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  • MatroxG400+P2-350

    I currently have:

    Pentium II 350 Mhz with 32 MB
    Matrox G100 with 4 MB.

    I am planning to upgrade to G400 Millennium 16 MB.

    I've learned that the performance of G400 depends on the processor. Would my current setup would be enough.
    I am not that frame speed hungry and even G100 speeds were quite satisfying. It was no transparency and stuff support that bothered me more, that made for example Turok2 and Carmageddon2 look bad. Need for Speed 2 did not work at all.
    Anyway I don't even have the information how good G200 is compared to G100, but I want to know how big performance increase I should expect.

    Phade
    :

  • #2
    yes, but you should try to get that 350 running at 412 (103*3.5) or 450 (100*4.5) depending on your mobo, you might be able to do it without taping a pin (I forget which pin as my bh6 mobo let me do it in bios), I would consider going to the 32mb version though
    jim

    ------------------
    PIII-500mhz @ 620 ! with an Abit BE6 mobo
    128mb pc-100
    Mill G400 (YAHOO!!!) 32mb @ 167/208 with MGATweak-417mhz, (2.5, 2, 2.5), PD 5.41 & bios 1.5-22
    Maxtor 14.3 gb Uata66 hdd
    SB Live!
    Winblows 98se & DX7
    32 lbs. of fans, heatsinks and aluminum ductwork
    3DMark Result 5954.69 3DMarks
    Synthetic CPU 3D Speed 9325.69 CPU 3DMarks
    Rasterizer Score 2791.72 3DRasterMarks
    Game 1 - Race 65.07 FPS
    Game 2 - First Person 54.89 FPS
    Fill Rate 268.79 MTexels/s

    System 1:
    AMD 1.4 AYJHA-Y factory unlocked @ 1656 with Thermalright SK6 and 7k Delta fan
    Epox 8K7A
    2x256mb Micron pc-2100 DDR
    an AGP port all warmed up and ready to be stuffed full of Parhelia II+
    SBLIVE 5.1
    Maxtor 40g 7,200 @ ATA-100
    IBM 40GB 7,200 @ ATA-100
    Pinnacle DV Plus firewire
    3Com Hardware Modem
    Teac 20/10/40 burner
    Antec 350w power supply in a Colorcase 303usb Stainless

    New system: Under development

    Comment


    • #3
      Thanks for the information. Actually I'm not very familiar with overclocking so some information you provided was little cryptic to me.
      The question is if G400 is good companion to my current not overclocked P2 350. I understand that I won't be able to use G400 at its full potential but frankly thats not what I'm after.
      I got Need for Speed 3 to run now and speed and gfx was quite ok in soft rendering, buggy but fast, at least enough for me (with G100) with hardware rendering (DirectX6.1). How does G400 compare to that. Any experiences (are there any bugs, speed)?
      One more question rised. If game is compatible with G200 does that mean it is compatible with G400 too.

      Comment


      • #4
        Actually, I think you should get a 16MB G400 and some extra system memory. Say another 32MB minimum. Extra 64 would be much better. Your CPU is fine for a G400, just remember, the faster the CPU, the better the games.

        ------------------
        Asus P2B-F, P3-450~556, 512MB PC100 8ns SDRAM, G400MAX (yay!) at 160Mhz, Teac 58S CD-R, Toshiba SM-1002 DVD-ROM, Toshiba 40X SCSI CD-ROM, 8.4GB IDE primary drive, 9GB Micropolis Tomahawk UWSCSI, 9GB IBM U2WSCSI, 18GB U2WSCSI Cheetah, Diamond MX300, 3COM 10/100TX, 3COM Gaming Modem, Adaptec 2940U2W

        And a partridge in a pear treeeeeeee.
        A computer is like sex. Your never 100% sure what your doing but when all goes well, it feels REAL good.

        Comment


        • #5
          Yes, more RAM is definetly a must. Even with a P3-733 and a G400 Max I guess most of the actual games with 32 Mb would do hard disk trashing like mad. 64 as minimum now. But get a 64Mb PC100 dimm, and with 96 Mb it will fly

          A PII 350 with a G400 is very enjoyable for many people, except for the fps addicts. I remember that even my celeron 300 (at 300) did a reasonable job in most of the games. 450 was another story, thought. And an Athlon 500 is even better

          Comment


          • #6
            WOW, I didn't notice the 32mb, that definately won't cut it, especially in UT, (Unreal Tournament) a 64mb pc-100 would help immencely (why does that word look wrong?) also, go to http://www.overclockers.com to get some info on overclocking that P-350
            jim
            System 1:
            AMD 1.4 AYJHA-Y factory unlocked @ 1656 with Thermalright SK6 and 7k Delta fan
            Epox 8K7A
            2x256mb Micron pc-2100 DDR
            an AGP port all warmed up and ready to be stuffed full of Parhelia II+
            SBLIVE 5.1
            Maxtor 40g 7,200 @ ATA-100
            IBM 40GB 7,200 @ ATA-100
            Pinnacle DV Plus firewire
            3Com Hardware Modem
            Teac 20/10/40 burner
            Antec 350w power supply in a Colorcase 303usb Stainless

            New system: Under development

            Comment


            • #7
              Phade:

              The G100 is a basic high-volume business-use type card, not well suited to gaming (at least not 3D in hardware- very limited).

              The G200 is a big step above the 100, due to the actual inclusion of true 3D features in hardware, not to mention a speed boost (could be wrong here, so correct me if so, anyone).

              The G400 is another major step above the G200, with even more features, and greater speed (and potential, with the right processor/memory behind it). However, it scales heavily dependent on the CPU driving it, so the more power the CPU has, the better it runs. It's been posted in here that nobody's yet seen a processor fast enough to cause the card to become the bottleneck yet!

              DuRaNgO:

              Use an 's' instead of a 'c', and see if that doesn't look better to you.

              ------------------
              Ace
              "..so much for subtlety.."

              System specs:
              Gainward Ti4600
              AMD Athlon XP2100+ (o.c. to 1845MHz)

              Comment


              • #8
                hy Phade! well, my last processor was a PII350 and it was not a good friend for my G400 16MB because now I have a celeron 366@550 and I note that my G400 give less fps when I increase the resolution and effects, that is my G400 is pumped up by my celeron, at least while the geometry is not too comlex. with my old PII350 from 800x600-16 bit to 1024x768-32 bit I obtained a loss of about 2-3 fps. buy an Athlon! :-)
                how is my english? :-(((
                bye

                Comment


                • #9
                  Big thanks for all the information. Nice to discuss in a forum where you can actually get replies .
                  Actually I am definetely going to get system memory upgrade (just forgot to mention it). The question still stays - when game is G200 compatible, does it work on G400. Most of the games that are said to be G200 compatible work on my G100, graphics is usually buggy (is that because of the unsupported features of the card? I have tried to upgrade my drivers, have not tried the videocard BIOS upgrade yet.)
                  Where can I find some information comparing G100 G200 G400. I would like to know the differences in speed, resolution + feature support. Its hard to find info about G100.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    As far as I know, anything that runs on a G200 should run on a G400 and then some. No one can give you any guarantees, however. One never can tell with the PC platform. I just haven't heard of any games that run fine on a G200, but run poorly on a G400.

                    I think you're pushing it with that PII 350.

                    Intel has told their channel partners of another round of price cuts on February 27th. I realize you can't upgrade everything at once, but in another month or two, CPU's far faster than the one you're using will be very cheap. (Maybe next time, they'll actually have processors to sell at the lower prices.)

                    Paul
                    paulcs@flashcom.net

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      thanks, immensely, ace
                      jim
                      System 1:
                      AMD 1.4 AYJHA-Y factory unlocked @ 1656 with Thermalright SK6 and 7k Delta fan
                      Epox 8K7A
                      2x256mb Micron pc-2100 DDR
                      an AGP port all warmed up and ready to be stuffed full of Parhelia II+
                      SBLIVE 5.1
                      Maxtor 40g 7,200 @ ATA-100
                      IBM 40GB 7,200 @ ATA-100
                      Pinnacle DV Plus firewire
                      3Com Hardware Modem
                      Teac 20/10/40 burner
                      Antec 350w power supply in a Colorcase 303usb Stainless

                      New system: Under development

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Thanx for everyone for replies.
                        Paulcs, what do you mean I'm pushing it, I'm not english so sometimes its little hard for me to understand expressions. Do you think that my current processor is too slow. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think I can get better speeds and graphics (FPS if you prefer) with G400 (or even with G200) even with my P2-350.
                        Actually I'm quite satisfied with G100 speeds under DirectX, graphics is the thing that bothers me.
                        For example Need for speed 3 and Breakneck are games that are very playable with G100, but the graphic bugs in hardware mode bother me.
                        As I'm quite new to PC graphic cards and 3D gaming I am not really sure how do I gain from more videocard memory. My G100 has 4 MB. The G400 I'm planning to bye has 16, whats the actual difference and what about those with 32 MB.
                        I would really appreciate if anyone could clear these things for me.


                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Going from a G100 to a G400 is a major graphics upgrade.
                          A PII 350 should be enough to smell the power of a G400...

                          Now, if I were you, I would buy an extra 64 Mb of RAM, because the games are getting heavier and AGP texturing eats up a a few Mb.

                          The difference between a 16 and a 32 Mb G400 is that with more memory you can play at higher resolutions with more visual effects on and at 32-bit color without sacrificing as much speed as you would if you played with a 16 Mb card. Terms like 32-bit Z-buffer and trilinear filtering are video memory-eating, but a candy to the eye.

                          If you donĀ“t want to spend much money and plan to play at low resolutions (800x600 or 1024x768), go for the 16 Mb version.

                          Bye

                          ------------------
                          INTEL CELERON 433, G200 SD 8MB AGP (BIOS 2.6), INTEL ATLANTA 440LX moby (latestly BIOSED), SOUNDBLASTER PCI 128, 96 MB SDRAM 66Mhz, 4.3 WESTERN DIGITAL EIDE CAVIAR HD, CREATIVE 24X CD-ROM, AOC 5VLR 15", EPSON STYLUS COLOR 200.
                          ALWAYS (ahem, well, almost) the latest Powerdesk and DirectX.

                          Remember folks:
                          "Computers are useless. They can only give you answers"
                          Pablo Picasso

                          [This message has been edited by Alec (edited 03 February 2000).]

                          Comment

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