Quake 3 Videocard Shootout

[xippo@work]

I just read the article and I now have a bad taste in my mouth for 2 reasons.

1. The review: The site most likely didn't use the proper driver's (or lack of TurboGL driver). These stats seem quite low for the Matrox card and I believe is not the true representation of the performance of the G400. Also the review was only for pure fps, it does not make mention of card features or picture quality. The G400 Max should run head to head with the TNT2 Ultra. NOTE: the site says that they will update the scores with the TurboGL drivers.

2. Matrox: What is up with Matrox? I know the Matrox will release the G450 soon, but it won't much better in performance than the G400 Max. The G800 will probably be released late this year, much after the Voodoo4/5 and the last crop of cards from Nvidia and S3. Matrox is falling behind again, just like before when we were all waiting for the G400. I also have and issue with the quality of drivers that Matrox has released in the past. Your driver performance should be on par with ever other manufacturer, at any given time. It is totally unacceptable to release poor drivers for your card in today's market. I know now that Matrox has their drivers on par with everyone else, but this should not have happened.

--------
Now don't get me wrong, I am a Matrox lover. I have had Matrox card in my system since the original Millennium card came out. I love the picture quality, features and the performance of the G400. THIS IS WHY I BOUGHT MY G400. But there is a large contingent of gamers (like me) who need the best performance to play games at very high fps. This is why I want the G800 and I want it now!

I'm glad I got that out.

footnote:
rjcarr: Yes your correct. This is Thresh's site. It's games and fps, period.

Rohde: I am with you, exactly what you said. You can tell the difference from 30 to 60 fps. If somehas 60 fps and I have 30 fps and we are of equal skill, I will get stomped.

xippo

[Corwin_Brute]

Saw the article too...
They will soon update it with TGL reports.
As for what as been said in this thread :

1) 30FPS/60FPS : the reason why a high FPS is needed is indeed slowdowns. If I have 30FPS in a quake-like, it is likely to go down to implayable framerates when the action heats up. Quake 3 is so fast that a single dropped frame can mean death (things are much better in UT).
Also, it is true that, because 3D cards only display frames one after the other (no motion blur like in a movie), higher framerates are needed to achieve smoothness (the actual framerate needed depending on the individual).

2) Another GeFarce/G400 comparison. No way! I love my G400, I'd never ever swap it for a GeForce, but we'd better face it : in order to play Quake 3 (and other FPS), the GeForce is the best card out now. Period. For FPS speed is king, and the GeForce is faster. The point is although I like FPS, my computer is not a Quake console.
And for every other task (including non FPS gaming), the G400 is IMHO the best all-around card, for its superior image quality, more than decent speed even by today's insane standards, and additional features (did I hear DualHead ?).
So, I'm not going the NVidia zealot way by wanting DualHead mentioned in a Q3 shootout.

3) Thresh and Q3 bias : the article was aimed at Q3 hardcore players nothing less, nothing more. Image quality means nothing to these people. In fact, I'm often wondering why they bother playing Q3 whereas with today's hardware, they can easily get 300FPS in Doom.
As a mere human, I couldn't stop laughing the day FS'testers said there was a noticeable difference between 130 and 180FPS. Makes me wonder what kind of monitors they use, and where they got those super cool bionic eyes... ;-)

------------------
Corwin the Brute



[This message has been edited by Corwin_Brute (edited 16 March 2000).]

[paulcs]

I wrote a rant about this in the Soap Box. The review was using old drivers and no TurboGL. Let's face it, you have to work to get the G400 to run that slow.

Anyway, here's my rant. It's too long to repeat here:
http://forums.murc.ws/ubb/Forum9/HTML/000308.html

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[JWilliams]

Or get them to do DM9 ;-) http://forums.murc.ws/ubb/Forum4/HTML/002478.html