G800 or whatever

[Dogbert]

In the current state of the market, with the GeForce 3, ATi Radeon MAXX and other high end cards closing in, the G800 as a single chip isn't so much anymore. nVIDIA offers the best single chip performance right now ,3Dfx offers the best FSAA = image quality and ATi has the best features with DVD playback and Mpeg 2 hardware encoding/decoding on board.

Seems that in order to survive the competition, the G800 will have to go the same way the VSA100 does, dual/quad chip boards. I hope matrox has a way to eliminate a situation in which we'll need a 256MB card just to get usable 64MB on a quad board. Not to mention price and power consumption...

Times are getting tough, is matrox tough enough to get going ?

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I like to con people, but I also like to insult them. What if I could combine the two, I would call it - Consult !


[This message has been edited by Dogbert (edited 11 October 2000).]

[Himself]

There seem to be too extremes out there, folks that want speed above all else whether the images have random dots from memory overclocking, and folks who want each frame to be picture perfect first, even if it's a slide show.

If Matrox wants to get into the retail market they need retail presence and advertising, that means they actually have to let stores make some money off the cards and have them priced within the ballpark of the rest of the competition. I'd say they need to be within 20% of the top of the speed demons, or the quality vs quantity argument loses favour. They also have to have enough of a quality difference to mean something to the majority of people, that means non murcers, not the few purists here. I mean even with a feature as substantial as FSAA, screenshots between the V5 and GeForce were virtually identical, nobody is going to buy one or the other based on that. If you are going to make quality vs quantity arguments, you have to show people the difference, it won't sell as some abstract idea. If the only place to buy them is from Matrox direct, it's not likely they will get people taking a look. The only way to get stores to stock Matrox cards is to let them have some sort of profit margin.

My $02

[AJ]

I think Matrox does have competitive products in the pipeline. Hopefully, they can accelerate their internal roadmap, ala ATI. Sounds like more information will be coming at comdex.

BTW, from the spec rumors, I think that the next Matrox card will offer great performance in the single chip board. Hopefully Matrox will toss in a boatload of features as well. Just because 3dfx or Nvidia will have higher fill rates, doesn't mean they will the best cards (except for competition level quake players).

-AJ

[WMTJ]

What I think Dogbert is saying is if Matrox doesn't at least stay competitive where speed performance is concerned they will be left behind! "Being left behind" inevitably means they could go out of business! Really how long do you think they could possibly hold on the image quality crown? You have to be nuts if you think Nvidia isn't listening to the image quality argument. Believe me they've got the resources to throw more money into their up coming products than anyone else does right now. They are in bed with Microsoft and that giant isn't going to let such a serious partner's reputation go down the crapper especially with the X-BOx coming in under a year! Not to mention they're directly trying to take the business market away from Matrox!
I for one believe Matrox has the best image quality bar none. However if the rumored specs about the other manufacturers hold any water they are going to be upstaged in just a few months!
Does anyone remember when the Detonator 3 drivers came out? One of the Nivida PR guys said that no card could win the speed crown in 16bit or 32bit w/ the release of these drivers. Hint hint hint ATI. Image quality..... hint hint Matrox!!!

[Pertti]

As if Matrox wanted to become Ati, Nvidia...etc...

As a business user, I see the long product cycles and the support of old products far more important than few FPS:s in whatever shoot'em up.

Why do I prefer long product cycles ?
It helps me in standardizing the systems. If I bought couple of systems today and more in couple of months, I would very much like the systems to have same components (which I have handpicked myself).
As the components will be used for 3-5 years, there's plenty of time to wait for the next generation.

Also when you are using 1600x1200 or above resolutions, there is still no competition, even on a 17" monitor, the (small font) letters are still readable with Matrox cards. Try to do it with the shoot'em up cards day in day out

[This message has been edited by Pertti (edited 11 October 2000).]

[Jorden]

True Pertti (finally spelled your name right ),

What the gamers on here forget is that Matrox makes their cards for quality first, for people out in business offices who want high-resolutions in 2D, and enabling them to do some 3D stuff in CAD/CAM as well, coping with some of the things gamers might want to have. I mean, if you want to latest highest fps card, you buy nVidia's latest fps-boomstick. If you want to use it in an office surrounding, I don't think you're pressed for 120fps to stay alive in things as Lotus Notes, Word and Excel.

Really how long do you think they could possibly hold on the image quality crown?

Since they're still number one in quality, and everyone else is trying their best to get as far as Matrox has been for a long time, I think they'll be number one for some time to come

You have to be nuts if you think Nvidia isn't listening to the image quality argument. Believe me they've got the resources to throw more money into their up coming products than anyone else does right now.

Can you tell me one company who bought solely nVidia cards for their business users?

Jord.

[Greebe]

WMJT, Matrox won't be going out of business any time soon. Their consumer graphics card business is only one facet of a much larger company. There are very good reasons for the product delays, but since you haven't taken the time to read other pertinent posts here on the subject, I'll leave this alone with a "do a search".

Oh, another thing about NV's PR people, they have been a major "Beavus and Butthead" for several months and even one of them was a Matrox PR until not long ago. Masters of hype, confusion and delusion.

[Alec]

Also regarding image quality:

Nvidia is trying to reach Matrox standards, but remember that Matrox is evolving too. G450 is an example of how image quality can be increased over a product (G400) thought untouchable for years to come - I´m talking about 2D image quality here.

[rubank]

Pertti,
for ordinary office use 1600x1200 on a 17" monitor is a very unhealthy idea. The ordinary office worker isn´t 19 years old with 10/10 eyesight.

As for normal office resolutions there is nothing better than the graphics core of the Intel 815 m/boards! I´ve just installed some new HP Vectra VL400 with 815´s, and the 2D is by far the best I´ve seen. The earlier, like two months ago, comparable HP model had G200, and it looks like something from the 60´s in comparison (same monitor). The G400 is somewhere inbetween.
The monitors used here are HP 17".

So why would any co. like HP, Compaq aso. go for anything else (G450) for their mainstream business machines?

Matrox could be out on a limb in this marketplace.

rubank

[WMTJ]

Greebe,

I didn't mean to imply Matrox would be going out of business! All I meant to say is that seeing how technology is ever increasing at an exponental rate and they would be wise to at least reach toward the "high performance crowd" a little. I personally am not one of those "high performance" persons (I own a G400....nothing implied I just really like dual head and the superior quality) but it would be nice to have a leg up on the competition or even be able to a least compete w/ the competion. Yea, Yea the G.. whatever is coming and most likely will have a revolutionary feature or two that the competition won't have but will it be enough for even hourable mention!. You and I are partial to Matrox's hardware because we preferr high quality above all else however while reading these forums for the last 5 months Matrox is loosing more people then they are gaining! Mabey a few great reviews of a next gen. product form Matrox will put a favorable taste back in ex-Matrox users mouths!

WMTJ

[Himself]

I find the V3 2000 is good enough for me at 2D, I am writing this at 1600x1200@75Hz and it is perfectly readable, just not as good as 1280x1024, which is what I actually use. Of course, the solution to hard to read text is simply to increase the font size..

Testing @ 1600x1200..

; semicoloon good
: colon good
" quote average
' single quote average
, comma good
. period good
~ tilde poor
| pipe good
\ backslash good
/ slash good
# number good
@ at good
% percent average

A bit of it is the sheer tinyness of the font at 2 feet away. I only really need to make out semicolons and commas.

[EDIT]
Comments referring to the edit window as I was typing, looks perfect in display window.


[This message has been edited by Himself (edited 11 October 2000).]

[Jutai]

well here is the skinny... Matrox is a corporation and in the end the mighty buck is king, however we all know Matrox knows that part of gaining and keeping that buck is catering to your buyers and in Matrox's case the BIG BUYERS while everyone says the G450 is an embarassment Matrox is getting the job done (although it is not as big a success as the G400 was) but the "JOB" in Matrox's eyes is getting the OEM and buisness market because those markets are paying the bills. However I am not an OEM nor am I a corporate user I am an end-user and I love Matrox's products I love that they are feature rich and high quality but I still don't have the support from Matrox I'd like to see; for instance my friend just recently bought one of those Athalon T-bird 1ghz powerhouse computrs and he held on to his ATI All-in-Wonder card but his VIA chipset doesn't like it, he was a prime target consumer for a MARVEL G400 I told him about it and he was out the door to buy one... but he went down to the local FRY's Electronics and to his suprize there was no G400 Marvel on the shelf (although plenty of All-in-Wonders) he is still using his old card and waiting for a good product that has the features he wants. He will probably buy a Raedon All-in-Wonder as he just isn't ready to spend his money on a product he can only read about on the net. Stories like this are everywhere Matrox just doesn't have the consumer support for "END-USERS" we would all like to see. We can't force Matrox to do buisness the way we want them to but we can only tell them how we feel and let them decide if "we"(the end-users) are enough of the market share to put their efforts and recources into.
sorry for the rant,
-chris k.

[Maggi]

Looks like you're one of those that prefer 180fps over 120fps, i.e. quantity over quality ...

You wrote that the competition has better products, why then don't you just go out and buy on of those ?

[Dogbert]

Please guys, would you be a little more honest ?

2D quality - the Mill2/G200 were more than enough. There isn't a big difference between the G200 and the G400/450, nothing noticable on a 19" monitor.

3D quality - OpenGL still has some atrifacts in some games/apps. If you'd consider matrox as 100% picture quality amd the GeForce 2/Radeon "only" 80% but with 3 times the framerate, well, I'll let you do the calculations. A card should excell in everything and be balanced.

Features - nVIDIA stole the features that made the G400 shine and now people go for the GeForce MX. In the 3D arena, nobody can compete against the features offered by the Radeon, DVD - still radeon, VIVO - did I mention Radeon yet ? It even has an Mpeg2 hardware encoder ! just go read about it at sharky/firingsquad etc.

maggi, unless matrox shows a G800 based card pretty soon, so we can make a comparison,me (and many other people) will go for the ATi alternative. the G400 is already too old for the latest games (high res UT/QA/Carmageddon etc.) and I'm looking for a replacement. currently, the best offer is the Radeon 64DDR.
The reason I'm waiting is because I had a few matrox cards already (Millenium 1, G200 and G400, my friends had a G100) and I'm used to their quality and quirks.

Having a quality car that goes 40mph isn't that great, People need a quality car that goes 120mph. For my needs (19" monitor) I don't need Jaguar (RR, Aston Martin or whatever) quality, a BMW would do the job just fine.

Last thing, Matrox would like to be like ATi, everybody does, just check their OEM sales and you'll understand how big and rich this company is. Matrox is a business, the bottom line is money.

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I like to con people, but I also like to insult them. What if I could combine the two, I would call it - Consult !

[Indiana]

Originally posted by Dogbert:
Having a quality car that goes 40mph isn't that great, People need a quality car that goes 120mph. For my needs (19" monitor) I don't need Jaguar (RR, Aston Martin or whatever) quality, a BMW would do the job just fine.

Ouch!! Bad foul! A BMW is WAY higher quality than a similar Jaguar in nearly every aspect - reliability, max. speed, reliability, acceleration, reliability and -oh, did I mention reliability yet?
The only advantage of Jaguars is that they have the better looks, and even this is only true for the older models.

For most of the other things I have to agree with you: the new Matrox card is better going to be fast (as the G200/G400 were at the time of their release, BTW). Of course everyone here expects more than just speed of the G800 and it doesn't necessarily need to be the speed king, but at least roughly comparable speed to the available competitors products is a must.
Just look at the Radeon: it's slower for most realistic cases (who really plays in 1600x1200x32 on a 17"?) than a Geforce2 but the additional features and the better image-quality still make it a very competitive product.