G400Max or Gxxx vs Radeon 8500 in terms of Image Quality

[maesus]

Hello guys,

I am a happy user of G400Max for about a year. I have given an opportunity to upgrade my display card (here $$$ comes ). I am avoiding Nvidia series due to lack of confidence of the image quality that Nvidia cards to put on my Sony 19" flat monitor.

Thus, I am looking for Radeon 8500. Running at 400Mhz DAC, vs 360Mhz DAC, Radeon 8500 seems to be able to shoot higher refresh rate and higher resolution compare to G400Max. That's in terms of speed. But I wish to know more, about the Image Quality of Radeon 8500.

Any one here ever experience Radeon 8500 in terms of 2D/image quality? How does it compare to G400Max? Can you give me some opinion on this??

Thanks in advance.

[getmatrox]

I'd also like to know. I've had my G400 since it was "new".
I'm upgrading in the next few days and am leaning toward ATi on the unknown premise that they *might* have better image quality than nVidia.
I'm tired of slow performance and ESPECIALLY tired of the rumors of the GXXX. Seriously, that's sooo old now, isn't it?
When Matrox releases the next G400 killer, I'll switch back, but unfortunately, my username should read: hadmatrox.

[Inray]

Unfortunately i don't have any 8500 experience yet but i wouldn't trust ATI any more. Last year i tested Radeon AIW and 64VIVO on 21" CRTs with very very bad results in terms of quality and video signal stability. All those issues had nothing to do with ATI's buggy drivers. IMHO Radeons have serious hardware design flaws.
Anyway recently i saw a friend's new ATI 7500 connected to a 19" expensive monitor and i didn't like its quality on high res and refresh (1600x1200x32@85 and 1280x1024x32@110).
BTW 400Mhz DAC doen's mean anything as there are many cards using 350/360 DAC but none of them competes Matrox in terms of quality.
New ATI cards may have the speed and the quality if you compare them with NVIDIA blurry video but G400Max 2D video quality is far the best. Even better than G550/450

Regards

[Greebe]

Dac speed has no bearing on image quality, only the Max res/refresh. Unless you push a monitor to the extreme upper limits of which only the best top end monitors can handle this will be of no benifit.

I bet the best it'll do compared to a Max is a 4 on a scale of 1-5... with poorer color saturation, clarity and resolution(graininess).

[maesus]

Thanks. Can anyone comment on the 2D quality for Radeon 8500, GF3 Ti500 and GF3 Ti200 instead? Please, thanks.

[Bad Sector]

I replaced a G400 Max with a Radeon 7500 and am quite glad I did. 2D is everything the Max was and you can actually play games as well. 3D performance is between a GeForce2 Pro and Ultra. The hydravision software ( Appian ) is terrific. Numerous hotkey effects to snap windows from each monitor back and forth, gather, tile, cascade, max, minimize etc.

I know people are crazy for the 8500 but the 7500 is no slouch and at this point in time, the 7500's drivers are WAY ahead of the 8500. Granted, the 8500 is more feature rich, what with truform and smoothvision ( Pixel shaders), but that stuff isn't even enabled yet in the current driver sets.

I'm using the 7500 with a couple of BIG Sonys and the drivers right off the included cd. I haven't had any probs at all with the dual display or games that I play ( UT, Half Life, Red Faction, NFS-Porsche, etc.)

As far as 2D with ANY nvidia card, .......get serious. They look like hell.

Just my $.02 ,

B Sector

[dZeus]

Bad Sector, which monitor (brand/model/size) did you test on, at which resolution and refresh?

[Clevor]

Sorta been there, done that

Well I have a Radeon VIVO and a G400 MAX, and I've been toggling cards back and forth so the difference is fresh in my mind.

I'm pretty sure the Radeon VIVO looks about the same as a 8500.

The Radeon is a tad sharper in 3D, but the G400 MAX has a bit more vibrant colors. Both cards are too sharp for their own good, so the jaggies are pretty bad.

The FSAA on the Radeon works, but it just blurs everything, and doesn't help much on really big jaggies. Of course on the Matrox, it's a non issue.

While I'm on the subject, I also have a Voodoo5, and let me tell you, 3dfx knew what they were doing. The 3D is not as sharp as a Matrox or ATI, but I bet this was done ON PURPOSE. This is so it blends in better with the 3dfx FSAA, which is extremely effective. Games look better on the Voodoo5 at 1024x768x16 and 2xFSAA than 1280x1024x32 on a Radeon, because I can still see the jaggies on the Radeon. Furthermore, the game plays a bit smoother on the Voodoo5, so it's a no brainer there. So you guys who knock the Voodoo5 for not having driver support - dudes, the card is magic. And the card scales up with processor speed, that's why 3dfx was sticking with it on the Voodoo 6000.

As for 2D, the Radeon with the latest Omega drivers looks very good indeed, but not quite as good as a Matrox, particularly at 1600x1200. Bit cleaner whites and better contrast. The Radeon is set up with a bit too much brightness and contrast on default settings (sort of like cheating).

I am hoping the new Matrox gaming card will combine the sharpness of the ATI and the color vibrancy and gamma of the G400 MAX, with effective FSAA, which is an absolute must.

[maesus]

I guess I might settle for Radeon 8500 for RM920 (USD 243 , RM3.8 = US$1) sounds like a good offer. I hope this card won't disappoint me ...

[Bad Sector]

Originally posted by dZeus
Bad Sector, which monitor (brand/model/size) did you test on, at which resolution and refresh?

20" is a Dell D2026T ( desktop is @ 11x8, 32-bit, 100 Hz)
19" is a Gateway VX900T ( desktop = same as above)

I play games mostly at that res or 12x10.

[AJ]

Maybe this is too late but....

2D IQ of some of the cards I've owned (and tested on a 19" Sony G400 @16x12 & 12x10, 85Hz).

Points Card
9.0 Radeon 32MB DDR
8.0 Radeon 8500
7.5 Gainward GF3
4.0 Elsa GF2 - Help! I think I'm going blind

Bogus 10 point scale I just made up - oh damn, it matches Greebe's scale for the 8500 .

The Gainward GF3's 2D IQ is _way_ better than any other NVidia card that I've seen or used (like the Elsa GF2), and actually is acceptable. The 8500 is only a little bit better, but the drivers s*ck under WinXP Pro (6.13.3286).

There was one set of drivers for the Radeon that I would have given a 9.5 (almost Matrox quality), but later ones dropped a bit, but did better with games. Why the 2D IQ varies with ATI drivers is beyond me. Last I checked (3281s), the Radeon drivers for XP were only slightly better than those for an 8500 in games in terms of stability (generally much slower though!).

I haven't tried the G400 under XP (Home) on anything larger than a 17" monitor - but my wife hasn't had any trouble with the drivers (5.72). She doesn't play any FPS type games though Obviously the 2D is rock solid at a lower resolution.

The Nvidia drivers (23.10s) are ahead of the Radeon and R8500 drivers by leaps and bounds under XP, though I had some issues with them. The 2D on the GF3 is grainy and the contrast seems wacked, I can't seem to set a completely comfortable level for brightness and contrast, even after messing with the gamma settings (If I could fix that I'd probably be reasonably happy). color saturation seems to be about the same as the 8500.

I don't know why the 8500 drivers aren't up to par in 2D. If you are a game player and are willing to wait six months till the ATI driver team works out all of the kinks, then go for it, other wise, I suggest looking elsewhere. If you don't play games, stick with Matrox. The 8500's drivers are a bit grainy and the color saturation suffers some compared to the Radeon.

Oh, the only GF3 Ti I've seen was a VisionTek, they looked very good in 2D, but that was on a 17" monitor.

I'm debating whether or not to keep my GF3 or 8500 at this point. If the 2D were a bit better on the GF3, the 8500 would be out the door!

-AJ

PS Matrox - please make a gamers card again, pretty please with sugar on top!