BetaBoyz.....

[Electric Amish]

So, do you guys get to beta test hardware too??

Like, uhhh.... the G800?

just wondering.

amish

[Compton]

no, they don't. i asked this question myself a few weeks ago.

[Kruzin]

Nope.
We don't get products until they are in their final production form....so we are all still using our G400s

[Electric Amish]

So, you're testing drivers for G800's??



amish

[Greebe]

EA, what would be the purpose of testing drivers for a card we don't have? Besides we are bound to our NDA's so lets just leave it at that, OK

[Pace]

I think he was kidding but what kinds of stuff do you test? Being somewhere inbetween vague and precise (as far as the NDA will let you) - just want a rough idea.

I use graphics heavily and would be glad to test G400's in Photoshop (and 3D gaming)

Paul.

PS: OK, I'll ask the obvious question: How do I become a beta tester?

[Damien Green]

I woundn't mind being a beta tester either, I have four different machines, with totally different configurations. They cover the whole sphere, PIII, K62, Athlon, Celeron and I even have an old Pentium machine. I think I might be able to provide some valuble input on drivers etc. But I suppose you have enough beta testers already - but if I can help, I'm very willing.....

[This message has been edited by Damien Green (edited 04 May 2000).]

[Maggi]

Hi Guys,

basically we test W98, WinNT & Win2k drivers.

The group started in the late days of the PD 4.x series and each official release was on our machines before they left the door so to speak ...

Usually we are a few revision numbers ahead and we try to find as much bugs, slowdowns, visual anomalies and whatever as possible so that you folks out there get an improved update.

Being bound to our NDA forbids us giving insider information, but any public available knowledge can be posted.

Can't help you with becoming a BB though.

Anyway, if you got problems or need assistance, you already found the place to ask ...

Cheers,
Maggi

[Kruzin]

In addition to drivers, we also get to test the occasional utilities (like we tested Matrox's overclocker before it was released).

The Beta program is closed. We where told Matrox will not be adding any more people to the program...

[Wombat]

Quiet PaulS.
I can't blame Matrox for wanting to keep the beta groups relatively small. They're easier to work with that way, and still surprisingly productive.
However, the groups are big enough that plenty of hardware configurations are tested.

Now, did you have a specific problem, or are you just taking cheap shots with nothing to back them up?

[Kruzin]

PaulS, I don't think you realize what is involved in running a beta program.

As it is now, with our limited group, the e-mail traffic is already heavy enough to keep Haig busy more than it should. On a very slow day, there might only be 25 or 30 e-mails. On a busy day (like right after a new build of the drivers is given to us), there are sometimes >100 e-mails a day. To expand the beta program would get into Matrox needing to hire people to deal with it. They have decided at this time that they don't want to go in that direction.

The current group of testers has a great mixture of hardware (from K6 and P2 to Athlon and Coppermines, SCSI, IDE, etc), and we each have different primary uses for our hardware (CAD, programming, gaming, etc). And there are more of us than you know about. Not all of the testers are regulars here at MURC, and not all of them here at MURC have admitted to being BBz.

You may not think much of the program, but that's only because you don't know how well it works. We have been told that we have found and reported more bugs that they missed in-house than they ever expected us to.
We also don't just report our bugs. Many of us will report bugs other people here at MURC have posted. We often send in links to threads. So if you have a bug to report, you can do it here, or at Matrox's tech support forum, and it will be heard.

[Maggi]

Good word, Kruz' !

[PaulS]

>The Beta program is closed. We where told Matrox will not be adding any more people to the program...

Yeah, be an awful shame to have a beta program wide enough to actually deliver stable drivers on a broad range of systems.

Paul

[PaulS]

Kruzin,

You know that I am mainly referring to the current problems on W2k. Last year I was saying that I couldn't see Matrox releasing stable drivers by Feb unless they pullled their finger out and really started testing these drivers. There was a big carry on about how hard Matrox was working, and it was only their marketing generosity that saw some beta W2k drivers released - there would be stable drivers by Feb 17.

Well, 3 months after the release of an OS that has been in development for 3 years, these drivers are still buggy on quite a range of SMP systems.

So either Matrox aren't smart enough, or do not have enough resource to fix them, or the beta testers found them too late. The feedback around Feb was that the drivers were coming along nicely, so rightly or wrongly I assuming that the problems were not identified early enough - something that could be rectified by a larger beta program.

BTW, most companies have beta programs with several "onion skins". There are the internal programs, very small and tightly monitored external programs, and wider public, or closed betas. The wider beta programs are to pick up patterns in bugs, and SMP would certainly have shown up here. A large beta program does not require one on one monitoring - or any freebies, just looking for trends.

Paul

[Rags]

Hi Paul,

Have you ever considered that the SMP issues were known about before the release (and were reported?). All beta testers can do is report problems, they can't fix them, and reporting them does not mean that they will get fixed. I know that Matrox is and has been hacking away at this particular problem, and are making progress.

Rags