I wouldn't want to be stuck with NVIDIA to provide a standard for all users, they tend to focus on the majority and screw the rest, Matrox at least is more generous in that regard. I don't find the Matrox drivers all that bad myself, the quality of bugs seem to be of the cosmetic variety vs BSOD/lockup/noise on the display you might see with NVIDIA card drivers.

[The Rock]

Filmgeek:

I wasn't meaning to insult you when I said you didn't know the biz, I just had you figured for a pro-Nivida troll who was bashing us Matrox users for being pro-Matrox. I take that one back. But you can bash Matrox's drivers all you want. Did you ever think that the reason Nvidia is always updating drivers is because they're always fixing bugs? I think that Matrox drivers are a helluva lot more stable, and more infrequent cause with Matrox, there's a lot less to fix. And in reference to Nividia's drivers, didn't they "break" the fogging in one recent driver release? Nice to see that Quality Control works at Nvidia eh? I have nothing against Nvidia at all, but maybe your a bit too young (NOT an insult) to know exactly who's been designing high-end video cards since BEFORE 3d acceleration hit big. All that experience counts for something, even if their 3d expertise was lacking at first. They caught up DAMN fast. I think TNT2's are okay for lower end machines in Nvidia's defense. They DO have good image quality and great speed. But it took them WAY too many driver updates to get it that way. If you compare driver release history to Matrox, you'll see that Nvidia has released HORDES of driver updates to fix problems they had that they COULD have avoided if they had followed in the Matrox philosophy of NOT rushing things out the door. Matrox updates were fewer, yes, because FEWER problems exist on Matrox cards. Many people (maybe you or maybe not) seem quick to blame lockups and crashes on the video card (either Matrox or Nvidia) WITHOUT looking too deep into the problem. I echo Jorden's sentiment that Matrox users driver problems relate more to cosmetic things than hard-core BSOD lockups that used to plague early Nvidia TNT2 drivers. I know we'll never agree on this, but all this B.S. is just my $0.02.

As for Holly's point about users wanting to do more with their cards, that isn't limited to Photoshop stuff like you said. I think your focus is too narrow. I believe what Holly meant (forgive me if I'm wrong Holly ) is that some of us do LOTS with their video cards; a little bit of HTML, bit of Photoshop, maybe some CAD or even Quake / Unreal / Shogo level building at high res, as well as games. I'm playing Unreal Tournament at 1024x768x32bit and getting over 50fps. Now I'm not a "I have faster FPS than you" 12 year old, but thats as fast as I need. TNT2 won't do much better (if it does better at all, which I doubt; and mine looks nicer ).

------------------
The Rock
------------------
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: His eyes are closed."
-- Albert Einstein


[This message has been edited by The Rock (edited 02 November 1999).]

[Filmgeek]

The Rock,

How "young" do you think I am? How old would I have to be for my points to be valid? Is under 30 still considered too young to know "the biz"? Ok, I'll go along with your whole "Matrox is a wise learned company who's been making video cards long before I was a fetus" theory for a bit, and ask you a question: Who was making computers and software long before Dell, Gateway, Microsoft, and Apple even existed? IBM. Is IBM still in business? Yup. Do I have any respect for them as a company? Nope. They are a giant, arrogant dinosaur, and they'll probably never go bankrupt, but they are not the kind of company I think a great deal of. Matrox seems to have a lot of the same traits. If being compared to a dinosaur filled with conservative stiffs is a source of pride at Matrox, so be it.

The NVidia vs Matrox drivers debate is of course, pointless. You have your experiences, I have mine. Mine reflect a story of shoddy "final" drivers from Matrox, and bugs that are never fixed. You're saying Matrox drivers have never caused a BSOD? Now that IS funny. I'm the type of person who likes regular (not the Matrox definition of regular) driver updates for things like video cards. I like the dynamic, competitive, nature of the video card market. You, apparently, do not. I think Matrox's beta testing method is far too limited and inherently flawed. And I think their drivers reflect that. There's not much more I can say about it.

Jorden:
I don't have a G400. I have a Matrox Marvel G200, and had a Matrox Millenium before that. I also have a TNT in another machine. The cards, of course, each have their own strengths and weaknesses. But which one has caused me the most grief, the most problems? The G200, by far. And it is my opinion that 99% of those problems were/are caused by shoddy drivers, not the hardware itself. And no one (not even NVidia) is forcing anyone to spend $800 on video cards a year, that's ridiculous. But in the near future I do want to replace this G200. And the reason why I'm looking at an NVidia card and not a G400, is basically everything I've listed in this thread. And I think I've been quite respectful to everyone here, so I hope I would get your respect back. Part of my reason for even participating in this thread is I think people who criticize Matrox in this forum find that they aren't treated with any respect.

Filmgeek


[This message has been edited by Filmgeek (edited 02 November 1999).]

[motub]

Y'know, this so-called "conversation" is getting more turgid to navigate by the hour, but I'll try...

Filmgeek, The Rock took it back about the "too young to know the biz" thing. Try to be gracious, wouldja???

True, NVidia cards have the lifespan of a mayfly, but their performance is unmatched when they come out

Good God... I'm not spending $250 for anything with the lifespan of a mayfly, I don't care <u>how</u> good it is!!!!

therefore NVidia isn't a model for success? Creating products that are better than the competitors and coming out with those products faster than the competitors is a bad thing?

Who was making computers and software long before Dell, Gateway, Microsoft, and Apple even existed? IBM. Is IBM still in business? Yup. Do I have any respect for them as a company? Nope. They are a giant, arrogant dinosaur, and they'll probably never go bankrupt, but they are not the kind of company I think a great deal of.

If being compared to a dinosaur filled with conservative stiffs is a source of pride

Sorry to over-quote you, Filmgeek, but I wanted to highlight the trend in your thought that I think is the root of this disagreement. I tried to say this before, but perhaps I didn't express myself clearly.

It seems to me that we either don't understand, or have a fundamental disagreement with your model of what constitutes "success", what constitutes a "better product". Personally, I don't consider a company such as IBM, who is still in business despite vast changes in the industry that they began and once ruled, no longer worthy of respect... because they're still alive. That's for a reason. Hell, I respect Microsoft... any company so hated, with such buggy product, that nonetheless rules the marketplace to the extent that the DOJ has to stop it, is damn well worthy of respect from me... and I guess I certainly respect Nvidia's design, sales and marketing setup... that's certainly one way to run a company... not the way I would, but it clearly works... if raking in the dough is what you're after doing.

Personally, I don't consider a faster product "better"... I do consider the GPU a good idea, but all of the reviews I've read take the same tone, and I find it suspicious.. they all sound as if they're trying to make a lackluster product sound great, without flatly lying. I don't see any reason, based on my current or projected video needs, to get all excited about the 3dfx feature that I keep forgetting the name of... looks to me that by the time I need it, cards which incorporate other improvements will be available, so I have no reason to upgrade to it now.

On the other hand, Dual Head is a substantive improvement I can use now, and will serve for some time. EMBM is a substantive improvement for which I can list current and future support. Image quality is a feature that I want and will not give up. And afaic, the card is fast enough.

So why is Nvidia "better"?

As to the driver thing... well, I have a G200 as well, and it was a damn difficult first nine months; I understand why you still sound bitter. But I've had 4 stable sets of drivers now, the 3 releases after 5.13 (5.15, 5.20, 5.25... haven't installed 5.30) have been increasingly reliable and smooth... and I forgive Matrox. They screwed up, and they learned from it, and I feel, since the drivers have only gotten better, that they won't backslide.

If your drivers work, why would you want or need "regular" driver releases? Other than to support new mobo features or implement minor changes? I don't get that.

And if they don't... what shoddy "final" release? What "bugs that are never fixed"? <u>That's the kind of thing we're here to help with!!!!!</u> You could ask, you know...!

BTW

And it is my opinion that 99% of those problems were/are caused by shoddy drivers, not the hardware itself.

Not the Matrox hardware, no... but what about <u>all that other hardware</u> in your case??? I believe that's what The Rock meant in his reply... many lockups that appear to be video-card related are in fact related to some other HW or SW... but because video is so fundamental, it's often blamed....

And I think I've been quite respectful to everyone here, so I hope I would get your respect back. Part of my reason for even participating in this thread is I think people who criticize Matrox in this forum find that they aren't treated with any respect.

And have we not treated you with respect then? Obviously those responding don't agree with you, but we haven't disparaged you (or if we did, we've apologized), belittled you, or discussed your possible parentage... would we only be treating you with respect if we slapped ourselves in the forehead crying "D'oh! What was I thinking??"

If that's what you expect, sadly the Matrox Users forum is <u>not</u> the right venue to find such behavior...

Oh, and The Rock... that was more or less what I meant... just couldn't think of more of a variety of uses than what I did at that moment. Thanks.

-------------------
Holly


[This message has been edited by motub (edited 02 November 1999).]

[Initial D]

Hmm.....this is getting interesting
I like G400 Max and Matrox too(used to be)
Hey, I am still using it's MillenniumG200+RRG.
For like maybe a year something already
I still like it, because it's 2D is just so clear that just like The good old Millennium.
Yes! I am talking about the Millennium PCI, I still using it in my other computer now.
I pre-order the G400Max once it's on the back order list of NECX.com
but I already cancel my backorder last month
Man,Matrox try to Force me to buy from their online store?
for 250 bucks?
No way.period.
talk about Nvidia again
Hmm......new stuff every 6 months......
I mean like so what? does that effect any of U at all? New Hardware won't affect a lot.
New Software does. Maybe let's say my G200 will choke to death if I play Quake3 even only using 1280x1024 and set all texture to 32bit and highest detail.
What if I use my G200 to play Doom?
Just like Nvidia try to be the King of 3D.
some ppl might want to buy the King of 3D but I don't.
I mean like Even Nvidia, 3DFX, S3, ATI or whatever. Push out new chips everysingle day.
Not gonna to effect you at all.
Nvidia want to be the King, just leave it.
I am still happy with the G200.
but I am mad about not getting the G400MAx for 6 months.
>

------------------
AE86 RULES!

[The Rock]

FilmGeek:

I put "not an insult" after the age statement for a reason. I truly do not know how old you are, and I wasn't trying to say your some dumb kid. The point I was trying to make was that the period of time BEFORE 3d hit it big was ruled by Matrox. And that has to count for something. I too owned a G200, and I NEVER said it didn't crash: you misinterpreted me on that one. What I said was that BSOD crashes were MORE frequent on Nvidia's cards in their early developement. And how can you presume to judge a card you don't even own? You say Matrox's drivers are buggy, and you've never used a G400? You have no idea how far Matrox has come since the G200, and that's a pity, because since your obviously so fed up with Matrox that you'll avoid the G400 like it had Ebola, you will never get to see how truly great this card is. That is truly a shame; if you have any friends who end up buying one, I highly recommend having an unbiased look at it. Those early G200 growing pains are GONE my friend. Since I got my G400, it hasn't locked up ANY game in either OpenGL, D3D, or just plain 2d (Worms, AOE2, etc.) ONCE. Not ONE time. And I play quite a few games and use quite a few apps. To give you an idea, here's a short list: Unreal, Unreal Tournament demo, Q3A Test, Shogo, Worms: Armageddon, Age of Empires 2, Rainbow 6, Revenant, Driver, Links LS 2000, Total Anihilation:Kingdoms, Visio 5 and Visio 2000, Adobe Photoshop and Premiere, Media Cleaner 4, and a few more that I'm forgetting. I just hope you can see this card in action before you make up your mind, if you haven't already.

Another thing, if you have a specific problem, the help is here: just state the nature of the problem and ask. This forum contains some of the friendliest people I've ever met in ANY forum, and they're always willing to help someone.

As for IBM , they certainly suck in the PC game, but I only recently discovered first-hand why they ain't dead, and why they probably NEVER will die. I started a new job recently (early Sept.) as an Operations Analyst at the R.C.M.P. in Ottawa, and they just bought a brand new mainframe not all that long ago: an IBM OS/390 with 10 GIGS of RAM (!!!). It costs about $20-30 THOUSAND bucks a month just to maintain one of these things. It costs $3 million (thereabouts) to buy. Plus all our DASD's (Direct Access Storage Devices - mainframe hard disk packs) come from IBM (1.5terabytes worth). This damn thing has 10 processors in it (only 3 are currently enabled thru microcode - and those 3 generate 345MIPS). Just be glad Big Blue extorts the government and NOT you.

Sorry for the long-winded post folks; sometimes I can't shut up. Ask my unfortunate co-workers.

------------------
The Rock
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: His eyes are closed."
-- Albert Einstein

[motub]

Wow, thanks, T. Rock... I forgot about the whole rest of the IBM iceberg as well...!

It's a good reminder... we, the hobbyist/consumer market, are a big market, but not necessarily the <u>focus</u> of every business that sells to us. The core of IBM's business now is the mainframes sold to the government, though they'll sell you a PC, or a hard drive... and what do they care if they're not the top or even the 9th largest seller of hard drives? Well, they probably don't, as long as the division breaks even. The division might even be able to lose a little money, if it comes to that.

ATI will sell you a video card, too, but their main business, as I understand it, is to the OEM channel, for pre-configured PC's. I believe that Matrox's main business is those $12000 DigiSuites that Filmgeek is so disparaging of. They may be trying to grow their consumer share, but they may not care to try all that hard, certainly they may not feel any need to knock Nvidia or 3dfx off their perches. And I don't have a problem with that.. I'm trying to get over this American cultural predilection for being first, whether you need to or not...

--------------------
Holly

[Filmgeek]

I think I'm done with this thread. You guys missed or chose to ignore just about every point I made. To sum up:

motub/Holly:

About your success/speed doesn't equal better rant: I guess you didn't read me correctly, but what I am saying is NVidia is successful BECAUSE they make a better product. Sheesh. That's why I brought up all that Amiga/Mac crap. If you disagree with this, fine, just say so.

I don't have some obsession to be number one. But that is how capitalism works. And if Matrox doesn't have a burning desire to be number one, it'll hurt them.

Also, I have nothing against the Matrox Digisuite. If I had the money, I'd buy one before I'd buy an Avid. But they're outrageously priced (as are Avids), and I doubt I'll ever own one. Matrox has relatively few competitors when it comes to their $10,000 plus equipment. I never said that was the problem area. The problem area is their video cards. And there's plenty of competition in that arena.

AND the only reason why I mentioned the respect thing is because Jorden brought it up, out of the blue, acting as if someone was being disrespectful: "Gives us some respect and do the same to us." As long as I'm not personally attacking anyone, I don't know why anyone should feel offended. If I call Matrox a conservative dinosaur, I'm not showing any disrespect towards Matrox users, if I was, I would be disrespecting myself. You are NOT the stuff you own.

TheRock said:

"The point I was trying to make was that the period of time BEFORE 3d hit it big was ruled by Matrox. And that has to count for something."

Yeah, I got it the first time, Rock. Here's my counterpoint: that period where Matrox was king counts for very little. Unless a company continues to innovate, they eventually loose their crown. See my prev. post regarding IBM.

Regarding drivers, like I said, arguing about driver quality is pointless if we've had completely different experiences. The forums are great, but they don't solve the problem of badly written drivers. Unless you write Matrox's video drivers, you can't help. If I needed help with configuration problem, I'd post to the forum. Another thing the forum can't help with is poor performance. In fact you get flamed for "whining" if you do mention it. Either that or you are stereotyped an "fps junkie" or something like that. And about bugs: people report bugs they find, in this forum and elsewhere, and Matrox sometimes fixes them, (when they get around to it). When the day comes that someone who represents Matrox's driver development participates in this forum, then the forums would be a place to address this issue. Matrox loves to blame their driver problems on other peoples software and hardware. Sometimes they're right. But if a competitor's card works just fine in the same situation, well I'm sorry, but it doesn't matter whether Matrox is right or wrong. If they continue to blame the other guy, they just piss off users and drive them to buy the card that doesn't have problems with their system.

It is irrelevant that I have a G200 and not a G400. To suggest that by buying a G400, I would be getting an entirely different quality of drivers is laughable. The problems (or "growing pains" as you call them) still exist whether I've got a G400 or a G200.

Filmgeek


[This message has been edited by Filmgeek (edited 02 November 1999).]

[KvHagedorn]

This is amusing. Way back when Filmgeek made his first post to this thread, I started writing a very long reply (Holly made some of the points I was going to), but then I decided it was pointless. Glad I did.

One of the reasons you see people like Filmgeek here in these forums is that the posts in most of the 3D forums are full of non-intelligence. Half of the posts are "VooDoo Sucks" or "Nvidia Sucks" and 90% are full of profanities. Those mindless fraggers wouldn't know what a point was if they were impaled through the chest with one.

It may be true that you aren't what you own, but the quality of discussion from Matrox users as compared to the Voodoo/Nvidia crowd certainly makes one think.

------------------
Kind Regards,

KvH

[KvHagedorn]

Sorry, spoke before following Holly's link. That AGN board is not so bad. (There are even people there coveting Matrox cards!)

The message board I was referring to was this one:3Dfiles 3D board

------------------
Kind Regards,

KvH

[Madman]

I don't understand why the people on this forum are being so biased on MATROX hardware. I mean, I understand that this is a Matrox card, but I came here to get suggestions on how to solve problems with my system and my newly purchased G400 Max. Not only did I not solve my problem, I was treated disrespectfuly by the people on this forum and by the techician manager of Matrox of all people. People would accuse me of not doing what they told me to do, and the hardware company itself was very hot headed by insisting that their hardware is not bad. Not only that, they forced me to use my video card at AGP 1x when its supposed to run at AGP 2x. I think on the box and the advertisements it said that it supported AGP 4x. I know that it might not slow down games/apps today, what about the games/apps of tomorrow? I bought the card knowing that there is the option of running the card at AGP 4x and now they tell me the card can only run at 2x. I can't even run at 2x. What the hell is going on here? Why must people not realize the facts and stick with a wronged cause? I'm sure that Matrox has pumped out good quality cards, but you do have to remember that there is competition. I have to agree with filmgeek on most of the things that he said, and am totally on his side. If Matrox ever came out with a super slow card with superb picture quality and Company x came out with a super fast card with okay picture quality which card are you going to get? Picture quality don't mean jack when you're watching a slide show. As for the drivers, I don't really care about them. They at least have to make the hardware itself work. Ever since I bought my G400, I got nothing but trouble. It may be only me, but I've seen many others who are having the same problems as me and are as frustrated as me. I also think that it was a bad move for a Manager tech from Matrox to tell me off like that after knowing that I work for a computer store and that I adivise people what hardware to get. One thing's for sure: there won't be any Matrox cards going into systems that I build. You can call me stupid but that's not my point. Would I want to stick with a company that has given me a bad card and poor service? Hell no. I'm sure many of you would do the same. And don't say that you'd still buy Matrox cards because I know you're lying. That's just pure bullshit. If someone ****s you over you're not going to go crying back and wait for them to come out with something better. The truth is, something better has came out and it's not a Matrox card. You guys might be jealous because something has beat your Matrox card, but that's just the way competition goes. As a gamer, I don't give a rat's ass how the picture quality goes, only how smooth the game is. If it plays fast, that's the card I'll get. It just so happened that the Matrox card at that time was pretty damn fast and I made a bad decision of buying it. I used to think highly of Matrox, but I will not follow this blind allegiance anymore.

Madman