The two Matrox "interviews"

[Jon P. Inghram]

And just think, we can all look forward to waiting a year after the G550's released to get a OpenGL->D3D wrapper that kinda works with QuakeGL, then another year for a "real" OpenGL ICD that partialy works with some stuff!

[mdhome]

Hello Jon,
I dont have a song coming on but I dont think it's necessarilly so. Afterall they have put a lot of work into and gained a lot of experience from writing the G400 drivers. I'm sure that any new card released will have much better drivers than we had with the rollout of the G400. Who knows, maybe this is the reason for the delay.


regards MD


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Interests include:
Computing, Reading, Pubs, Restuarants, Pubs, Curries, More Pubs and more Curries

[Liquid Snake]

What! Gurm is using smilies again! What happen!!

I agree with Holly. If the "G550" is only marginally faster than the G400, I am certainly not getting one. The G400 has lasted me almost two years, and just now, it is starting to become inadequate. I'd want my next card to last at least 1.5 years.

Heh, cool, that was my 900th post.

[This message has been edited by Liquid Snake (edited 22 April 2001).]

[dZeus]

it's very easy.. these speculations suggest that the G550 will be a business-orientated card. Aks yourself this question: would you be content with a business class card? if so, buy it, if not, stop whining and wait for something better

maybe in the end those category of people will be made content by M as well.......

[Tempest]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by HollyBerri:
I don't think OEMs care much at all about their chips being "up-to-date". I think that OEM manufacturers know perfectly well that their end-users don't know jack squat about the parts in their PC, or else I wouldn't have to build my own. </font>

That's right - when the first "brand name" P4s shipped, they were all equipped with... You guessed it, TNT2 M64s.

[This message has been edited by Tempest (edited 22 April 2001).]

[HollyBerri]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">However, those OEM contracts don't renew themselves, and without new substantially new technology, I can't see Matrox sustaining their OEM buisness. [snip]You see, even the big OEMs like to bundle cards that are 'up to date' with power and features, and with a reasonable price.</font>

I don't completely agree, rylan... I don't think OEMs care much at all about their chips being "up-to-date". I think that OEM manufacturers know perfectly well that their end-users don't know jack squat about the parts in their PC, or else I wouldn't have to build my own. Most OEMs don't even tell you what parts are in their boxes-- I usually have to look at the BIOS/Device Manager to find out what's under the hood if I actually have access to the PC (say at work). If I'm shopping... well, you try finding detailed specs at an OEM sites and I wish you luck of it, and of course you are probably locked out of all the advanced functions in a store. They'll <u>maybe</u> tell you about the video chip if it's one with a lot of publicity behind it, but usually it's listed as something like "32MB onboard video with 3D". What brand? Guess you have to buy the box and crack it to find out, if you really want to know.

But most people who buy a pre-assembled PC do not want to know, and are terrified of cracking their boxes, which is why they spend a couple hundred bucks on those in-home service contracts, after all.

At this time, the GeForce chip is produced in huge quantities, and everybody who's heard anything at all about PC innards has probably heard of it, so it's a good option for OEMs to buy... they can put a recognizeable brand name on their bulletted features list. But it wasn't that long ago that OEM boxes were full of Rage 128 or S3/Virge chips that were by no means all that close to "up-to-date", but were "good enough for government work" and were cheap enough to make the box cost-effective.

Seriously, do you think that someone going into CompUSA, or a similar PC department store, knows jack about T & L, or DDR video memory, or even anti-aliasing, for that matter? Or would care if they did? And there are lots of people who have shown up on these very boards and claimed they found the
Voodoo x000 cards more than acceptable. Heck, I myself know quite a few ATI All-In-Wonder owners who find their cards fine for games, even though I can see where they fall behind the visual quality of my MAX. So while Gurm and I might find B & W "kinda chunky at high resolutions", the majority of OEM end-users:[list=a][*] may well not be playing B & W (what, at work?)[*] may well not be running at high-rez[*] won't notice the chunkiness anyway.[/list=a] So if the GeForce chip has higher-name recognition and is cheaper, it's a better deal for an OEM. The "up-to-date with power and features" argument doesn't hold water for me.

And Gurm--- I see your point, but I'd like a bit more info on the "couple new features" and the "hefty" speed boost before I shell out to replace a mostly-still-satisfactory MAX, since I'm not one of those people who buys a card, then sells it to some schmoe after 2 weeks to buy the next big thing. If I'm going to have the upgrade card for 1.5-2 years, I don't want to buy a G550 and find it's either a minor adjustment to the G400 core, or a slimmed-down version of a new architecture that I could get in full a few months after-- or am I the only one who remembers the G100....?

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Holly

[Joel]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">You guessed it, TNT2 M64s.</font>

And those were the biggest pieces of crap I have ever seen in my life. The first thing I did when I got my new PC at work was to pull that piece of crap and replace it with a G200 that is running great under Win2K without any problem for what I do at work.

Joel

[HollyBerri]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">The first thing I did when I got my new PC at work was to pull that piece of crap and replace it with a G200 that is running great under Win2K without any problem for what I do at work.</font>

Hey, extremely cool you can manage to do that kind of thing at work, Joel!!! What, do you work midnights like I used to?

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Even if it were only... say... 33% faster... I'd still get it.</font>

Yeah, I could accept 33% faster as well. And I've always felt that the video core has been very strong since the G200... whatever you want to throw at it, it would take in stride --mind you, I'm not doing 3D rendering or CAD/CAM. But on the other hand, while I never had "mystery problems" with the G200, I've had quite a few with the MAX, and I feel that a moderate speed increase would not be enough to encourage me to upgrade.

I want a significant speed increase, and enhanced stability. A stunning new feature (or two) would be nice, but not a stopper if it wasn't there. Or maybe what I want is a better OS that manufacturers can write stable drivers for (that still runs my installed software)...

[Joel]

Actually it was pretty easy considering that I work in the PC Tech support area. We have quite a few machines here at work that have G200s in them.

Joel