G400 Driver Rant (Depressing)

[DentyCracker]

Euphoria runs flawlessly under Win2k Pro SP1/PD 5.14 here. I have rev 05h running at AGP4x on an Abit KT7/Duron 700@700. Lightwave works fine. I'll install studiomax for testing purposes and see. MDK2 works but seems a little dark (perhaps it's supposed to be dark)

[Gurm]

Denty,

Yeah - the 5.14 ICD is substantially newer and nicer than the previous ones. There may have been some... err... unofficial... err... communications... that helped with that. *cough*

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[jjaegli]

I think that the screen saver thing has distracted everyone. I agree with Gurm and his original post -- the G400 ICD will not run many OpenGL applications correctly, and will fail seriously on all Windows operating systems where it should run flawlessly.

My example - Blender (www.blender.nl) It is a free download. To my knowledge there is no reported instance if it working on Matrox hardware in recent history [under win95/98/NT/2K]. Haig even acknowledged its failure on his system. I would appreciate it if anyone who maintains that Matrox drivers are flawless try this software on their own machines and report the results here.

Thanks.

Jake

[This message has been edited by jjaegli (edited 06 October 2000).]

[Oracle]

ok i know i dont have w2k etc but just wanna put my 2p in k ?

ok i had (note past tense) a g400max it was a great card (soooooo much better than my tnt!!!!!!) but i couldnt wait for the g800, i mean come at least the big M could of said something so i got myself a stop gap card an ati radeon 32ddr with decent 32bit performance and 32bit visual quality it easily substitues the g400max.

Whats the point of matrox being so sercrative and dont say "oh so nobody can steal its ideas" cause that happens all the time. Without even releasing offcial tech specs nobody bar the select few actually know what its going to be like.

Competitors like Nvidea have had 2 products already shipping within g400max life and what has the M got to reply with ? the g450. (whats the point releasing a card thats just the same (ok bar a couple of things like a faster secondary ram dac) and a third to come (gforce2 gts ultra).

This imo does not bode well for matrox it needs to release some information to the general public and to me (joe schlub!) other wise ill be looking elsewhere when the g800 comes


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P3 600e @ 660 (6*110)
128mb 100mhz sdram
abit be6-2
Radeon 32ddr (biding time till the g800
voodoo 3 2000 pci (166)
soundblaster 16pci
4.3gb seagate udma 33
15.3 wd udma 66
creative modem blaster 56k ext
win 98
ie5
direct x 7.0a
pd 6.10beta
tgl 1.3
....................

[Dalbregor]

What resolution do you run in, generally?

Have you been able to tell whether the Radeon's 2d image quality is less than the G400's?

I've been checking around, and it seems fairly universally agreed that image quality runs: G400, Radeon, Voodoo 5500, Geforce 2 [GTS].

[Gurm]

As some of you know, I moved recently. My new location only has 1-way cable.

This has been a blessing in disguise... since the G400's ICD now works for all the games I play.

The fast paced games that were causing me to experience temptation to convert to nVidia... well... you can't play those games over what amounts to a 14.4k outbound connection. Heh.

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[pchoi]

Where the **** were these opinions when I posted my thoughts about the G400?!?!?!

It seems like EVERYONE is harbouring these thoughts but just scared to voice them. You guys run a pretty intimidating forum.

I hope you guys all come out of your holes know and SEE THE TRUTH behind my reasoning to get a GF2 MX.

I sure don't see any flames calling Gurm an idiot and not being able to configure his system properly, maybe you know him better than you all know me, but the dirty responses I got were pretty damn harsh.

This forum just isn't fair all

[Rags]

Driver bugs are one thing, improper setup is totally another.

Rags

[Gurm]

pchoi,

I have my system correctly configured. I was complaining about SPECIFIC problems with the OpenGL ICD, mainly under Win2k.

You failed to make ANY programs or games work with your G400, due to sheer thickheadedness, and couldn't set your damn system up properly.

You got the GeForce. Yay! Apparently your system liked that better. Cool. It was a 50/50 chance. Some people put in the GeForce and end up buying a Voodoo because they have the same problems you had with the G400 - and almost all of these problems could be fixed if you bothered to follow the simple advice of others.

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[DuRaNgO]

Pchoi, of course with your "bad" eyesight, you can't tell the difference between the g400 and peeforced mnext anyways so it is a perfect card for you

You can always tell a troll, no info in there profile

[This message has been edited by DuRaNgO (edited 07 October 2000).]

[Greebe]

Then leave troll.

[pchoi]

I have a Sony E400 as my monitor? What do you have? It is a known fact that GF2 cards tend to run really crappy at high resolutions and that's true. At 1600x1200 desktop I can't read a thing whereas I could with my G400.

Gurm, what makes you think my system is configured improperly? Have you seen it? Have you used it? Give me a break. And what gives you the right to say your system is configured properly? Has it passed any WHQL tests? On WHOSE AUTHORITY do you have to pass any judgement? Maybe the problems you having with your OGL ICD is YOUR SYSTEM!

I don't doubt that Matrox has problems with it's ICD. Perhaps that software you were testing with has inherent problems with the G400 ICD. Ever think of that?

Your attitude towards me is elitist. I wonder if at work you actually try to "fix" your workstation to get things working, or call help desk and get them to deal with it. Ever try reloading any operating system within reasonable time so you can go back to work? I wonder if you could call that a good use of time. I get back at 8PM everyday and I only have about 4 hours to myself. I just want to play games, not crawl on my knees and fiddle with my computer.

Keep on flaming, that's all you guys are good for... and I'm going to leave this forum, I've found more objective forums out there and I haven't seen ANY flaming going on there. Only this forum sees this many flames over a simple video card. What, it's against the law to change your video card?

Have fun with your G400's and hope the wait for the G800 keeps your blood pressure low. Even if I buy a G800 in the future I'll never come back here for information.

Later

[Hugh G Recshun]

Thank God!

Leave the light on, will ya?

[Targon]

It's not limited to Win2k. I am running WinME(have recently upgraded from 98). Now, there's a rather fun new game out called Baldur's Gate, you may have heard of it. For 3D acceleration, it supports OpenGL, and does NOT support D3D. Guess what, in hardware mode, the more I look, the more disgusted I become. OpenGL does NOT work properly. Color problems, fades, and general display are VERY VERY broken. The folks at Interplay and Bioware are aware that there are problems. OpenGL support is just FUBAR, this with the latest Powerdesk(6.04.xx). Sure, it doesn't give artifacting, but the fact is that it can't seem to support more than 256 color mode, when the game is trying to render in 32 bit color mode. It's BROKEN. In software mode, it looks nice and clean in 32 bit color mode.

From this, it's clear that it's a Matrox ICD problem. It's been reported by MANY people. I've been waiting in the hope that the G800 will come out, and so I can delegate the G400 MAX into a secondary machine. I dislike the GeForce cards, and ATI is no improvement over Matrox in any way. Basically, I feel like I'm damned, and waiting for the eternity it takes to get out to be over. G800, no news, no hype, no NOTHING. Matrox must take lessons from Verant(The company responsible for EverQuest). They take advantage of the fact that there's really no alternative to their product, and figure they can get away with a lack of improvements, with known bugs and problems lasting for years. Matrox had BETTER come through with the G800, and soon, because eventually, Nvidia will come out with something worth spending money on, and when that happens, if Matrox is still pulling this garbage, they will go under.

[Brian R.]

"I have a Sony E400 as my monitor? What do you have? It is a known fact that GF2 cards tend to run really crappy at high resolutions and that's true. At 1600x1200 desktop I can't read a thing whereas I could with my G400.

Gurm, what makes you think my system is configured improperly?"


My GF2 looks very good at 1600x1200. (not as good as my MAX, however)