A kickass 11 fps with the new drivers?

[Sander Pilon]

Okay, I've owned a G400 for some time now and the lack of decent drivers is starting to piss me off.

Just take a look at this:

<A HREF="http://www.3dnews.net/work/g400_vs_voodoo2/">http://www.3dnews.net/work/g400_vs_voodoo2/</A>

Anyone with ideas how to boost the FPS to a playable level?

[rickn]

That is why my G400 will be nothing but a memory come next week. Same ol matrox crap

they are now trying to proclaim it was a vsync problem, which is not the case. There have been absolutely ZERO speed improvements in the 5.21 drivers, and there are still visual glitches such as texture seam problems that I reported to R0M weeks ago, and I am not even one of the damn beta testers.

Celeron 366@550 -- G400 @ 160/200
Quake 2 timedemo 1 32bbp 16bbp Z vsync disabled in registry and quake2. Tearing verified
5.13 - 74.5fps
5.21 - 73.5fps

Crusher 32bbp 16bbp Z
5.13 - 40fps
5.21 - 40fps

16mb TNT2 @ 170/200
timedemo 1 32bbp 24bbp Z - 74fps
crusher 32bbp 24bbp Z - 52fps

All my benchmarks for 5.21 were done on a fresh Win98 install.

[Sander Pilon]

Well, wait a few weeks.

Can we say: "GeForce 256" ? It will be out in about 4 weeks.

[Manoj Mahtani]

Do you know what is funny?

A few weeks ago I was flamed for saying that the NV10 will release this year. Not many believed me. I was pissed that Matrox didn't ship the G400 max on time. NV10 was about to be announced.

Now I got my G400 Max last week and NV10 is annonced and is scheduled to ship by next month. At the moment I have my G400 Max but shitty drivers. My games are running slower than running it on a TNT or a Banshee card.

I don't know what Matrox is doing? If Gforce 256 is all that is looks to be that I am sorry to say if Matrox doesn't release better drivers asap, I am getting rid of my G400 Max.

I agree that that G400 Max is a kick ass card but what is the point when we don't have decent drivers.

Regards,
Manoj Mahtani

[deprived]

heheheheeh , it is time that those matrox affiliates, who didn´t believe us critical users , recognize that matrox ****ed up big time this time ..
Don´t get me wrong , i don´t enjoy the failure of matrox because i WANT good drivers so that i gan get rid of my tnt2ultra (i need the ****ing money for a dolby digital amp..will sell my dolby surround amp)

[SteveC]

All I can say is 'bye'.

Everyone who did some background reading on the net knew full well that the OGL performance of the G400 is not up to the TNT2's. But then again, there are so many people that do not care that it is a little slower. They would rather go for the extra features of the card.
I am in that boat.
Why did you risk it if you knew the story?

Oh look, what a disaster, crusher.dm2 is only 40 fps instead of 50. But the demo1 is the same as the TNT2? Well then, that's good, isn't it? I give up arguing now.

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Cheers,
Steve

[rickn]

That very well may be, but I have had to endure waiting 2 months for fixes, and having to listen to the Matrox Puppet, R0M, proclaiming all these improvements for celeron cpu's, and how the lower crusher scores were fixed, how the texture problems in quake2 were fixed, which I sent him screenshots of. Then he tells me with 5.21 it was because of vsync being off, which is not true because it was present with vsync on. There are still problems in Quake 3 test when using 32bbp and a 16bbp Z. I guess they went over their allocated $25 testing budget.

BTW, you can knock off about 2-3fps on the G400 scores when you go to a 32bbp Z

[This message has been edited by rickn (edited 09-03-1999).]

[Sander Pilon]

SteveC,

Look at the URL above. I dont mind 'not up to the performance of a TNT2', but ELEVEN FPS !? Where a Voodoo2 does *40* !?

*knock* *knock* I paid allmost 300 bucks for this card. Is it TOO much to ask to get as much performance as an ancient of technology EVERYBODY is dissin' nowadays?

The funny part is, it really *IS* a driver problem, or a polygon setup problem, because in 1600x1200, we still get 11 fps.

It is SUCH a damn shame such a GREAT piece of technology (because the MAX *is* a superb piece of hardware) gets wasted by such poor drivers.

[SteveC]

I refuse to be drawn into an argument.
Can someone else back up that claim of 11 fps?
BTW, I was comparing the numbers given by rickn.

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Cheers,
Steve

[Sander Pilon]

Matrox told me (a while back) they are 'aware' of the 'problems' in half-life, and that the new drivers were going to 'fix' it.

Well, they fixed it allright. From 7 to 11 fps. That's a huge improvement, %-wise.

[Himself]

Realistically, the time you'd want to buy a GFarce card is in 4 months time anyway, the drivers will be out of Alpha state, the price will be what you'd want to pay for it, and the motherboard makers will have had a chance to get their end fixed so the card will work properly in the first place. It's NVIDIA, that's just the way they are, if you thought driver improvements were slow with Matrox try NVIDIA on for size. There may be a million releases but performance doesn't change.

I bought my G400 knowing it was only going to last me 6 months or so, hence no dual head, no MAX. It's a better TNT 2 for me while I am waiting for the competition to put out a real T&L card, no 120MHz/480MP/s stuff.

Regards,

Byron

[Gurm]

Steve,

Hate to break it to you, but yes - I can verify the low fps. 13.8 is my limit unless I start REALLY messing with things. It jumps up to 20 if I really work at disabling VSync, and even that is pathetically low considering I was getting 25 without any tweaking using 5.15 drivers.

- Gurm

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G. U. R. M. It's not hard to spell, is it? Then don't screw it up!
The word "Gurm" is in no way Copyright 1999 Jorden van der Elst.

[Kruzin]

Looks like it's running fine to me...

[Kruzin]

BTW - that was at 1152x864.

What is the name of the map you saw this 11fps on?

[SteveC]

OK, Fair enough, maybe they have screwed up something when it comes to Half Life.
I don't know whay, or why, or how.

Kruzin's results look alright though, so something somewhere isn't quite right.

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Cheers,
Steve