G400 Driver Rant (Depressing)

[Apriori]

Well, just from casually browsing the posts in this thread, I would like to say the following:

Way to go Gurm.
Good game Stil, better luck next time.

To everyone else who is somehow under the influence of MMC ("Matrox Mind Control"), I think you all either miss the point or overlook it whenever someone posts about difficulties with any kind of Matrox hardware.

The point is this: The company's responsibility is to make a product that works. The consumer's responsibility is to pay money for the product, in good faith that it works.

The consumer should not have to perform any kind of technical fixes or kludges to make a card do things it was advertised as being able to do. A somewhat extreme, but pertinent example is to say that card x will work on OS y, but only if you program the drivers for it. That is completely absurd! Some consumers could no less program drivers than edit the registry. Yet, from the logic I've seen on this board it is the consumer's fault and not the company's?

No, it is the company's responsibility to the customer, to provide a product that works as advertised out of the box. It doesn't appear that the G400 does this (when is that complete OpenGL ICD due out again?), therefore I suspect consumers have a right to complain about the lack of performance about their card, and even though YOU might be able to "get it to work", that is NOT the consumer's responsibility-- that is the company's responsibility. It should "just work," (assuming all preliminary setup requirements common to all cards) and the consumer can not be blamed for: 1) being pissed about the card not performing and 2) going out and buying a card that works out of the box. Expecting the consumer to fix the company's problems is bloody ridiculous. In addition, pronouncing the G400 as God's gift to video card's when it has a LONG list of problems (no matter how nice the 2D quality is), is ludicrous.

I like Matrox for 2D, but I think nvidia is king for 3D. The sad fact of the matter is that nvidia does 2D better than Matrox does 3D, hence, in my mind that means that nvidia produces the better card. It would be really nice to have 2 AGP slots, but until then (or Matrox produces a complete ICD), I think it will be nvidia taking up that slot. Rationality and common sense dictate this conclusion. One that no amount of "they're working on it"s will counter.

Good Game Matrox...

Apriori

Edit: ooops, spelling.



[This message has been edited by Apriori (edited 08 October 2000).]

[Rags]

And welcome to wonderland, alice

You live in a fantasy land if you believe that any product, in which a consumer has to install him/herself and setup, will work for 100 percent of the people out of the box, without some of those people needing assistance. Get real. My folks just spent 2 grand on a television set, and the only thing they cared about was the picture in picture feature. They couldn't figure out how to get the pic in pic to work. They had to call tech support 4 freaking times before they understood. Needless to say, a PC is much more complicated than plugging a TV and VCR together is.

There is no such thing in the PC industry as a video card that will work with 100 percent of the stuff on your computer. Even with your PC matching the requirements spec for spec. There are too many variables.

What Gurm is having a problem with, is known flaws that have yet to be addressed. Flaws that exist in common configurations, that just aren't happening by chance.

Most of us here like Matrox video cards, yes. And we enjoy helping others out too, and get a kick out of seeing people getting their systems up and running properly. Fact is, if your system is set up correctly in the first place, then the chances are, you will have very few problems with most video cards.

Rags

[Oracle]

the radeon is a good card just faster in alot of games (mw3, ut etc) the image quality (in 32bit) is right up there with my g400max i would advise getting this card (and if you live in the usa ATi are doing a rebate for like $50 so thats good

hope i helped

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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
....................

[Gurm]

pchoi,

Your system is incorrectly configured. Period. Based on what I read in the other threads, in which you were unwilling to take simple troubleshooting steps to determine where the error lay. You simply took out the G400 and slapped in a GeFarce. That's not troubleshooting.

As for me, I _AM_ the helpdesk. I have hand-built every PC since the IBM 5150. I can write video drivers in assembly language. And yes - you, sir, have an incorrectly configured computer.

Good, we're glad that you're leaving. You're a troll.

- Gurm

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

[Humus]

Gurm and pchoi ... stop bitching on each other!

Gurm: Replacing a misfunctional part with functional is not a bad way of solving problems. If hes G400 didn't work the way he wanted regardless of if it was a problem with drivers, mobo, windows or whatever I can't see what's wrong with buying a new card.
And your assembly driver writing ... you mean you can do a PutPixel function for Mode 13h in assembler LOL!

void PutPixel(int x,int y,unsigned char color){
  _asm {
    MOV EAX, x
    MOV EBX, y
    MOV ECX, y
    SHL EBX, 8
    SHL ECX, 6
    ADD EAX, EBX
    ADD EAX, ECX

    ADD EAX, VideoMemPointer
    MOV BL, color
    MOV [EAX], BL
  }
}

[Oracle]

looks like my earlier post want posted
the radeon is a great little card its 2d is exactly then same (@1024*768@32bit) and the 3d is excellent 2

------------------
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]

Thanks for replying, Oracle, the Radeon sounds pretty good by all accounts.

Most cards look decent at 1024x768 though (even my TNT2) ;-)
Have you tried running it up to 1600x1200 and comparing, out of curiousity? Is the text still totally sharp?

Also, which Radeon did you get (32/64Mb DDR)?

[Gurm]

Humus,

No, when I say I have written a graphics driver in assembly language, I mean exactly that. My company (well, former company) built business graphics solutions based on S3 main display chips, with proprietary document compression/decompression chips on them. I wrote the preliminary Win95 driver for that card, in MASM6.

- Gurm

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

[Heed]

Apriori:

Is this argument a synthetic or analytic one?

"I think you all either miss the point or overlook it whenever someone posts about difficulties with any kind of Matrox hardware"

No, actually almost everyone here tries to help people out when they post about difficulties-- and most problems are resolved by troubleshooting the system; not by replacing the card.

"The company's responsibility is to make a product that works"

It works just fine.

"The consumer should not have to perform any kind of technical fixes or kludges to make a card do things it was advertised as being able to do"

Um, how long have you had a computer?

"No, it is the company's responsibility to the customer, to provide a product that works as advertised out of the box"

See above, and it does.

"Expecting the consumer to fix the company's problems is bloody ridiculous. In addition, pronouncing the G400 as God's gift to video card's when it has a LONG list of problems (no matter how nice the 2D quality is), is ludicrous."

What problems? I stuck mine in the AGP slot and installed the drivers, as did most everybody else. Any problems that people had or have, were and are, related to system configuration-- not the company making faulty hardware.

"The sad fact of the matter is that nvidia does 2D better than Matrox does 3D, hence, in my mind that means that nvidia produces the better card"

I'm not sure that's sad, other than to say that it's sad that most times video cards are judged, by popular opinion, on how may FPS they get in Quake 3.

"Rationality and common sense dictate this conclusion."

That made me laugh. No, you're being very naive and using poor argumentation. Your analogies are poor at best (cmon, prog. drivers is a little different than assigning IRQ's and the like) and the opening ad hominem, well, lets just say that it's not the best way to lend credibility to _any_ argument.

I'll answer my own beginning question-- if you know what your name means you should realise that it's not apriori at all-- it's aposteriori. And, by definiton, we're talking about an argument form based upon information gathered (synthetic), and you have failed to gather the information thoroughly and carefully. Irrationality dictated your conclusion-- no getting around it.

Heed.

[Oracle]

hehehe 1600 ?? i wish my monitor only goes up to 1200 @72hz when i get my next card ill be up grading the monitor 2

------------------
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]

*laughs*
Thanks anyway ;-)

Looks like the G400 and the ATi Radeon are pretty close in terms of 2d quality, even at high resolution.
The Radeon apparently has issues with trinitron tubes though (which my monitor has), which is a bit painful. Makes the choice all the more difficult.

[Greebe]

Dalbregor, what does the crt have to do with it?

[Dalbregor]

Oh . . .

There's a huge thread on rage3d's forums complaining about a weird shimmering problem at high resolution.

After getting reports from several people (the thread is up to 130 posts or thereabouts), they've narrowed it down to only those people who have monitors with trinitron tubes.

Apparently ATi is attempting to fix the problem, but hasn't had much success so far.

Needless to say, I definitely won't be getting a Radeon unless that problem is resolved ;-)

[Greebe]

OK I'll say this once so listen very closely. The crt type has absolutely nothing to do with it. This is either shitty output of the graphics card or crap monitor. If it's the graphics card then it is possible to fix, but highly unprobable. If they didn't make sure these things weren't taken care of in the first place then that would would be nearly impossible to resolve after the fact. Either a new pcb or an addition chip revision would be neccessary and that just doesn't happen once released.

These are the cold hard facts.

[Hunsow]

The crt type has everything to do with it. If the dpi of the trinitron/diamondtron tube isn't high enough for a certain resolution to display, and the graphics card displays a sharp image, you get those effects described in those forums. If the graphics card blurs the image (GeForce), it does not happen.

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