A "quiet" confirmation on a new chip from Matrox?

[Tempest]

What I _think_ we can say about the new card:

-It will be out in 2002, Haig says "in the near future"
-It will not be a low-end card.
-It will require lots of electrical power
-It will come in (at least?) two different memory configurations.
-Haig thinks it is worth waiting for.
-It does not have a video capture feature.
-It will have DualHead or video out.
-It has nothing to do with BitBoys.

[The_King]

Originally posted by Tempest
.
-Haig thinks it is worth waiting for.

You would say this too if you were working for matrox and trying to stop people from buying the competition's products.

No, I hope they announce it soon so i can start saving for it.

[rubank]

I´m sure it will be a GF1 killer

[Nappe1]

Originally posted by rubank
I´m sure it will be a GF1 killer

HEY! don't hype it too much! we don't need any big disapointments more!

[DosFreak]

You guys are sick.

[Nappe1]

Originally posted by DosFreak
You guys are sick.

Thanks for the compliment.

you just don't even know how sick _we_ are.. and don't ask who are we....

MK:

[MK]

lol!

[[GDI]Raptor]

This is very good news from Matrox!
Personaly I hope for a GeForce4 killer!

[Maggi]

Originally posted by DosFreak
You guys are sick.

Did it really take you that long to figure ?

[rubank]

[efty]

Sick

I am not sick, just so satisfied by my G200 that I want another matrox card in my system. It is the only thing that did not break in 3 years I have this system. My Western Digital HD developed bad sectors after 2 years. My CTX monitor blew up after 2 years. My power supply died after 2.5 years(even though I never switch off my computer) Ok my motherboard did not die or my CPU.

And I have seen other cards and their quality sucks!!! I built a system for a friend of mine and put it a Gforce 2 I was wondering what is wrong with the monitor!!! Well guess, nothing!! It was the graphics card. When I get back home for the break, my eyes hurt when I use my computer with an S3 based g-card!!!

Sick??
No... just gradeful that I don't have to use your computer

[Clevor]

First of all, I own four G400 MAXs, so don't flame me.

But I recently picked up an Asus Ti 500 and Radeon 8500, only because I am in Japan, and I can trade in these cards and get back 75% of my money, as long as I do it the very moment the next generation cards come out. So I can upgrade to the latest-and-greatest every year for maybe $75 or $100 at the most. After that, the market value of the cards drop too much.

Let me tell you, you haven't lived until you've seen the Nature sequence in 3DMark2001. It's longer and more detailed than on the demo mode, and you need a Ti or 8500 to see it.

Secondly, the shimmering, moire, and pixel popping of an 8500 is significant compared to a Ti 500, but the G400 MAX is 5X worse. I ran Serious Sam and Alice at 1600x1200x32, all settings maxed, with 64-tap anisotrophy on the Ti 500, and the image was stunning. Incredible detail, and just a hint of shimmering on the edges of buildings. But just an awesome, perfect image.

As for 2D, I actually prefer the 2D of my Asus Ti 500 over a G400 MAX! With Digital Vibrance Control set to low, the color vibrancy is equal to a G400 MAX, and you can bump it up even further, without a cartoonish effect. On a 1280x1024 desktop, text is very crisp, and to me icon fonts are a bit smoother. To me it's sacrilege, so I hedge and say the Asus Ti 500 2D is as good as a G450/550. I've also seen a SUMA Ti 200 SE, and it was at least as good as my Asus. But both are proprietary designs, not reference cards, so I can't speak for the Gainwards, PNYs, and Visionteks.

I'm hoping as much as anyone that the new Matrox card will maintain it's 2D heritage, and kick butt on the contemporary 3D scene. Right now I'm getting around 30 fps at those settings in SS and Alice, but if the new Matrox will give 60 fps, woo hoo!

But unless they come up with something evolutionary, it won't be easy.

[MK]

Anybody who has not lived up to now and wants to write an review of the Kyro II ? And hey - I `m missing some comments about the Voodoo 5500.

MK

[Greebe]

Clevor for years we've said that you need to run high res to see the difference... and that doesn't begin til you hit at least 1280x960... ie your still at the bottom end

[Clevor]

Oh, I forgot to mention I run a Voodoo5 in the PCI slot .

Frankly, whenever I boot the Voodoo5, the card seems rather dated now. The 2D ain't exactly chopped liver, but compared to a G400 MAX or Ti with DVC on, the desktop is blurry and color vibrancy can't match it. Color saturation is very good, though. I use it primarily for the old Glide games, and games that don't run on the Ti or 8500.

And speaking of the devil, a Voodoo5 at 1024x768 and 2xFSAA does a better job of removing the jaggies than 1280x1024 on any of the other cards. Even at 1600x1200 on the Ti and 8500, jaggies can still be seen on certain lines that are not there on the Voodoo5 at 1024x768 and 2xFSAA! Smoothvision has the cleanest (sharpest) FSAA I've seen, but there are still jaggies on certain lines, and I experience significant performance hits.

For me, the big questions on this new Matrox card are: how will it handle the chronic shimmering, moire, and pixel popping you get on very sharp graphics cards like the G400? To me, just a little bit of shimmering is too much, and is more noticeable than a slight loss of detail.

Secondly, will the card enable high tap anisotrophy at least as good as the Ti's 64-tap and 8500's 128-tap (actually 16-tap)? And can it do it for both D3D and OpenGL, and in conjunction with trilinear? Problem is, when you increase anisotropy, the shimmering goes up.

Thirdly, how will it handle FSAA? Can it do something as good as the Voodoo5 and with minimal performance hits?

If Matrox wants to be a major player, they need to address these issues. Comparisons between the Geforce3 and 8500 are being flogged endlessly in the video card forums, so wait till Matrox jumps into the fray.