P650 - Better than I thought...

[Rusty Mainframe]

I thought I would pass on my experience so far with my new P650. This card exceeded my expectations and I must say it's by far the best 2D card I've ever used. A close second goes to my old G400 Max.

I bought an ATI Radeon 9600 Pro, but had a serious ghosting problem. I replaced it with another only to find I had the same problem. Being a graphic designer, I then turned (back) to Matrox. I was reluctant, but so far I don't regret the decision. The text is so crisp and sharp on my Sony monitor and the performance is great.

I have an ASUS P4P800 mobo, and I had to apply the Logofix update to be able to read the post messages and get into the BIOS screens (I was aware of this problem already and was prepared to deal with it).

I occasionaly play Unreal Tournament at 1024 x 768 and at the highest quality settings and it works like a charm. Just as good as my previous Radeon 9000 Pro card. No lag or image problems.

I miss some of the multimedial apps with the Radeon, but the quality of this card is worth it. I must admit, I've never seen a bigger passive heatsink on a video card before!

If you're llike me and do a lot of 2D work and play a game once in a while, then this card is an excellent choice. It's nice to be back with Matrox again.

I can only imagine that the Parhelia is an awesome card.

Thanks for listening.... Russ

[mart4494]

What type of monitor are you using Russ - CRT, TFT?

[Che Guevara]

Now, I think P650 is a great card for work, but the old Unreal Tournament doesn't need a fast gpu (you can play it on tnt2 too ), it is cpu and ram limited.
For playing some newer games like generals or ut2003 I think P750 would be okay if high quality settings aren't really necessary.
For a real great gaming experience, the Parhelia is a better choice, but of course , for older games or 2D-games a P650 performs as good as a Parhelia.

Just my opinion.

[Rusty Mainframe]

I'm using a SONY G400 CRT (19").

Russ

[Nowhere]

Blah Che, for 2D games even G400 16mb is good here

Too bad 2D is dead... I have a feeling that Lionheart will become the last great 2D game...
Though characters in it are technically 3D and backgrounds are renders

[XHotKolaX]

What do Cell Shaded games count as?

[Nowhere]

Haven't seen one in motion...so dunno if it has more 2D than 3D feel...

No, wait, I downloaded once video of XIII. And I must say it's tought to decide (though I think that the whole thing had very 2D feel because there were mostly cutscanes with static camera in it - during gameplay it wouldn't have this feel I guess)
But overall, technically this isn't definetely 2D (Lionheart mostly is, and looks to me completely or almost completely 2D)

Anyway, not much of a difference.
2D is just dead...

[paulw]

Can any one tell me what the TV Video output with this card is like??

[leech]

How could 2D be dead? Well, maybe for making new commercial games, but think of Mame, I don't need any 3D for that Besides, all desktops are still 2D only, and really a 3D desktop would be pointless unless we outright get rid of our 2D screens. Just a thought.

Leech

[Nowhere]

leech, clearly I haven't been talking about desktop

And Mame doesn't count - not only the games you play are mainly old ones (or in the spirit of old ones, arcade style, and so on, you get the point, polished old ideas - though I have to admit, I enjoy recently published 2d vertical scrolling shooters ), but also Mame doesn't mean 2d - it emulates arcade machines, not 2d arcade machines only - there are 3d titles working under Mame already.

But most probably there won't be another new great (hope you know what I mean) 2d game...