Upgrade to 16 MB

[Matt Houben]

Hello,

As user of a Matrox Millennium G200 I have some questions:

* Does upgrading from 8 MB to 16 MB improves performance, and how much? Is it worth while?

* There is a version with SGRAM and with SDRAM. How can I check which RAM I need?

Thanks in advance for any info.

Regards,

Matt Houben
e-mail:matt.houben@eurocontrol.be

[Goc]

Hi Matt

Upgrading your G200 from 8 to 16 megs depends on what you are planning to use it for... If it is 2D work in Windows (office apps., CAD etc.) you are after, then upgrading won't give any results. On the other hand if you wish to play 3D games it also won't help much. Although you do get more free space for textures on your board, the only situation where it will show any results is if you try playing in extremly high resolutions (i.e. 1600x1200). The reason is that after you go 1600x1200 you are left with only approximatly 1.5 megs for textures (someone correct me if I am wrong) what is waaay to little for any kind of play... In fact there is just one game that gives "playable" results, and that is Flight simulator 98. So anyway I wouldn't advise getting an upgrade, since G200 isn't any good in high resolutions.
Consider about buying G400

[Matt Houben]

Thanks for your comment.

The reason for upgrading to 16 MB is indeed a better 3D performance for the new Unreal Tournament.

I currently run Unreal (came with the SB Live) in 640x480 mode, 16 bit colours. It does the job well 99% of the time. Only with heavy explosions and things like that, the frame rate goes down the tube for a short period. BTW: does it make a lot of difference to run the G200 in 16, 24 or 32 bit colours?

Another option would be expanding my system to 128 MB of main RAM. I am definitely not going to by a G400 just for this... :-)

Maybe if Matrox comes up with a chip which also has "GeForce 256 - capabilities" to relieve the poor Celeron 400MHz CPU from
more 3D duty.

[Goc]

Well, Matt...

Only way you could get top performance in that 1% that's missing is getting either a new graphics card, or a stronger processor.
But I think 1% isn't really worth it

16, 24, 32 bit does matter... I can advise you to stay off 24 bit cause it will give the slowest results of the three (there is a reason for it with sorting colors and stuff inside the chip, but there's a thread here that explains it). 16 bit will be faster but with less colour, and therefore poorer image quality than 32 bit... G200 is especially touchy about the last one.

No offence, but the only problem you have is the game. UT sucks! Not because it's not fun to play it, but it has the worst 3D engine ever! It looks OK but it laaags bigtime on lamost any machine... Try Quake3Arena...
No offence.

And about the new chip... I've got mine fingers crossed

------------------
Just my humble opinion...

Specs--=>

PII 300@450 Mhz SL2W8
ABIT BH6 rev1.63
64 Mb PC133 SDRAM
Matrox Millenium G200 8Mb
HDD 4,3 Gb WDCaviar U/ATA66
HDD 1,6 Gb WDCaviar U/DMA33
Yamaha Waveforce 192XG
TEAC 32X ATAPI CDROM
MITSUMI 4X ATAPI CDROM
17" Macom S82
Realtek 8029 10 Mbps Lan PCI
HP Laserjet 5L
Scanner

Second machine:

Pentium III 450@570
ABIT BH6 rev1.61
128 Mb PC133 SDRAM
Matrox Millenium G400 w. 16Mb SH
HDD 8,4 Gb WD Caviar UATA66
Yamaha Waveforce 192XG
Toshiba 6X ATAPI DVD-ROM
17" Belinea monitor
SMC Tigercard 10Mbps network card ISA
___________________

[Matt Houben]

Thanks again for your info.

I'm currently on 16 bit colours and the difference isn't that big, so I'll stay on 16 bit for now (apart when running this rediculous MixMan soundmix program that needs explicitly 24 bits colour )

I am not going into UT vs. Quake 3 Arena . Too much bits have been flashing over the internet about this. But I'll take your advice into consideration. Lurking around the internet however showed that often Unreal is slow due to bad computer config. Maybe Unreal is a lot sensitiver to this then Quake 3. (This indeed does mean the Unreal 3D engine does sucks )

Regards,

Matt

Specs--=>
Celeron 400Mhz
ASUS P2B
64 MB PC100 SDRAM (running at 66 MHz thanks to intel limiting Celerons to 66Mhz )
Matrox Millennium G200 8 MB
HDD Quantum Fireball 6.4 GB UDMA 33
FDD 3.5", 5.25"
Soundblaster Live! + digital I/O
HP 8100i 24x/4x/2x ATAPI CD-RW
15" ADI
HP 4100C scanner
Star SG-10 (Yes, robust 9 pin matrix stone-age printer technology )