I cannot play recent games!!! I need the parhelia card soon!!!

[Wombat]

I think Jammrock has it just about right. I don't really like getting a large refund - it means my witholding was way too high, and I missed out on the chance to invest some money, or even just let it sit in a savings account.

The two best strategies seem to be:
1. Get your witholding as close to taxes as possible, as Jammers has done.
2. Don't do any withholding, but invest/save money on your own, and plan on making a lump sum payment to the IRS.

I'm considering starting the latter.

[impact]

C'mon... I'm in the same boat as Amiga Blitter... playing Q2 in 640x480 to get some decent framerates from Matrox' latest decent offering, the G400, on a 17" monitor....

[TdB]

Originally posted by impact
C'mon... I'm in the same boat as Amiga Blitter... playing Q2 in 640x480 to get some decent framerates from Matrox' latest decent offering, the G400, on a 17" monitor....

what do you consider to be decent framerates??

IIRC i got around avg 100fps in 800*600*32, and that was with trilinear filtering enabled. I´m not trying to start a big discussion, just wondering...

it is a long time since i used my g400max for gaming, so my benchmarks could be way off, is the speed deference between the g400 and the g400max really that big??

I care alot about framerates too,(especially in first person shooters) but quake2 is one of the games where i didn´t have to go lower than 800*600*32.

[GNEP]

And Half-Life plays quite well on a G450 actually. 1024x768, everything turned on, can't complain!

of course, that is a game from the same era as the g400...

gnep

[Dr Mordrid]

I don't have them over-withhold. It's all from various tax credits.

Dr. Mordrid

[Evildead666]

My G400 could do half life fine too, but its a 16bit color game...

Q2 should run well tho...
i played Daikatana at 800x600x32 with most of the bells and whistles, there was an odd jerk here and there (large outdoor spaces) but really good.
the image quality was outstanding.

I melted that card by accident, and now i have a very poor G550.
I have tried to play games, but it seems worse than with the G400.

[impact]

Yes the card isn't performing that bad(max over 100 fps, avg. about 60 fps with the occasional drop to 30 fps when all the hell breaks loose), but I have to disable every option that can be disabled (no minimap/scanner, no 16/32bit textures, no shaders, no stencil-buffered shadows, no transparency, no nothing...). Is it smooth? Yes. Is it fugly? You bet!

[TdB]

Originally posted by impact
Yes the card isn't performing that bad(max over 100 fps, avg. about 60 fps with the occasional drop to 30 fps when all the hell breaks loose), but I have to disable every option that can be disabled (no minimap/scanner, no 16/32bit textures, no shaders, no stencil-buffered shadows, no transparency, no nothing...). Is it smooth? Yes. Is it fugly? You bet!

ohh!
you meant quake 3 arena!
that explains it, i thought you meant quake 2.

[Pace]

Originally posted by TDB
ohh!
you meant quake 3 arena!
that explains it, i thought you meant quake 2.

Silly person, it's obvious that Quake3 was the game in question, what made you think otherwise?

P.

[TdB]

Originally posted by Pace
Silly person, it's obvious that Quake3 was the game in question, what made you think otherwise?

P.

well, i had just played some quake2 when i read that post, and i am a bit silly sometimes...

[Pace]

Well, I wasn't confused in the slightest, and I've just been playing UT2002!

[Novdid]

That Jedi Knight 2 game is just wonderful in multiplayer.

Light sabre fights here I come!!!

[Rags]

No, he said Q2---that's Quake2, and if he has problems playing Quake2 (or even Quake3 for that matter) on his current card...well, there is something else wrong.

Rags

[Pace]

We know Matt, just humouring the Rt Hon Impact

P.

[impact]

Yes, it's very funny. Your ignorance that is. The spring is coming, it must be the sun killing your braincells again. :P

Seriously, Quake2 source code was released a while ago and custom gl libs are everywhere now. Q2 has finally entered the 21st century. Too bad the 20th century Matrox hardware can no longer take it.