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**Rags** · 15 April 2000, 19:56

Well, the old days are definitely in the past. This goes for everything, not just computers. I hear the same things about today's cars, the more reliable and advanced they become, the more features they add, can you believe they actually become more complicated? But, there is a way to beat the complication of all these things. If you stay on top of the new things you have to deal with, you will far fewer problems, try and learn how to do the new things that you weren't required to do before, and soon it becomes a habit not a cripple.

Rags

**Rohde** · 16 April 2000, 06:42

Yep, I just came home from a weekend of gaming. Two friends of mine had brand new GeForce (in 600 MHz Athlons 'puters), they too had lots of problems, even FPS complaints in some games.

Another friend, Voodoo 3 owner. Had massive FPS/lag problems, changed to old drivers from sometime in 1998...... problem solved ! (but then he only had 256 colors on the desktop)

So yes, G400 cards can be a pain..... But so can GeForce V3 and all other GFX cards.

The trouble is just as much in todays complex games as in the hardware. And the hardware also has and increasing number of features. Your MAX probably has a lot more places for potential errors than you Mystique did.

Torben R.

**mj12** · 16 April 2000, 11:45

I too love the visual quality of my g400max but I too wish for a more competitive card. In defense of geforce users, all these users that are having problems are most likely running athlons. For example, you have a Athlon 700 model 1. This cpu requires 50w as compared to the most demanding intel which is the 600 and 600b at 34.5w. Now combine this with the power hungry geforce and a slightly power supply and you will see problems. Another problem is the Via KX133 chipset which is not the most stable chipset. I had a problem out of the box with my g400max and my K7V mobo and W2K. As soon as I tried to load the video drivers for W2K it would blue screen. As I sat and lay blame against matrox it was solved by loaded the latest Asus mobo update. I just don't think that matroxs business strategy is the gaming market. I believe that numero uno is OEM and then through out an accpetable gaming performer for those who love matrox qualitly. I feel this has been demonstrated by matrox not pushing out cards as fast as nvidia. Ok, I'm stop rambling now.

**HollyBerri** · 16 April 2000, 13:44

I just don't think that matroxs business strategy is the gaming market.

I completely agree with this, mj12-- aside from the fact that before they began marketing consumer cards in a bigger way, their market was high-end graphics professionals, we have certainly seen enough generations of consumer cards by this time to infer that they are not going for a head-to-head conflict with Nvidia and/or 3dfx.

It is true that their knowledge of what consumers (as opposed to professionals) want is not as complete as it could be. But it's good enough, overall.

I think that what happened is that their core market (high end professionals) started wanting cards of the same visual quality in their home machines, and Matrox bagan making more consumer-level cards... but the consumers were playing games that became increasingly complex-- which forced Matrox into a market they were unfamiliar with, completely unexpectedly. Because they already did high-end rendering, they were not as far behind as they could have been, but I think that the expectations of gamers and game developers were different enough from what they had already been doing that they had to play catch-up, and are still doing so to some extent.

One way that they've cut down the gap is by not trying to be Nvidia (focused on being the fastest gaming card around). They cleverly took the path of sticking to their strengths-- high-quality visual display-- and then just added features that their users would find useful--like dual-head-- rather than trying to add features that game developers would find useful, like T&L. And in the meantime, they probably simply wait... one of these days, there's going to be an innovation that is going to be incredibly cool, that game developers are ready to support, that Matrox will be ready to implement first. Then I'll be laughing, oh, yes....

In the meantime, I personally find the statements of the GeForce owners who come by here to "crow" simply part of the same ego trip that often has caused them to buy the card in the first place-- and their usual inability to admit that everyone might not care about what they think is so important just annoys me.

Btw, noclan_member... I play a lot of old games as well, and I can run everything from Rise of The Triad, Wolf3D, Tomb Raider (#1), Azrael's Tear and GL Quake to Dark Earth, HL, Unreal, Thief 2 and most likely Q3 (haven't installed it yet). Only problems I have are with some old DOS games that are supposed to run under Win95/98, but don't, really (Return to Zork, for instance, which I had problems with under every video card I've ever owned).

So I don't know what the problem might be, but it does sound like you have a system problem. Most people do, it seems, from looking at these boards for nearly a year .

I too wish that the days of "pop the card in, play the game" weren't over-- but they are, and (not to slam you personally, noclan_member) I'm getting a bit tired of people whining about it....

Just my opinion (worth very little ).

------------------
Holly

Yeah, yeah, system specs, whatever...

DFI 2BXPL, Celeron 333@375, 2 sticks 128MB PC100 SDRAM, Maxtor 20GB HDD (woohoo!), Phillips Magnavox 107B 17" monitor;
Acer 10X DVD-ROM, HP 8100i CD-RW;
G400 MAX , Diamond Monster Sound MX300, Iwill Ultra66 controller, Trend 10/100 Fast Ethernet controller, Cirrus Logic v.90 PCI modem;
IBM PC (Xoltrix) USB webcam and Acer 620 USB scanner;
....and a PS/2 keyboard and mouse ( )

[This message has been edited by HollyBerri (edited 16 April 2000).]

**SCompRacer** · 16 April 2000, 14:25

Rags makes a valid point. Even trucks with diesel engines have cat converters, Anti Lock Brakes and computer controlled fuel systems on them. I thought I could escape this complexity the last part of my life, but it is a conspiracy you see. No one escapes technology these days.
--------------------------------------------
Rohde, funny you should mention.....was prodding around Deja ASUS MB forum and came across this:

I have a problem with my GeForce V6800 DDR.
It works fine in 2d, but as soon as it tries to display anything in 3d (not sortware rendering) it crashes. OpenGL will lock the machine up and DirectX will just flicker random graphics on the screen.

------------------
ASUS P3B-F * P III 500 * 256MB ECC RAM * Two Cheetah LVD's * Barracuda UW * DiamondMAX IDE * Plextor Ultraplex 40max/Plexwriter 12/4/32 * Hitachi IDE DVD * 2940U2W * SB Live * 3Com 905B-TX NIC * 3Com Courier V. * Hollywood + * Win 98SE, Win 2000 *

[This message has been edited by SCompRacer (edited 16 April 2000).]

**mj12** · 16 April 2000, 15:17

Good points Holly! I think another HUGE problem in the gaming community is sloppy code. Take for example UT. Tim Sweeny has gone on record numerous times stating how he hates directx and writes his own implementation of it. IMHO UT was rushed out the door because it had to get out before the highly anticipated Q3. API's are in place for a reason and to stray from them makes it even harder for video card manufacturers to write quality competitive drivers. Mr. Sweeny is also a glide whore which explains alot. Although I don't like the gameplay of quake3 It is a much better coded game.

**fds** · 16 April 2000, 16:59

The situation isn't much different with the other cards today. In fact I see GeForce users complaning and crying like a baby about how much work is getting NFS5 to run on their perfect piece of hardware, taking it for granted that the problem must be in the game.
On my G400 MAX I never had the slightest problem with it (except for some lackluster performance which was fixed by the one-byte change in dx7z.dll someone suggested) and I didn't have to install new drivers.

The old days were definitely simpler - but that's only because I was using my Matrox cards for 2D only and when 3D acceleration started to appear it was my Voodoo 1 and Voodoo2 SLI doing the 3D work.
And there was Glide. It was simple for developers and simple for us gamers, due to the fact it was specifically made for one kind of hardware. You just installed the latest drivers and there you go, a game working flawlessly, most of the time even under NT4 because Glide was running there like a charm (unlike D3D which NT4 never got).

The reason I was very happy with the Millennium II (my first Matrox card) is that it had the same PowerDesk with all the features both under NT4 and 95. The same wasn't true for any of the other cards I had before - a Win95 driver with some fancy graphics and not-too-useful features, and a bare-bones NT4 driver (if any).

**noclan_member** · 17 April 2000, 08:28

np Holly

i am an old fart.

But nowadays i just get sad over my card.. cuz the most used car is the old V2 SLI combo i got.. and with a kickass card as the G400MAX in the putter.. i just hoped that i could use it more..

Yep i do have some errors, and my powersupply is way to little.. im working on it..tryed for a 400W but have to settle with a 300W and use my old 235W as hdd and fan supply.

Im on the 5.41008 PD.. and it works ok so ill keep it in untill i hear that there is a better out.

The reason i nag.. is cuz it gets harder and harder to defend my beloved Matrox against the Voodoo and the GeForce. And when games wont work..you get pissed. But i know.. if i use a weekend fixes up my bios, drivers, reinstall W98SE, all my cards and stuff.. it might work way better..
Its just too much work for me lol.

btw The NFS5 thingie.. The demo worked in 1600x1200x32 everything on full, and i had a very good fsp. The look of that game is awsome on the G400MAX.
Now that i have the full game, i cant use the matrox. Crash at spesific plases in the game, and its too low fsp to steer my car. And we talking about 640x480x16 and every thing on medium. I know about the fixes..but they dont work..
The V2 SLI works ok soo ill just stick to it.

And no, im still a Matrox junkie.. allways been and allways will be.

Ahh we need a standard out there.. PSX2 on the PC.. every game works right out of the box, install 1 single patch..and your home free... well i can hope..

**Wombat** · 17 April 2000, 09:35

I don't think it's getting worse. I think too many people are just used to having a 440BX motherboard -- anything that's a major player in the market for over a year is probably going to have the development bugs worked out. Companies really only had to design for that architecture -- no VIA, no i820, no AMD.
I don't think it was that parts fit a better standard before, there were just fewer parts to choose from.

As for the G400 having more problems, it's a lot easier for me to deal with than my G200 was. So many hacks and workarounds with that card. I'm much happier with my MSI-6167/G400 than I was with my VA-503+/G200.

**noclan_member** · 17 April 2000, 13:28

Yes, noclan_member, we've heard about your 140+ games...
.... and as far as I know, the V2 SLI is faster than just about everything (since it does so little)...

...But if speed was your main concern, you really should have gotten a different video card; no one, neither manufacturer nor reviewer, has ever claimed that the G400 was tops in that category.

Btw, I notice that you keep offhandedly blaming the MAX.. but in your lengthy 7 post history of snide little comments, the only question you've ever asked was about the power supply... as if that could possibly be your primary issue in a system with:

2 sound cards (and one of them the Live!)

3 HDDs

an ISDN card

3 video cards

Mix-matched RAM sticks-- you must have 2-128MB, 1-64MB and 1-32MB to total 352 MB (oy!)-- in 4 DIMM slots, btw, which is a problem in itself, at times...

a CD and a DVD-ROM (possible busmastering issue)

2 gameport devices (both connected at the same time? Look at the rest of these specs-- betcha they are...)

unknown number of USB devices... plus a hub...

all formerly installed on a 95b system (and we all know how well 95b loved USB) upgraded to Win98 (and we all know how conflict-free an upgrade that is)...

and the gods only know what resource hogs running in the tray....
Yeah, right, noclan, your G400 is why you can't run your massive number of games. Uh-huh. I'm believing it....

... but if you believe it, why have you never asked what you could do about it, then?

Just wondering.

-------------------
Holly

---------------------------------------------
uhhm short answer to a long question :
When i first started to look for my solution to the problems i got, i worked my way thru the forum, untill i found the seach button at the top of the site. So i allready had read most of the post regarding the card. And i had downloaded the reghacs the drivers the tweakprograms and so. Nothing seemed to help..so i posted my first post at this forum. Well my rig changed a bit and the question i asked was allready in the soap box.. so i skiped it..
But since you drag it up again ill just correct you a bit, no offence taken or given

only the SB AWE64 installed-only pc100 ram-
no dvd-only 1 joystick connected at all times-no usb devices just the hub-w98se installed on a formatted hdd-the tray is so clean as i can get it.

And no i didnt buy the matrox for its speed, but for its great look the reputation of matrox, and my own experience with theyr products. Only demand i have is that the games are playable.

ohh and yes i do have 140+ games.. and im proud of it..cuz theyr all payd for..no copies

(ill watch my tongue better from now on )

[This message has been edited by noclan_member (edited 18 April 2000).]

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a bit sad about the G400 MAX

a bit sad about the G400 MAX

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