Electic.com Matrox Interview next Tuesday

[Admiral]

I dont't really care about how many frames I get in Quake 3, I want to have a decent framerate in Alice, STV and future games based on it (SOF 2, Return to Wolfenstein Casttle..). I also want them to be glitch free.
If the ICD is fast, it usually displays some sort of corruption and when it's glitch free it's slow.
The only thing that was fast and had no corruption (in the game) was TurboGL, but ever since PD 6.0 they screwed the movies (only first frame shows with sound still playing in the background).
Think they can solve that and possibly add support for more games, or does TGL present no more interest to them ?

Despite that, they still rule
(love the smily Joel)

[Rags]

Yeah, I like that smiley. We need to come up with more

[az]

Some things...

How fast is the G550 going to be with the rumored specs? Around GF2 level? A little slower? That's enough for me as long as I don't have to spend a fortune on the card.

How long till DVI will be standard? At least one Matrox product cycle - most of us that are interested in games will be upgrading by that time anyway, even if we bought GF3's now.

We'll just have to wait and see... I'm confident that Matrox will deliver, but as I said I don't think the G550 will be a gamer's solution (The card after the G550 MIGHT be). I just have one gripe about Matrox: They could tell their fans what to expect! If their next card won't be fast in 3D, they can't hope to sell much of them through retail channels, so why do they keep telling us to wait? We'll buy other cards anyway - And if their next card WILL be fast in 3D, why don't they announce something to water our mouths, keep us informed and keep us from buying Radeons or Kyro II's?

AZ

[Joel]

That smilie is Rags creation.

Joel

Here's another one.

[This message has been edited by Joel (edited 29 April 2001).]

[Indiana]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by az:
And if their next card WILL be fast in 3D, why don't they announce something to water our mouths, keep us informed and keep us from buying Radeons or Kyro II's?
AZ</font>

Well, what keeps you from buying a KyroII or Radeon?
It's quite clear that Matrox won't have a product that's really compelling even to the casual gamer in the next few months (of course we have to wait for the final G550 specs AND price here, but then Matrox was never cheap).
So why not buying a KyroII now if you want something faster, it's IMHO cheap enough that you can still get the new almighty Matrox G8000050 when it's out.

I bought a Radeon sometime ago since my aging G400 was not anymore up to the task - nowadays I'd most probably buy the KyroII, even though I'd first have to check Hercules' 2D quality.
Nothing there preventing me from buying the G*insert some insane number* if it fits my needs.

[This message has been edited by Indiana (edited 29 April 2001).]

[az]

Indiana:

I'm not saying something keeps me from buying a Kyro II (other than that it's not out yet ), I'm just saying Matrox could tell us to wait for their next card or not to wait. They'll not sell more slow cards if they'll let us wait, but they'll keep their fans at least a little happier.

And neither do I have the Money nor am I willing to buy myself a new graphics card every 6 months, so I don't want to buy a Kyro II for a few months, even if it is cheap. (Well, as I'll buy myself a new computer this summer, I'll just wait and see what kind of performance the G550 delivers and then buy a Kyro II and live with it till the G800MAX is cheap enough to buy )

AZ

[2Whyzzi]

We're looking at 'What came first: The Chicken or the Egg' problem:

On one side, if you don't have a product ready for market - there is no point telling the world about it cause they ain't going to get it until its ready. So you don't tell anyone. After time people eventually give up on you and your company and figure their needs are fullfilled by another product and move on.

On the other side if you relase something too soon, too buggy, the reviewers rip you and your product to shreds, comsumers refuse to buy your products and you end up like S3Graphics.

Where do you draw the line?

Personally, I'd prefer to know that a product is coming. Make realistic (thats the key, of course) product annoncements, send engineering samples to sites like Anandtech and Tom. Get them to find the bugs for you. If at all possible, structure it like the release date of Duke Nukem 4 Ever. 'When its done' sounds like reason enough for me to wait maybe a few months to a year.

Addmittedly, I've jumpped ship. I'm tired of waiting. I was almost one of the masses that almost bought in the nvidia MX card, until I learned of the the stupid Texture Compression Bug, Their Trilinear Trick, and lack of EVBM support. Most of this I wouldn't have known about if I didn't own a Matrox product in the first place (in essence, I wouldn't be a regular forum reader).

Then I caught wind of the Radeon LE, although slightly more expensive ($125cdn for an MX vrs $149cdn for the LE), doesn't suffer like the MX, is great for overclocking and features DDR Memory.

Now, if I had an official press release, with a list of expected features -- something that I could a have used to do a semi-objective product comparison, there is a real good chance I would have waited. But its been almost two years. I can't compare something (like a GF2MX or Radeon LE) with nothing (rumoured G550).

So, like I said, the Radeon LE, I figure it will fit my needs, I felt it was the right price, and should last a good year or more until I feel the urge to look at buying another card.

This is my hint to Matrox to change their PR angle, or more people are going to jump ship.

Peter
(2Whyzzi)

[This message has been edited by 2Whyzzi (edited 29 April 2001).]

[rubank]

HollyBerri,
you´re absolutely right, it is offending.

I, for one, is not a hardcore gamer and I don´t play Quack, but there are other games and apps that require more power than any Matrox card currently delivers.
And I do want the best drivers possible, not some downscaled "this is what you need" replacement.

And when Matrox tries to tell us what we want and what we need it´s just ridiculous.

rubank

[az]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by 2Whyzzi:
Now, if I had an official press release, with a list of expected features -- something that I could a have used to do a semi-objective product comparison, there is a real good chance I would have waited. But its been almost two years. I can't compare something (like a GF2MX or Radeon LE) with nothing (rumoured G550).</font>

That's exactly my point. Please Matrox, tell us what we can expect from you! There's no reason not to tell us how your next card will perform: If it will perform, you should tell us to keep us from buying other cards, and well... if it will not - we wouldn't buy it anyway, but it would be a nice move to tell us (you wouldn't sell more if you don't tell us, so there's no reason not to).

AZ

[Joel]

Joel

[dZeus]

nice icon joel!!! I would like to have that one in 640x480!

[2Whyzzi]

AZ: I figured it was, but I didn't see it spelled out that way anywhere else in the thread, or in the forum - for that matter.

[DentyCracker]

Read the Electic Matrox interview. Dan Wood spoke at length about .........NOTHING AT ALL

[orangejulius]

I liked the Matrox pool.

[Six Of One]

nVidia only has about 800 employees (not engineers) worldwide and still they managed to produce 2 lines of gfx chipsets (TNT, GF) in 2 years. Matrox apparently hires/trains around 300 young individuals every year and keeps a good deal of them. Still they didn't manage ro produce a new line of gfx chipsets in 2 years... i mean, the G200 MMS and the G4x0 are good, partly innovative (in the way that they combine things previously uncombined) products but there is hardly anything "new" about them. What makes you think that this will change anytime soon?

Anyway, i think the interview was ok. It gave hope to the ones wanting to hope (hi, AZ ), and reason to be angry to those who want to be angry (ahoi, SteveC ). Me? I can only shrugg. I like my G400 and it does anything i want. I also like this board but i don't think Matrox will do anything spectacular in the short to middle time.

And one short note on the "you'll have to wait and see". It could also mean that they know nothing is coming - while we still wait.

Regards