About current situation

[Amiga Blitter]

Matrox must pull out a new g-card to stay in the game. The competitor are invensting in other market's (example nvidia gelato). Remember that the major os company (MS) are going to release os's based on 3d graphic's acceleration and, trust me, i've tried many demos on the LH os that use massive graphics acceleration in the same manner that a videogame do this. So in the near future we have no difference between gamer cards or desktop os cards.

[Wombat]

Damn AB, what in the world is wrong with you. Matrox isn't <B>in</B> the game! And they won't be.

And you're wrong about the "gamer vs. desktop" cards. Gaming capability adds cost, and there are always people unwilling to pay that cost.

[Amiga Blitter]

i disagree!!!. The NG desktop will be rendered in 3d and then displayed in 2d. So if you want a powerfull fast 2d desktop you must have a powerfull 3d chip like a hard-core gamer graphic card.
The nv40 already use the 3d engine for the 2d rendering.

[DGhost]

the ability to render a desktop has very little to do with the ability to render a game. it uses far less polygons and far more resources for the textures. the card has to have fairly hefty memory bandwidth (which most new cards, even the low end ones do), but can settle for far lower core clockspeeds with far fewer pixel pipes with far less pixel/vertex capabilities per pipe (ie, a much cheaper card).

there will always be a difference between "gamer" and "desktop" cards - games will always push the hardware far further than the desktop applications ever will.

oh, and how have you played with LH and it's next gen desktop compositing engine when it has not even leaked out? the closest that has come is one of the leaked copies of LH allowed you to run a command line service that enabled *some* of the features - and ran like total ass, like the rest of the developers builds of longhorn. any indications of LH that you have right now are flat out wrong - guaranteed.

get your head out of the clouds. this thread has gone on long enough.

[Nappe1]

there was somewhere LongHorn UI requirements posted. acording that information, LongHorn still has 2D mode UI available for the cards / systems that do not have enough power or 3D isn't really any use. (for big servers as instance.)


so, no need to matrox update their 3D cores.

[Amiga Blitter]

Yes, but now the difference is tiny. Imagine that i have a 2d desktop, well, but i can't switch in 3d mode due to lack of support by my g-card.

[Wombat]

Originally posted by Amiga Blitter
Yes, but now the difference is tiny. Imagine that i have a 2d desktop, well, but i can't switch in 3d mode due to lack of support by my g-card.

No, it's not tiny. Desktop is usually something like "top of the line product 3 years ago." It's always going to be a big difference.

[SpiralDragon]

you know .. i think we should all pool our recources togeather and buy out matrox.... then put haig in at the helm.... ...

i know farfetched fantasy idea... but i had to get it off my chest

[borat]

I wonder how much it would cost to but big M? if you could get a few thousand people each with a few thousand dollars then you could be talking about a ballpark figure. Imagine the news story it could make - enthusiast users buy up graphics company. pipedream but would be absolutely awesome, would generate a great deal of publicity too!

[schmosef]

M is a private company and, judging by the way they've managed to bungle things, probably have way to many skeletons in their closet to be viable for a new upstart.

Their value would be in their brand recognition, established niche market customer base, and patents or other intellectual property that would serve to complement the portfolio of an established company like ATI or nVidia.

[Nicram]

Don't forget that big M isn't only graphic cards. There are video cards, image processing software/hardware, vision processors etc. M is cooperating with goverment & military maybe so... it's not so simple

[xortam]

Yes, Matrox is still a viable company ... just not for most home users. DVI killed the big advantage Matrox had in IQ so they have to go back to concentrating on the GPU performance and features. Who knows if Matrox will ever try to compete in the home market again?!

[SpiralDragon]

still its an intreting dream

[schmosef]

Originally posted by xortam
Yes, Matrox is still a viable company ... just not for most home users.

Wouldn't that be the point of us buying them?

I wouldn't want to invest, just to perpetuate the current business model. They might be very viable in the industries in which they've decided to focus, but not in any way that would interest a user base such as ourselves to take them over.

Matrox tech is just too far behind the industry that does interest us to ever be a player again. Imagine how far behind they'll be in another 3-5 years. There won't be any comparison. Matrox will have to license chips from ATI just to come out with a Longhorn part.

So what I'm saying is that we couldn't make a go of it. I know, I know, I'm being a buzz kill.

A better idea would be for us to start a company that licenses nVidia tech but implements it properly so that 2D is crisp and 3D renders accurately. The cards would cost more because of better componentry and would benchmark worse because we'd take all the rendering shortcuts that affect IQ out of the drivers, but we're used to paying more, getting less, and feeling smug about it!

[Unam]

"but we're used to paying more, getting less, and feeling smug about it! "

Could not have said it better myself! It pretty much sums up Matrox Graphics Division for that last 3 years.