Have any G800 rumors or "inside info?"

[Nuno]

It kinda remembers me when Nvidia released the Riva 128, they touted everywhere it was using Direct3d as it´s native API

Proprietary API´s (glide and directSGL) are dead, but having two main API´s leading the market (Direct3d and OpenGL) it would be nonsense to optimize fully to one of them.

[This message has been edited by Nuno (edited 02 October 2000).]

[Barbarella]

"(Direct3d and OpenGL) it would be nonsense to optimize fully to one of them."

Well, i talked about DX8, perheaps they've plan for OpenGL. You forgot the X-box. So game optimised for DX8 will represent a big market. Q3 itself will be translated for DX8 ! Without DX8 Q3 will not work on X-box. Can you imagine IDsoftware ignore the X-box. I don't.

I think G800 is not the end of the story but the beginning of a new generation of graphic processor that will integrated API DX8 OpenGL.



[This message has been edited by Barbarella (edited 02 October 2000).]

[rubank]

This DX8 thing is quite right, as I said several weeks ago, but it´s really just a side effect. Matrox is more concerned with 2D performance, so they will have the whole MS Whistler hardcoded into the core. DX8 is just slipping in.
This way they can also let off the Linux drivers team, since G800 will be a Windows only chip. But very fast in 2D.
Matrox will also deliver a special G800 breed for the Microsoft "Y-Box", a non-gaming ultimate office machine with integrated Espresso brewer: you will be able to see your coffee being made right on your screen!

rubank

[Barbarella]

No more arguments. so you end the game . I'm fair-play i will take a cup of coffee with you or a beer if you want.

[swr]

<BLOCKQUOTE>
Q3 itself will be translated for DX8 ! Without DX8 Q3 will not work on X-box.
</BLOCKQUOTE></P>

Are you sure about that? I think it would probably be easier to add OpenGL support to X-box (maybe in the form of a generic OGL wrapper for DX8) than to port OpenGL stuff to DX8.</P>

Matrox is not going to abandon OpenGL. There are a lot of professional graphics programs that use OpenGL, and professional graphics people are exactly the sort who would appreciate the quality of Matrox cards' output and features like dual-head. On the other hand, I hear their current Windows OGL support sucks (I don't use Windows myself so I don't know), and if that's the case who knows what Matrox will do.</P>

Linux et al have good opengl support for Matrox cards, thanks to Matrox opening their specs and giving the open source community enough data take care of themselves.</P>

[Barbarella]

"Q3 itself will be translated for DX8 ! Without DX8 Q3 will not work on X-box."

sure, i'm not sure but it make sense that X-box will be heavy DX8 optimised. Adaptating OpenGL for the X-box is possible, but i'm not sure microsoft will like this idea.

DX8 will not only have more functions but old function (DX7 and less) will give better result in quality.

"Matrox is not going to abandon OpenGL". You right on that (as you i hope they will be stronger). don't forget, having a DX8 processor does not mean that other function couldn't be working. Matrox will simply use the traditionnal way. By driver. Better, they can use a wrapper (did you remember the G200 wrapper) from openGL to DX8. this could be even a better solution that what we have actually.

[DosFreak]

The X-Box is NT5 based so OpenGL will run just fine.

[Wombat]

Fine, assuming that somebody cares to write an OpenGL ICD for it. Also, assuming that the specs will be available to write an ICD (very unlikely, since MS has control of the specs).

Especially since the X-box runs a custom version of Win2000, and a custom version of DX8 (which MS will whole-heartedly support).

[DosFreak]

Man are you uninformed. From all indications the OS will come on the game CD itself. Lemme find that X-Box site with all the specs for ya......

[DosFreak]

http://www.xbox365.com/stories/xdkcomplete.shtml

[DosFreak]

"Microsoft XBox is not coming with 8-gig drive as detailed and supplied with the XDK. It is coming with a 40 gig 5400 RPM drive supplied by Maxtor. The Maxtor drive is formatted with 3 Volumes. 1-is the basic OS/Dashboard functionality. 2- is reserved for developers who can add additional levels to games and maps. 3 is a 20 gig volume which is reserved for digital VCR.

The 8 gig drive which is circulating is only on the XDK models for developers testing - along with the 128 Meg RAM. The 3rd partition being the outside tracks of the drive for the additional speed for digital recording and playback.

To constitute the $500 price tag the Xbox will also be a digital VCR with Mpeg2 compression competing with Replay TV and Tivo. The chip only costs Microsoft $16.00 to incorporate it into the Xbox system. Microsoft want to do this as an alternative to Tivo and Replay TV which cost around $400.

These extra's do come at a price: You must be a part of MSN which is $20.00 a month service but that also includes the $10.00 a month service for being a part of the MSN Gaming network for online games. "


Man this thing is gonna be fun to tear apart! Expect X-Box games on PC'S soon after release.....

[Barbarella]

about openGL and X-Box. If Q3 is translate under DX8 than would strongly indicate that microsft don't care about openGL.

About the DX8 of the X-box. Inside a DX8 function can be optimised but it's more complexe to change the Input/output of a function because of compatibilities troubles. So software developed for DX8 should be compatible.

[Wombat]

>Man are you uninformed.

Ummmmmm, no. Actually, I just went to the X-box presentation the other day. As a matter of fact, one of my friends from college is in charge of X-box Multimedia (everything except the video card). I think I will believe him over you.

[DosFreak]

DOH!

[tuco]

www.reactorcritical.com has posted some specs for the g800:

And here the specs for Matrox G800 go:
Core clock: 200 Mhz
Memory clock: 200 Mhz / 400 Mhz DDR
Render pipelines count: 3
Texturing units count: 3
Fillrate: 600 Mpixels/sec, 1800 Mtexels/sec
Processing speed: 20-30 million triangles/sec
Memory bandwidth: 6.4 Gbytes/sec
Scalable architecture

that is of course if anyone is still interested.

x-box?, who gives a monkeys.