G800 questions!

[Mr. Cold]

When does Matrox plan on releasing their G800 series to the general public? Can some of the moderators at least give us like which HALF of what year it will be released?

Also, will the G800 have all the bells and whistles that the Nvidia GeForce 2 GTS and 3dfx Voodoo5 6000 have? How will Matrox differentiate themselves and gain an "edge" in the gaming market, or do they plan on focusing mostly on the business sector?

thanks to any responses

[Mr. Cold]

Also will the "Matrox Fusion Plus G800 AGP" be Matrox's next high-end gaming board like the G400 MAX is today?

Are they designing the G800 to take full advantage of DirectX 8?

[Helevitia]

sadly, you are asking questions which there are no answers to.

Dave

[DGhost]

Supposedly, Yes, the G800 will be one of the first cards to take advantage of DirectX 8.

Or, at least they were supposedly waiting for DX8 for support some features (rumored the T&L engine - i heard a comment that basically said 'DirectX 7 T&L is half-assed, and we are waiting for DX8) they were working on.

Personally, I will be very impressed if Matrox can release a *final* product at the same time that Microsoft releases DirectX and still maintain full support.

Date? no one knows...

Gaming or Business? I don't know what Matrox is planing - the G400 did both quite well - they are traditionally very feature full and fast when they get released. The last couple times they tried a 'pure' gaming video card, they have fallen flat on their faces (remember the m3d? also the Mystique G200? both were not bad, but did not do well sales wise).

Bells & Whistles? The G400 currently supports EMBM, and i would not be surprised if they did enhancements to it to allow more types of environmental mapping. I would be *very* surprised if they did not make it at *least* comparable to the GeForce2, as it is one of the claims of fame that they have.

But, entirely honest, i don't know. this is speculation on my part. I have never seen anything from Matrox about it, and this is just things i am thinking might happen.

[isochar]

"I would be *very* surprised if they did not make it at *least* comparable to the GeForce2, as it is one of the claims of fame that they have."

I'd be really disappointed if it was a GF2 competitor...

Everyone knows that nVidia will have the NV20 out later this year. Rumored specs have it pumping out 3-4 times the performance of the GF2. Along with these blistering performance figures it's also supposed to have full DX8 optimizations. (I believe this to be a definate since Microsoft and nVidia are pretty much in bed with each other)

Competition is good, but not when companies that put out excellent products can't keep up =(

[vanguardian1]

I still think Nvidia's drivers are Half-@$$ POS.........but that's IMHO.

[isochar]

Every video card company has its problems with drivers. Someone out there always has something bad to say about Matrox, nVidia, 3dfx, etc...

Personally, I have a g400max and a annihilator 2. Both have their merits. I owned a V3 3000 for a short period of time, and all I'll say is that I'm a person that would complain about 3dfx's drivers >=)

[DGhost]

That comment was refering to EMBM, btw, since they added several new(er?) techniques for doing BMing in the GeForce 2.

As for 3dfx's drivers, once they released them they usually worked... completely... and when something was broken, they usually fixed it quickly... although, the fact that they *never* released drivers unless something *big* blew up was a problem. Also, performance is not that great... And they don't seem to ever support SMP...

-Luke

[isochar]

I personally don't care for EMBM because none of the 20 or so games I play on a regular basis don't use it. The only game I played that had it was Slave Zero. (It's a coaster now)

And I can't really say I bought the GF2 for all the environment mapping it can do. (And I really doubt anybody else did either)

What it comes down to is features that are used on a regular basis, and how reliably those features are delivered. That's what makes the GF2 the winner at this point in time for gaming IMHO...

[DGhost]

Yah.

EMBM is a nice feature - i would love to see more mainstream games take advantage of it.

I bought my G400MAX when the GeForce was out. For $50-$100 more i could have gotten one. I chose the G400 because of the feature set - dual head is nice, the image quality is supurb, and 3d performance is up to par for the little i use it.

Gaming of the GeForce/2 is much better - i still believe that Matrox really isn't aiming for the gaming market because of the driver issues that they have been having. It all seems to be in the game support.