Kyle (from [H]ard|OCP) starts the insults...

[Cheesekeeper]

Actually, I'd say Matrox started the insults when they suggested that we'd be prepared to pay $400 for this thing......

[blade-be]

Originally posted by monkeyboy

Funny how Kyle's not so quick to post about Nvidia's 'cooking' of their drivers that has recently been uncovered in relation to 3DMark2002.

You know what's REALLY funneh, there is no 3DMark2002 yet ! Now how's that for an exclusive

[jjn1056]

ATI quake issue not a bug!

They actually programmed the driver to downgrade the quality when running 'quake.exe' because this program's framerates were a common benchmark at the time. By downgrading the quality a bit they were able to raise the framerates and make it look like the card was better than it actually was. If you renamed quake.exe - to quack.exe and ran the program the hack didn't come into play and you got normal quality for the setting you choose, but less framerate.

Now, we all know we'll choose between quality and framerate, but the issue here was that ATI deliberately lowered the quality for that one game so the benchmarking websites would report the higher framerate and get people excited to buy the card. This seems like a very questionable thing to me.

Now eventually ATI removed the hack, and also over time released new drivers that improved the performance of the card, so in the end the dilligence of ATI has begun to pay off because people are starting to trust that if they spend $350 on a Radeon 8500 All in Wonder card they won't have an expensive paper wieght in 6 months, like those of us who bought the g450.

I don't know anything about the Nvidia issue you mentioned. All I was trying to say is that Kyle at HardOCP is a serious guy who really tests video cards and has done us all a service by being so good at testing and reporting things like the ATI driver issue. If he seems biased toward Nvidia, maybe that's because that company has been consistent in turning out quality cards on a reasonable schedule, with real driver support for all the modern OS's people use.

So when Matrox decides not to give Kyle a card to test one might be suspicious that they are trying to hide something, probably the fact that is card is a little late to the game to be completely competitive with ATI and Nvidia when is comes to gaming. However this is not a completely bad thing since the 3D performance of the Matrox card is not it's only feature. The card has other great features that are unique and if you need then, go no further than Matrox.

All I am trying to point out is:

1. Don't diss Kyle because he likes Nvidia. He's got good reasons behind his feelings AND he is a serious asset to the video card comunity.

2. I would be very nervous to buy a $400 video card from a company that has had such a tough time being consistent in supporting their community, both with timely, quality drivers for current OS's for older cards and with new innovative hardware.

Maybe some of you have gotten decent support, but many other have had the opposite experience. This is why I said their bad karma is coming back to them. It will take a lot of work on the part of Matrox before I can honest tell people to shell out $400 bucks for their video card, unless you have money to throw away.

[Pace]

I'd take these comments from Kyle seriously. He was one of the people that broke the news about how ATI cooked their drivers to benchmark well in Quake (by reducing video quality when it noticed you were running 'quake.exe') so that people might be fooled into thinking the videocard was better than it actually is

And what about the NVIDIA 3DMark "feature" then? He's slammed them *real* heavy.

blade-be: Well done! Next you be telling us we've spelt Maxtor wrong!

[Pace]

1. Don't diss Kyle because he likes Nvidia. He's got good reasons behind his feelings AND he is a serious asset to the video card comunity.

2. I would be very nervous to buy a $400 video card from a company that has had such a tough time being consistent in supporting their community, both with timely, quality drivers for current OS's for older cards and with new innovative hardware.

1. He's an asset? Maybe over pointing out the Quack fiasco, but as I've said above - your lack of knowledge about the NVIDIA 'fiasco' shows he's been a liability over that then.

2. When have Matrox not had timely, quality drivers for any cards? Your G450 eTV? Video tools, not drivers. I know of 2 faults, the G200 ICD problem, and the Win2k Video Tools problem. Any others? If you can make a reasonable list, I'll think about posting some ATi/NVIDIA lists too.