Was the DM Demo really Software? I think not.

[Hati]

One more hint I found at the beyond3d forums :

Matrox seems to have working silicon during their displacement mapping demos they showed it in realtime (was too fast to be software emulated) they also ran 3D Max on that same machine and showed displacement mapping design for a game in realtime. The machine only crashed once, unfortunatly they immediatly turned off the display so we could not see the BIOS bootscreen. Displacement mapping seems to be very cool but there are quite a few limits imposed on the artwork (to avoid getting gaps in the meshes).

There must be a reason they did not want to show the BIOS boot up messages.

Hati

[Marshmallowman]

There must be a reason they did not want to show the BIOS boot u

yeah it said bit boys pyramid 3d

[Nappe1]

Originally posted by Marshmallowman


yeah it said bit boys pyramid 3d

hehe

too bad that you don't actually know what you are talking about.

anyways, Matrox is much closer than anything coming from our Finnish vapourware friends. They have yet another road to travel, thanks to Infineon.

[Jon P. Inghram]

There must be a reason they did not want to show the BIOS boot up messages.

That's actually not very reassuring... the G200 and up cards don't display any BIOS messages, but nVidia cards do. Perhaps the demos wern't running on a Matrox card.

[Umfriend]

Yep, one of the main new features of the Parhelia chipset: new BIOS msgs. That's what you can do with a totally new chip design.

the G200 and up cards don't display any BIOS messages

[Wombat]

There must be a reason they did not want to show the BIOS boot up messages.

Sure, tons of reasons. Maybe the motherboard was a prototype too. Not likely, but more likely than it being an nVidia board.

the G200 and up cards don't display any BIOS messages

Well, <I>customer shipped</I> Matrox boards don't have BIOS messages. If they were using some kind of development BIOS, it would likely display all the specs about the card: model number, clock speeds, dianostic register settings, memory detected.... all the things Matrox apparently doesn't want to release yet, and stuff that they'd never want competitors to know.

[bsdgeek]

Well, customer shipped Matrox boards don't have BIOS messages. If they were using some kind of development BIOS, it would likely display all the specs about the card: model number, clock speeds, dianostic register settings, memory detected.... all the things Matrox apparently doesn't want to release yet, and stuff that they'd never want competitors to know.

Hey, I want a BIOS message like that.

[Parhelia Pro256]

memory detected

[Marnix]

The demonstration was with a Matrox Card, because Haig says this over on the Matrox Form.

Sorry folks, can't comment on the card used for the GDC demo.

Forum Link

So there was a Matrox card, but he does not say it was done in hardware.

[Pace]

Matrox showed some DM hardware at GDC, what card was used for this?

Gee, that was subtle

P.

[Tempest]

Maybe he can't comment on it because the demo ran on an ATI R300 prototype
Nah, I firmly believe that it was done using unreleased, DM-capable Matrox hardware (DM meaning either Displacement Mapping or Deathmatch, whichever you wish)...

[Novdid]

Wonder how many times Haig have posted the words "no comments" the last two months. Poor man!!!

[Sasq]

I think he probably has it set up as a keyboard macro by now

Dan

[TdB]

just to remove the last doubt:

http://forum.matrox.com/mgaforum/Forum8/HTML/001037.html

notice Haigs answer:

Was the demo in hardware or in software.
So was it using the cards functions or was all being simulated in software.
It was on an un-announced card.