OK, this is something I wanted to address for a long time.
Matrox is generaly not a performance leader when it comes to raw speed. Ask MURC faithful and they tell you it is features and visual quality that make the Matrox card stand out.
I aggree to point. I can't see my self without Dual Head, and the speed/quality of 2D is by all accounts top notch. But does the same hold for 3D? While I have seen people raise concerns over the OpenGL wrt professional apps, I will limit this 3D games.
The number of instances where is Matrox visuals are less than stellar is very large. Half-Life perhaps being the biggest one. Flickering textures and "see through walls" in UT (and no this is not a "feature"). Reports of similar problems and z-buffer issues in other games, blurring in Q3A, and so on.
While the colours, and for the most part detail, look great, I can't see anyone calling the 3d visual quality top notch given all the strange texture problems. Does the competion exhibit the same problems? Do Voodoo5 and the new Nvidia cards look worse than G400 (assuming one uses equal resolution, 32 bit colour and no texture compression or FSAA)?
Why are we concerned about EMBM, pixel shaders, and more polys if can't make the current games look right? The benefits of FSAA and texture compression in FPS games may be debatable, but the fact is textures and lights that flicker in and out of exitance as I approach a wall are very noticable and atleast by my definition poor visual quality.
Matrox can't claim speed when it comes to 3D, can they realy clain top visuals?
Matrox is generaly not a performance leader when it comes to raw speed. Ask MURC faithful and they tell you it is features and visual quality that make the Matrox card stand out.
I aggree to point. I can't see my self without Dual Head, and the speed/quality of 2D is by all accounts top notch. But does the same hold for 3D? While I have seen people raise concerns over the OpenGL wrt professional apps, I will limit this 3D games.
The number of instances where is Matrox visuals are less than stellar is very large. Half-Life perhaps being the biggest one. Flickering textures and "see through walls" in UT (and no this is not a "feature"). Reports of similar problems and z-buffer issues in other games, blurring in Q3A, and so on.
While the colours, and for the most part detail, look great, I can't see anyone calling the 3d visual quality top notch given all the strange texture problems. Does the competion exhibit the same problems? Do Voodoo5 and the new Nvidia cards look worse than G400 (assuming one uses equal resolution, 32 bit colour and no texture compression or FSAA)?
Why are we concerned about EMBM, pixel shaders, and more polys if can't make the current games look right? The benefits of FSAA and texture compression in FPS games may be debatable, but the fact is textures and lights that flicker in and out of exitance as I approach a wall are very noticable and atleast by my definition poor visual quality.
Matrox can't claim speed when it comes to 3D, can they realy clain top visuals?
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