matrox vs voodoo

[nosuchluck]

i have just updated from a banshee to a g400 max.

the max may look much nicer and a LITTLE faster, but geez, it seems like half the games i run have problems.

i have done a clean install of win98 se. with the banshee, everything ran perfect.

the g400 looks and runs great, but i get some major texture problems in certain games.

jeff gordon's racing, speed devils, treadmarks, these games all have flashing rainbow colors where there should be textures. (this is the best i can describe the glith, and it happens in MANY games.)

it is really confusing, because it was so easy with the banshee to just run.

what is up with matrox and their drivers?

does anybody have the same problem and know what i am talking about? i can explain in more detail and possibly get some screenshots from hypersnap to give you an example.....

i am very happy with this board, but i guess i got spoiled with 3dfx and their "ease of use"

thanks in advance!

p3450, 128meg, sb live value, tv tuner, pioneer dvd, nic card.

[bigluker]

If you are still using the drivers off the CD, then dont say anything until you switch to 5.30 drivers. They are the only ones that dont have problems across many platforms. However, i have found even the 5.5 beta drivers to be rock solid. Only the minor glitches after exiting some games annoy me, but other then that less lockups and artifacts altogether.

I thought Voodoo was supposed to be the "speed demon" of video cards? I looked at the low texture resolution and the 16bit ceiling of the 3dfx cards and said "nah".

[paulcs]

I'm with bigluker on this one. What drivers are you using. If you're using the shipping drivers, then there's a possibility you're using drivers from July. There have been many updates since then.

If any of the games you're using are Glide-based, then there's a good chance they're going to run better on a 3dfx board. I'm not familiar with the games you're playing, so I'm not sure if this is your problem.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[cjolley]

Also 3dfx tends to leave junk behind when uninstalled.
Go into safe mode and make sure the 3dfx device is not still lurking in your system.
chuck

[Shoyu]

I have the same rainbow color problem in QuakeTF (QuakeWorld). Maybe it will occur in most Glide games.

[nosuchluck]

i'm using the 5.50 beta.....

everything looks stunning, just a FEW problems with SOME games, but heck, i can live with that, i'll just play the games that do work. most of the latest games run perfect and the color (visual) quality is truly stunning on this g400 max.

heck, the dvdmax option is worth the price alone.

anyway, thanks for all your replys guys.
i know many people are freaking over the geforce, but the g400 is my choice for gaming card of choice.....at least until june or so.....

[Alec]

It would be easy for a G400 or a TNT to surpass 3Dfx´s speed (and it does, actually) - Lowering the texture quality and the overall detail, using a 16-bit Z-Buffer and limiting colors to 16-bit.

But who on earth with a decent pair of eyes would want that?

------------------
INTEL CELERON 433, G200 SD 8MB AGP (BIOS 2.6), INTEL ATLANTA 440LX moby (latestly BIOSED), SOUNDBLASTER PCI 128, 96 MB SDRAM 66Mhz, 4.3 WESTERN DIGITAL EIDE CAVIAR HD, CREATIVE 24X CD-ROM, AOC 5VLR 15", EPSON STYLUS COLOR 200.
ALWAYS (ahem, well, almost) the latest Powerdesk and DirectX.

Remember folks:
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers"
Pablo Picasso



[This message has been edited by Alec (edited 25 January 2000).]

[adamw]

Most if not all games which support Glide,
looks much better on Voodoo2 than on G400Max
with 5.50 Beta Drivers.

Adam

[bigluker]

what kind of crack are you smoking and where can i get some?

Voodoo's will never look as good as TNT or G400.

they only have 16bit rendering, and only 256x256 texture resolution.

[IceStorm]

V2 SLI on one screen, G400 MAX on the other. Identical monitors, 1024x768x16bit. The game is Half-Life.

- G400's colors are brighter, richer. The image has more contrast. It's crisper, noticeably.

- V2 does "fog" underwater properly. G400 does not. Go to Gasworks and you'll see what I'm talking about. In DeathMatch, not having underwater fog rendered properly means death.

- The V2 SLI rig is faster in the raw speed department. Athlon 550 backs up the G400. PIII-540 backs up the V2 SLI rig.

- The G400 isn't all that much slower.

When I fight online, I use the V2 SLI rig at the moment. When I play a single-player add-on, I use the G400 MAX and crank the resoltion up to 1152x864 (little performance hit).

Just my $0.02

[bigluker]

you forgot to mention;

- the textures on the V2 are washed out and blurred, while on the G400 they are clear and vibrant, also a lot smoother edged because of the better garaud shading methods

- The filtering for the characters is much sharper on the G400, giving new definition to "high skin detail"

[IceStorm]

Under HL, trilinear filtering doesn't seem to work.

Trilinear filtering also exacts a heavy performance penalty when used with UT. I turn it off.

And to be completely honest, the washout of the V2's isn't enough to stop me from using them.

[Alec]

It´s easy:

If you can truly appreciate 3D (and 2D) image quality, you will use a Matrox product, despite the speed loss (which nowadays is ridiculously small...)

If you want to squeeze out any FPS that you can, and don´t give a sh*t about what´s going on before your eyes, then go for the 3dfx crap. I mean, who cares, as long as people is happy??!!!

3dfx opened their eyes for quality with Voodoo 5...

------------------
INTEL CELERON 433, G200 SD 8MB AGP (BIOS 2.6), INTEL ATLANTA 440LX moby (latestly BIOSED), SOUNDBLASTER PCI 128, 96 MB SDRAM 66Mhz, 4.3 WESTERN DIGITAL EIDE CAVIAR HD, CREATIVE 24X CD-ROM, AOC 5VLR 15", EPSON STYLUS COLOR 200.
ALWAYS (ahem, well, almost) the latest Powerdesk and DirectX.

Remember folks:
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers"
Pablo Picasso

[davet]

I've had to keep my Voodoo2 around because it runs my two favorite sims, Independence War and European Air War, better than my G400. Better in IWar's case because IWar's Glide only, and better in EAW because for some odd Direct3D/G400 glitch, textures are not bilinear filtered in parts of the terrain while in Glide mode, everything beautiful, albeit faded. Should've gone with a Voodoo 3.