I'm still a MURC'er

[Jake]

Hello my fellow MURC'ers.

Since yesterday I have had a new GFX card in my home PC. It's the much reputed and critizised GeFart 3 Ti200. My model is an Asus 8200T2 Pure.

I just want you all to know that I'm still a MURC'er by heart!

I just found that I had been playing new 3D games a lot lately, and wanted a taste of the new 3D effects and speed that this card offers. On top of that it was a descent price compared to the expensive normal GF3, Ti500 or Radeon 8500. 2D image quality and speed seems as good as my G400, but then again my new Samsung monitor, that I was going to buy has been delayed from the distributor, so i haven't been able to tompare in high resolution on a descent tube.

My first experinece with an nVidia based card have been mixed (as expected). This card offers "Fast writes" and "Sideband addressing", but neither was enabled upon install of the 23.10 driver. So I had to mess arond with the registry to enable these. To my dissapointment enabling them didn't give me any increase in speed. Then again I guess this card is fast enough as it is.

I would like to use this time to thank you all for your friendship and support over the years and let you know that I will still frequent the boards to discuss other matters than all things Matrox. My old trusty G400 will live out the rest of it's life in my old PC, that I gave to my dad recently. It will serve him well.

I will off course wait, like everyone else here, for Matrox to release the G800 or whatever their next gen card will be called. May it sport many new features and great speed to make everyone jealous and once again flock to the banner of the Mighty M.

Best regards,

Jake

[ZokesPro]

Who really cares what video card you have, if you get made fun of or treated any differently because of what you own than that's just wrong.

Your still a Murcer to me!

Unless your running a Millenium II with an M3D! (kidding) (that was my setup for a short while until I got a G200)

[Alec]

If your dad has any kind of problem running Word, we´re here for him!

Even if you´re running a Ti200, two forums can be of use to you, General Hardware/Software and The Soap Box.

[Jake]

Thx guys.

[Nuno]

This is one of the most mature and civilized BBS on the internet (not that I have visited them all )
So don´t expect to be bashed because you bough another video card brand.
The Ti200 is a fine card. It´s the first card from Nvidia since the TNT2 that has an acceptable price/performance/features ratio. It really hasn´t nothing to be criticised about, except you have to hand-pick the brand to get a decent 2D.

2D image quality and speed seems as good as my G400

Now that´s good news, generally Asus/Nvidia videocards really used to have sub-par 2D quality. A friend of mine (not very computer literate) bought a Asus V8200 to replace a G400 Max and he returned his Sony E-500 for repairing
Maybe they got it right this time with the Ti versions?

Anyway, congratulation on the purchase

[SmellYfeeT]

I am actually in the process of buying a new video card! and my choices were the 8500 and GF3 Ti2 by Asus. Let me know if you have any problem with that card! I generally can't really decide to go with ATI or Nvidia. As far I can check the prices now, the 8500 oem and the Asus Ti2 cards(retail) are the same price. but I don't really trust ATI drivers.

[Novdid]

Go with the 8500, that's my opinion...

[Fat Tone]

I'm in the same boat...

I've just got an 8500LE. Whilts swotting up on this, I spent some time on the Rage3D forums, and I have to say that the MURC is a LOT friendlier place!!! It's a lot smaller, but so much more intimate

I'm not leaving, as my trusty G400 will stay in my 2nd PC (once all the bits are together).

The 8500 has some issues: There is a 'shimmering' that will occur on the 2nd head if you scroll using a mouse wheel, but I have determined this is a driver issue, not faulty hardware. Apparently Win2k doesn't have this problem, but 98SE & XP does for a small minority. I solved it (partly at least) by turning off smooth scrolling.

My Classic Athlon is the bottle neck for this card. If you look at MadOnion, I get 5440 3dMark2k1's (G400 was ~1440), which is about right for this CPU. A XP1800+ will give nearer 10000.

At £165 I think it is a bargain

[[GDI]Raptor]

Matrox......

Matrox is still good enough for me, I use my computer for 2D aplications, and I don't play so much 3D games. Red Alert 2, and other strategy games is very dood at my MAtrox card! Monkey Island 4 to....

G400 is good enough for me, and at my work we have G550 in all computers at our IT department!

But when.... Matrox is out wuth their next-gen card.... Then I'll get it!!!

[Alec]

Same here. Extend that to my whole computer. Whatever I´ve been needing to do, I still haven´t had enough will to buy better hardware. If I upgrade my gfx card, I´d better upgrade my own system, cause it´s definitely low-end. So, I´ll buy a new system someday (mobo + gfx card + processor + HDD + memory), keep the rest of the stuff I have, and with the leftovers, build a 2nd system just for fiddling around.

BTW, look at this article:

http://www.overclockedcafe.com/geek.htm

[Bohrn]

mind if I just copy and paste in a couple of days Jake? I feel the same way. I love the G400, but it is just a hair too slow now and some of the newer 3D features are pretty cool. Tell us what you think after a couple of days with it.

[Jake]

slice'n'dice all you like

Sure you can!

After having run a few days with my Asus Ti200 card, I really must say that it looks pretty descent.

Speed in 3D in simply superb. It overclocks to 220/500 with coolbits (It's the maximum possible in coolbits for a ti200) without a hitch.

THe new DetonatorXP (23.11) drivers hasn't given me any hassle at all. I have been playing a lot of Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and it scares me how beautiful and crispy the graphics are. I run it in 1024*768, 32-bit, all details to max settings, at a constant 90 fps. It might go higher bu I think it stays on 90 because of Vsync being enabled in the driver. i haven't tried disabling it yet. No need to really.

When I get my new Samsung 959NF that I have on order, I let you know how it runs in higher resolutions.

I was thinking of installing an older (21.xx) driver set just to see what they improved in the new release and compare benchmarks. nVidia is really hyping the new 23.11 release, saying that it should give us a tremendous performance boost and new 3D feature, previously unused in hardware. Check their site for more info.

At default speed I get 6700 3DMarks in 3Dmark2001
At 220/500 I get 7700 3DMarks.

Oh btw. should you decide to buy this card, be prepared for scene 4 (Nature demo) in 3DMark2001. If that doesn't make you soil your pants, NOTHING will. DAMN, it's pretty!

I really hope games like Neverwinter Nights will use the GPU like the do in the Nature Demo. It has been hyped by Bioware and nVidia as it among other things should use the new "pixel shader" in the GF3.

Enough babbling. I have never seen a Radeon 8500 in real life, so I can't really make a comparison. All I can say is that this card is good enough for me. (And THEN some)

Regards,

Jake