Announcement

**Phil MURC** · 5 July 1999, 09:57

Thanks Paul - I've stuck them on MURC's G200.

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Phil (MURC's G200 : WWW.G200.COM)

**armybob** · 5 July 1999, 21:47

Curious..I thought the G400s were not out yet. How did you pick one up in SF? And was this a MAX or regular? If these benchmarks are correct (I sorta doubt if the cards not out) In quake2 its about 5-10fps slower then a TNT2 175/200 based on p3-560 scores.

Now how well does it run q3a? are we gonna have to wait 8months for matrox to get there q3a optimzations up to nVidias speed/quality.

-armybob

**Phil MURC** · 5 July 1999, 22:45

Yeah - I can confirm these scores are accurate.. And as for being slightly slower than a TNT2 175/200 - that's great! The TNT2 has very mature OpenGL drivers, looking at how much faster the G400 fares in Direct3D just shows us what it will be capable of when it's OpenGL drivers undergo further optimizations (PIII/3DNow! specific too perhaps). This is no 'carrot on a stick' as it was with the G200 because 5% is nothing and the benefits of bump mapping (EMBM) and the VCQ2 coupled with the awesome display quality (I have used a CL TNT in my system - it was wonderful to get back to proper white when I went back to Matrox!) makes the card a far better buy - and remember - Paul hasn't even tried to overclock this card yet.

Anyway - G400's ARE for sale, Scan here in the UK are selling OEM boards - I do not know about Retail yet - but you are likely to have more luck over the pond on that one if history is anything to go by.

Good hunting.....

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Phil (MURC's G200 : WWW.G200.COM)

**armybob** · 5 July 1999, 23:19

OK sounds pretty good. Now here is the test for paul to do (or you). I just read a review of the G400 at 3dhardware.net & it shows the differences between demo1 & crusher. Now demo1 the G400 is only a few fps behind the TNT2, crusher on the other hand the card gets creamed.

Now, thats what I was worried about. Matroxs bad drivers surfacing once again. Its so sad to. I would give up my TNT2 Ultra for a G400 _IF_ the ICD was better. Yeah its totally playable when 1 monster is on screen, but damnit I want to DM on q3test with 10people on screen.

Its really a shame to, the hardware of the G400 is simply awesome. I do miss Matrox's kick ass 2D display however this TNT2 is "good enough" because well, it runs my q3test awesome. Matrox needs to get off there ass and hire better OGL coders.

Its a shame when a company has the best hardware on the market, but its software pales in comparison to its main competitor.

-armybob

**paulcs** · 6 July 1999, 02:20

I'm currently experiencing some driver issues, although I suspect they have more to do with my previous card than my G400. They're *typical* Rage Fury lockups, and although I manually uninstalled the Fury drivers and did a search through the registry, I believe I missed something. I suspect a reinstall of Windows in my future.

I think Matrox is on the right track, given the improvements I saw from driver ver. 5.12 to 5.13. I'm hoping Matrox will post an offical G400 driver upgrade soon.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

**cpld005** · 6 July 1999, 05:59

I too am GREATLY suprised and overjoyed with the performance of the G400 I got this weekend. If anyone's looking for one in the LA area go to computer shows there was one vendor who had a gang of them, with one small hitch, no Dualhead. Everything else is identical to the Vanilla G400. My 3Dmarks are way higher then my Viper V770 non-ultra overclocked to 165/190. The image quality in 2d is noticable better on my monitor then the V770. And my games run better (I don't play quake tyupe games so the card is perfect for me, now I just need to figure out a way to boost up the clock speed cause att he default 125 the card barely even gets warm, I think it might be able to go as high as the Max, or at least 150 without freakin out, time will tell. But all in all I love my new card much better then the V770.

**armybob** · 6 July 1999, 08:24

Paul:

You still don't say how good it runs on a better benchmark like crusher or massive1. According to 3dhardware.net benchmark the card is fine in demo1 which shows 1 monster on screen (yay) but then loses more then 50% of its framerate & gets slaughtered by a TNT2 in a heavy benchmark like crusher, massive1. Can you please run the benchmark besides telling us "i think matrox is on the right track". Its obvious from 3dhardware.net benchmarks its ICD needs MASSIVE work for anyone considring to use the card for DM.

It makes me so mad as a consumer because it _SHOULD_ be slaughtering the TNT2 but its drivers are so pitifull you have this kick ass hardware that isnt being used to its full potential.

-armybob

**Quantum** · 6 July 1999, 10:42

Hmm, I only got 46.2 at 1024, on a Celeron 450A, with 128MB RAM. I shall try again tonight, and see if I can tweak it further. What Q2 setttings do you use to run these benchmarks?

**paulcs** · 6 July 1999, 12:01

Sorry about the Three Fingers demos. I uninstalled Quake II as part of a bug hunt. I had the installation file for Kingpin demo stored on the testing machine, so I installed it and posted some numbers.

Kingpin appears to be quite a bit more demanding than Quake II, and I believe the numbers are a legitimate piece of the puzzle.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

Announcement

G400 Q2 Benchmarks w/PD 5.13

G400 Q2 Benchmarks w/PD 5.13

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