Splash The Cash

[Michel]

Originally posted by Maggi
Kick me, but I'd go for the 256 megger, but only if it supports reverse AGP, ie. in case your regular RAM runs out of space, unused GFX RAM could be shared with the system at AGP8x transfer rates ...

You forgot the ability to make an ram drive out of the graphics memory

I would pay up to € 750 for an 256 megger if it has matrox quality and record breaking speed.

[efty]

Any more details?

I am assuming that matrox is not using XBA. There was a comment of matrox guy at an interview about using a 256 bus mem interface. Can someone extrapolate on that one.

I would say that the 256 mb ram model is a dual one. This would help explain the pin count on the chip and the memory onboard. 128mb for each chip. Also it could be possible that the 64bit bus line of the G550 was not a downgrade from the itended g800. It could be used as a cross bar configuration 2*64 to access separate memory modules independetly. Two chips would easily achieve 20gb of memory BW with so sort of hiden surface removal and a cross bar configuration.

What I would like to know more about is if the programable risc TnL processor will be used in this chip. I wonder if the programing will be done on the fly as the application demands certain TnL features. That would be great, much like trasmetas code morphing that adapts to the software requirments and gets faster as the application runs(of course up to a point).

Comment on this

[Torian.cc]

Hola Chikos,

for all of you, waiting for the next 3D Bomb, read this (maybe someone of you, that don´t find this article...).
Articles like this one let my hope grow
(grmbl, baaaad english...)
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Matrox Graphics offers support for New World Order

Matrox are proud to offer support for new 3D shooter from Project Three Interactive


Project Three Interactive’s upcoming release, New World Order, got yet another boost today as Matrox explicitly pledged their support for the highly anticipated shooter. The game, being developed by Swedish studio Termite Games, is set for March 2002.

“Matrox Graphics is pleased to be working with Termite Games and Project Three Interactive in insuring that our hardware is fully compatible with New World Order,” says Mike Drummelsmith, developer relations manager, Matrox Graphics. “The visual effects in New World Order are simply stunning and, when paired with Matrox’s trademark image quality, result in an action packed gaming experience.”

“We are, at the moment, rapidly getting to the final stages of development, so now it becomes very important that we sort out which graphics cards suit the game best and guarantee smooth gameplay and great graphics at the same time,” explains Jim Malmros, Termite Games. “With a state of the art graphics card company like Matrox backing us up, we are able to make sure New World Order can show off everything it was designed for.”

“We are extremely pleased that Matrox is supporting us in the way they do,” says Robert Ercevic, CEO Project Three Interactive. “They have been of great assistance and I can’t wait to play the final game on their cards. We anticipate this to be the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship.”

The Matrox Graphics development relations team works with many of the top software developers and publishers to insure compatibility and optimizations for Matrox hardware. Drawing on 25 years of industry experience Matrox Graphics is dedicated to producing top quality graphics accelerators and was the first company to introduce hardware support for Environment-Mapped Bump Mapping with the introduction of the G400 product line in 1999.

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Like it?? And i really hope, this means what we all think.
THERE WILL BE A NEW 3D GRAKA NEXT TIME!!

MfG
Tori
__________

MATROX RULEZ

[Ali]

Im now hoping they will put the release off a little, Just forked out for this:

http://support.euro.dell.com/docs/monitors/2000fp/English/intro.htm

and need a couple of months to rebuild my 'toy' account. If the G10000 comes out in that time, Ill be miffed!

If the card is fast enough, I have no problem paying twice what a Geforce 3 costs at the time. It all depends on the specs though.

Im not willing to put any price down, as we have no idea what the card can do. If it has eTV type functions, Ill be willing to pay more, of it only has 2 outputs, Ill pay less. If it can play Quake3 at 1600X1200X32 with 8X FSAA at 100fps, Ill probably pay more just for bragging rights (not that you would need FSAA at 1600X1200, or more than your monitors refresh rate, fps wise).

If the memory usage is like a Voodoo5 and 128Mb is only used at 64MB, that would change how much I would be willing to pay for it.

There are so many variables that wont be answered until Ant gets to review one (dont realy trust Anandtech or Tom, although you do have to read them too).

For what Ant discribes above, assuming no extra features, and only DualHead I would pay around US$400-450 the 64MB version.

If it does everything I want and more, Ill pay around US$1000, but I would want something VERY special for that.

Ali

[Torian.cc]

Again !

The most important line in this article for me is

... “Matrox Graphics is pleased to be working with Termite Games and Project Three Interactive in insuring that our hardware is fully compatible with New World Order " ...

Right? ´Cause if you know which effects and technics the grafik engine supports, like :

Full 32bit rendering as default

DVA technology for efficient, exact visibility processing

Efficient graphics/texture compression/decompression, without any quality loss

Multiple graphics processing pipelines, distributable over multiple processors

Renders bezier patches, NURBS surfaces and polygons

Supports hardware T&L for increased throughput

Unique surface technology, blends unlimited number of textures

High quality decal support; decals affect bump mapping and lighting

True bump mapping technology, real-time calculated

True real-time dynamic lighting, no light maps

Full real-time Phong/Blinn and Metal shading

Real-time calculated full quality spectacular highlights

Omni, spots, directional and volumetric light-sources

Dynamic real-time shadows, full quality, sharp or soft

24bit RGB true-color lighting, 48bit internal blends

Light-DVA for fast, exact extraction of light / shadow receivers

Fully dynamic/deformable geometry, no architectural limits

High speed, high quality rendering of blended and skinned geometry

Advanced particle/meta-particle rendering and blending

Skeletal animation with constraints and expressions

Real-time full forward/inverse kinematics

Advanced motion blending / smoothing

Highly sophisticated dynamics subsystems

Full hardware accelerated rendering


Reading things like this make veryveryvery HAPPY, and i think my G400MAX have spend a long and great time in my compi, but now it´s time for a change... MATROX, SHOW US THE NEXT GEN. OF GRAKAS!!

MfG
Tori
__________

MATROX RULEZ

[mdhome]

Truth is I dont need screaming 3d. Just acceptable 3d with the usuall Matrox quality. At most I would spend about £200. Anything more is a waste as far as im concerned especially as the range of games designed for it havent yet been released ie doom3 and UR2. This could also be the reason for its slow rollout. They will want to make a killing with this card; release it too early and by time the games are available it will be selling for a 3rd less. When the time is right this card is gonna shine (hopefully).


regards MD

[RedRed]

intresting theory MD... I hope you are right.


Torian.CC
you squeezed a lot of options into two lines of quote! ...

It would be nice if it were so, but I dont believe it will...

At the end of the day, you or I will pay what we feel the card is worth.
If it is crap, we will pay peanuts....

If it doesnt outperform an gf3, we wont pay much more than the price of a gf3 at the time of purchase

if its the dogs dangley bits, we will pay a large wad of cash, if only to remain signed up to Matrox Users (rather than NURC or ATIURC (as it stands, I am sure that SISURC will soon be overtaking matrox in performance! ))

redred

[superfly]

mdhome.

While your argument makes sense,the main problem with it is that competitors aren't exactly sitting still either,so if matrox decided to release the card when games actually use the features,it may very well end up facing much stiffer competition later on.

[windigo]

personally id pay the same price of a gf3 card for 64mb so in canada thats about 500$
id go as high as 600$ but would want something special like hardware mpeg 4 encoding or any video capturing ability
but the way my budget is going tho they would have to release a 32mb version and 250$ would be my price

[borat]

i think that a 256 megger just above the price of what the gf3 was at launch would be reasonable with a few lower spec cards at launch for around $180-$200 would be nice with the lower spec cards outperforming radeon 7500 and gf2 ti's comfortably. Matrox need to launch a high end power variant alongside an mx type value card to ensure good sales and decent profits.

[mdhome]

A Matrox MX type card is something that I want. Superb 2d, dual head and reasonable 3d and a reasonable price. Unfortunately I want it now, I am in need of ditching my POS Radeon card . If I have to pay £300 for a vid card then I might end up buying an XBOX instead.



regards MD

[superfly]

While it's true that memory prices have dropped a lot over the last few months,i somehow don't see anyone integrating 256 megs into a video card anytime soon...

For one,the need for that much memory would only be necessary when cards start supporting 64 bit color because of the huge frame buffer a 64 bit color pallete it would require.


ex: a 1024*768 64 bit image requires about 40 megs of memory and since games use either a double or even triple image buffers,it would require anywhere between 80 and 120 megs of memory to store it....you can imagine just how much more would be needed if we talk about resolutions like 1280*1024 or even 1600*1200 64 bit.......Owwwwww......

Then it's also worth noting that to have any particular game running at 60 fps,it would already consume about 2.8 gig/sec of memory bandwith just for the frame buffer itself at 1024*768 64bit(way worse at higher res,of course),which is way too much for any currently available memory tech,and that's not taking into consideration things like texture bandwith and vertex needs as well as the fact that anti-aliasing method used also requires memory bandwith too.

Theres also the fact that memory density on memory modules themselves aren't high enough to pack 256 megs of memory in just 4 chips,especially when it comes to high speed DDR sdram running in excess of 300 mhz,something that would be usefull to keep the cards cost down.

[K6-III]

Cummon matrox, the KyroII just doesn't cut it @1600x1200 in 2D. I'll continue to wait, but not for too long.

[DukeP]

I think I would spend upwards of 450$.
If the card costs 300$, I will buy it the moment it is released.. More than that, and I would have to rearrange my savings. Then I would prob buy it after a few months. But then again, I bought the g400max directly from Matrox, and spent half an eternity waiting on it to be delivered!!

Personally Im in need of a 3d card that approaches gforce 2pro speeds. Since I run my monitor in 1600x1200, im dying for better 2d than what my gforce is capable of.

~~DukeP~~

[K6-III]

My source tells me to expect Geforce3 speed.