Want to get a G400, but have to know how it performs in games...

[Patryck]

I'm very new to this product but must admit that I heard a lot of good things from my friends (who never really tried out nay of this stuff yet!!!)
I have a UltraTNT2 at the moment, but want to change it to something alse, which can take a FSB of 133 and higher.
My TNT maxes out at 140 when playing Unreal Tourney.
The G400 has a excellent reputation of being able to handle very high FSB with ease.
So, how does it do in 3D gaming? As good as the Geforce, UltraTNT orr better or worse?

Thanks for the time in advance...

Patrick
http://surf.to/patrick_helms

[Belshy]

I've got a G400 MAX.

The image quality is second to none, both in 2D and 3D. Simply the best I've seen on any card.

Raw speed can't match the Geforce, but the difference is negligible on games like Q3A. My brother has virtually the same system as mine, but has a Creative Annihilator Geforce card. At 1024 x 768 32 bit colour everything on high (Vertex, bilinear) his runs Q3A at 43.5 fps, mine at 39.9 fps.
At 640x480 with everything on low and at default colour depth, mine runs at 72 fps while his is 70 odd.

However, in Q2 the Geforce absolutely STOMPS on the MAX, with an average of 15 fps more than the G400 in every resolution. EG: demo1 at 1024x768. Mine runs at 70 fps, my brothers at 85.3 fps.

At 800x600 mine manages 83fps, but the Geforce runs at 115 fps!! I think maybe you can put this down to Matrox having to sort out drivers for Q2? I may be wrong though :0)

But the Geforce looks exactly like TNT2 (I owned the Guillemot Maxi Gamer Xentor 16mb TNT2 so I should know) and ain't as pretty as a Matrox G400. Where are the transform/ lighting games for the Geforce? By the time they arrive en masse I assume Matrox will have entered the T&L race.

I'm more than happy with my purchase, but it depends what you want, uber speed or ultra eyecandy....The G400 MAX does a bit of both, with an emphasis on eyecandy. :0)

Hope this helps!!

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P3 450, 128 mb ram, Creative PCI 16, Intel SE440BX2, G400 Max, Viewsonic E771.

[APV]

very good with D3D games, image very good too better than the 16MB TNT2 i replaced.

Dunno about opengl games, i don't play them much.

[Pace]

I don't know about the high bus speeds working on the G400's but I have a G400 32Mb DH and a TNT2 and I haven't had the TNT2 in my main machine since I got the G400. It looks very nice, does 1600x1200x32 in 2D with ease (looking a lot better than the TNT2) and of course the second monitor (a 15" I had) gives lots more pixels to play with.

3D performance is comparable to TNT2's but if you want Ultra performance then get the Max.

HTH

Paul.

[Rik]

Patryck:
What sort of Motherboard do you have ?
With a 133mhz FSB, most boards still run the AGP at 66mhz so you might find stability is not a problem whatever Video Card you use.
Going from a TNT2 Ultra to a G400 MAX is a bit of a 'sideways' upgrade (sidegrade?) - performance will be VERY similar. But you will get Dualhead, and that warm Matrox glow inside...

[Alec]

The size and quality of the monitor counts, too...

If you have a 14 or a 15 incher, you won´t explore the capabilities of the G400, not in 3D resolutions and quality, AND especially in 2D - in this area, above 1024x768 the G400 is unbeatable. If you don´t use this, you´ll be spending money for nothing... unless you buy a very good 17" monitor.

People worry with AGP 4x, 133Mhz FSB, and forget the resolutions in which they (can) play and the quality they (can´t) get with their 15" monitor.

[This message has been edited by Alec (edited 08 March 2000).]

[absalom]

The g400 can handle those high FSB with no problem. (At least mine can) In my old celery setup I ran my g400 at a 103 agp bus speed (1/1 divider). Totally stable, no lockups, and great agp benchmarking (2x transfers, sidebanding, etc...). Now that I'm at really high FSB (143mhz), I'm forced to use a divider (2/3). That puts my g400 at a 95 bus speed. It doesn't even flinch. The highest agp bus-speed I've manage to get my g400 to boot windows into is 112. Beyond that and I will get a blank screen or it will lock up beyond the post. So... unless your running a nutty bus speed like 180mhz on a BX chipset, then you should be fine.

[nufan]

what mobo/cpu combo do you have? And does a faster AGP bus help in quake?

(which reminds me - i have to check to see if mine is at 2x.. windows reinstall might have broken it)

-]nufan[-


------------------
win98/win2k/linux
Dual celeron 366@550
abit bp6
128mb ram
9gb udma/66
18gb udma/66(running on the udma/33 controller)
g400 32mb DH
yamaha 4416e 4x4x16 cdrw
creative 2x dvd drive
mx300sound + mx25 digital out (a3d digital sound, baby)
generic ne2000 isa netcard

[absalom]

AGP performance is a moot point. It would *slightly* help if your running cranked (32-bit) textures in q3a. But things get choppy due to bandwidth limitations. Slightly quicker level loads (precaching) in UT is another gain. AGP isn't really useful for much... other than being superior to pci and an alternate method of texture storage. It basically sucks compared to current onboard video ram performance. A g400 with SGRAM has 3x more bandwidth than agp 4x's potential. Texture compression is the future....

[tIgGeR]

Patryck,

When I first installed the card I was disapointed cause UT was slower and uglier that my VOODOO2 SLI setup. Then I got the drivers and game setups tweaked in. WOW!!

The G400 card is AWESOME!! get this...

UT and Q3 at 1024x768 32bit at an Average of 38FPS ONLINE! With lostsa features turned on.

D3d is slightly faster
OpenGL is slightly prettier..(IMHO)

This is an OEM 16MB DUALHEAD I got for $105 measly dollars. gogocity

Now you must have a PIII to get these kind of results but I knew that going in so I bought 500e coppermine flip chip at Frys for $240.

This way I get Dualhead(gotta love it) with near GeForce performance for $350.00. BTW..I used my old ABIT BH6 to OC to 667mhz. ROCK solid stable..blah blah.

I'm VERY happy with this picture!

Thumbs up on the G400!!

tIgGeR

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The Wonderful thing about tIgGers is tIgGers are fast deadly and sneaky. ;-)

[Bronx]

This is my setup:

AMD K6-2/333 @ 400
G400 DH 32 (Max? dunno, don't care)
Epox MVP3E-M
128MB PC100 SDRAM
SBLive! Value
AOC 14" ni Monitor

Since I can only run a max of 1024x768 because of my cheap monitor, I can run ANYTHING as high as it will go. I get super smooth gameplay in Q3A, SystemShock2, and pretty much any other game I want (with everything turned on). I think that as long as you get frame rates to please YOUR eye, thats all that counts. I am sure I could do a lot better, but since coming from a G200 a few weeks ago (awesome card in its own right) I can't be happier.

But thats my own opinion. I WOULD recommend this card to anyone that asked. It ROCKS!!