Tom does the RT2000!

[Greebe]

Alice, Baldur's Gate II, Oni all have updates coming out for them because the games were released before these issues were corrected.
If you wanna bitch, please at least know what your talking about first. At least that way you won't appear to be a TROLL talking out his arse!

[rubank]

Greebe,

a quick browsing through available litterature reveals that trolls seem to have neither genitalia nor the rear end you ass-ume.
They do have big mouths though, but then again, so do ...

[Rags]

I also expected "proper" DualHead support under Windows 2000. One could argue that perhaps due to the slow release of Windows 2000 drivers from Matrox it ended up being too late for Microsoft to change the Windows 2000 architecture to support DualHead.

One's argument would be flawed. Why? Because MS knew very well what was needed to allow dualhead/twinview/etc. They chose to take the easier way out and stick to the more NT4 like setup in that regard. MS will probably fix this, but I expect one will have to upgrade to whistler when it's released. This will be one of MS's selling points of Whistler.

And as to SMP support the 5.04 shipped in Apr 2000 and the 5.20 Nov 2000. Over six months.

Sorry, but I believe it was the 5.14 drivers that included the SMP fixes, 5.20 was just a WHQL release that was probably in development and testing before the 5.14 drivers. If you think that 5 months is a long time to get a problem fixed, try doing a search for the known game issues with the GeForce cards, and see how many have been fixed to date. They usually take as long, if not more (or ever) to get the drivers done. ATI, let's not even go there, you should know better than to bring ATI up if you even have a clue.

Who knows, but I hope and expect that we will be seeing it at some point in an OS other than Win9x based ones, don't you?

Yes, I do hope and expect (as do other Matrox Dualhead and nVidia Twinview users). But when you wait on MS, your wait will be quite some time.

This OpenGL issue was a known issue to Matrox Technical support and was only resolved in the latest driver released before Christmas. You can check on the offical Matrox forums and you should be able to see lots of postings from people with problems with the previous drivers in OpenGL games.

That link that sent me to the Matrox forums was dated Dec. 4, 2000. The drivers that fixed the problem were dated Dec 22, 2000. Not too shabby, I think you just proved my point. Most of the OpenGL problems I have seen in games on the Matrox forums were due to misconfiguration, or game patches. We use PC's, so what's new about that? You think Matrox is the only one who has users that don't always set their PC's up correctly, or will have problems with a game that is coded improperly? I am sure you don't, because if you had done some research, you would see just as many, if not more patches for games to work with different video cards.

That is the specific OpenGL issue I was talking about as an counter example to the claims of slow driver released due to extensive testing. Sorry, but that testing sure doesn't seem to have occured in that case.

Again, that was a real issue, and it was fixed in a very timely fashion. I don't think that less than three weeks is anything less than outstanding. Try getting that done at nVidia.

Hence, in my opinion, the driver support offered by Matorx is inferior to some of their competition.

I think your argument is very flawed, and you have not supported your argument very well (if at all). What drivers do you see on the internet for other cards right now? Do you know the issues they have? I do, because I have one from ATI and one from nVidia at the moment. Matrox may not be the fastest rendering card out there, but they do have some of the best support you can find. You can talk to real people at their forums, not automated response, you can get real help from them, and their drivers are some of the best out there. I don't think they are perfect, but they sure are getting a lot better, and the competition sure is lacking in that dep't. Just because you see a "leaked" driver from nVidia every other day, doesn't mean they are better. Those leaked drivers are more times than not horrible IMO. Try getting tech support from your "leaked" drivers for a GeForce. You would see.

Obviously, you seem to find the extra goodies Matrox's driver package offers more compelling than myself.

I haven't really even brought up the goodies. But, they sure are nice if you want/need to use them. Maybe if you took the time to use them as well, you wouldn't have as many problems.

Rags



[This message has been edited by Rags (edited 02 January 2001).]

[Rob M.]

Well, I don't know how long ago I posted the quake3 r_showtris 1 bug because the bug report forum doesn't have any threads dating previous to dec 4 now.

I do know that since they've acknowledged the problem, I've tested 3 driver releases only to find the problem still persists (the first drivers came out only a couple of days after I reported the problem). They did fix it for the title screen with the latest drivers, but that's useless anyhow...

[R.Carter]

Originally posted by Rags:
That link that sent me to the Matrox forums was dated Dec. 4, 2000. The drivers that fixed the problem were dated Dec 22, 2000. Not too shabby, I think you just proved my point.

I think the point was the sloppy QA since the November 2 drivers broke those OpenGL applications. Using the previous drivers the games worked fine.

It seems that it takes a while for Matrox to acknowledge problems.

And I think that Baldur's Gate 2 was out prior to the November 2 drivers. There are a few posts on the Matrox forums dating from September 29 about BG2 problems. Those posts indicate that the README file says Matrox cards are supported but have some some issues.

So one would assume Matrox sould have been able to test their drivers and attempt fixes to support Baldur's Gate 2.

[Rags]

Yoko Ono,

Part of this is in reply to your other thread that got locked:

I still stand by my assertion that Matrox has some of the best, if not THE best, drivers and support in the consumer graphics card industry. I am not going to sit here and bicker with you, but when you come here and say that since the win2k drivers don't support another (unreleased) OS as proof they don't, well that's just insane. I am sorry, but you are off your rocker if that's the best you can come up with.

RE: Your OpenGL problem with BG2 as an example, first problem noticed with drivers on nov2, fixed less than 7 weeks after. Not a whole lot of time (remember there are still problems with many games using other cards that no one knows if their card mfr even acknowledges them). Matrox acknowledged the problem, and said a fix was in the works. And they stood by that. I still don't see this as bad (other than it got broke in the first place). Yes, there will always be issues with drivers, there is no such thing as a perfectly stable/optimized/compatible driver. If there were, well we wouldn't be here would we? I doubt this forum would be as popular as it is. As far as saying that I am just pulling things out of the air (in regards to configuration being the root of problems in tech support), I assure you that I am not
I would also venture to say that 80-90 percent of Tech Support cases are improper setup.

RE Windows2K dualhead: Again, you are the one who has NO knowledge on this. Matrox had drivers for win2k internally for quite some time before they were released to Joe Public. I know this because I was using them. Remember just because Joe Public can't get drivers for an unreleased OS, doesn't mean that those who really need it can't MS knew very well what needs to be done to get Dualhead and Twinview to work, and they did for some time, and they sure did have access to Matrox's drivers.

RE Me being mean to you: I have not flamed you once. I am stating facts and my opinions. You should be able to discern the two. When I say "I believe", that's my opinion.

Rags

[Rags]

http://forum.matrox.com/mgaforum/For...ML/000306.html
Here is a good point of reference. For some dualhead issues with win2k that is

Rags

[DGhost]

Rags - yes, the dual monitor stuff will be a big selling point to Whistler Pro.

Ono - In response to your thread that has been locked, here are several points:

1) while you never stated that you were a beta tester or not, a) you are complaining about a lack of support for an operating system in beta, thus it most likely affects you, and b) if you were a legit beta tester, you would know not to post gripes here. thus an inference between a) and b) shows that you are using a beta operating system and you are not legally supposed to be using it. Feel free to correct me on this.

2) For me, the 5.14 drivers did not fix the SMP issues, despite the fact they are WHQL qualified. Does this seem to point out that SMP is not as high a priority to Microsoft as it is to Matrox?

3) If you are complaining about the fact that drivers get broken by Matrox, go try ATI or NVidia - my GeForce256 card will not run under Windows 2000 w/ any drivers newer than the 5.51 set - and there are leaked 7.17 drivers available. And you get pissed because Matrox breaks OpenGL slightly with one release? I would challenge you to find a sub $600 video card that has perfect drivers in Windows 2000 and is less that 1-2 years old.

4) you keep providing BG2 as an example - try running a GeForce under windows 2000 or an ATI Raedon in any OS and look at what its like. And you say Matrox's QA is bad? i know people with a Raedon that causes it to run smoother than anything in Quake 3, but under Elite Force it runs like molasses. Kinda puzzling, seeing as Elite Force was based on the Q3 engine. and Matrox has bad QA?

5) you keep pointing to the Windows 2000 DualHead issues, despite the fact that a) Matrox never said that you would get true dualhead functionality in NT4 or Windows 2000 and b) a Microsoft employee flat out said that it is a problem with Windows 2000 and that it will not be fixed until the next major release of Windows. I would also challenge you to find anything but a rumor that says it was to be fixed in SP1.

And, on a side note, i never claimed that you didn't know what you are talking about - even if i do disagree with you. You know what you are talking about, but that doesn't mean that i agree its right. But its your opinion and you are entitled to it. Just as i am entitled to mine...