Matrox 2D engine: How fast?

[dq]

I know the Quality is unrivaled.

But what about the speed when compared with Geforce, Radeon, Voodoo5, Kyro2, SavageIX or even Permedia3?

like:
CAD/CAM
PhotoEditing
DTP

[Rags]

Which OS?

Under win2k it's the fastest when using a G400/G450. Under win98, it's about the same for all.

Rags

[az]

why? i mean, why are there still differences (more than marginal differences, if they are there) between different video cards in 2d? and what are the factors for 2d speed when it comes to the vidcard?

AZ

[JLP]

Maybe it supports more functions in hardware, or the hardware is better. I wonder how can they even enhance 2D speed and quality.

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Live long and prosper!

[Rags]

Hardware is only part of the equation, drivers are the other.

Rags

[dq]

I'm running Ldraw ( www.ldraw.org ) and feeling the crunch on some of the more complex models. Using a Pentium 3 800EB with 384MB PC133 and a G400 DH, Win2k, PD v5.33

[This message has been edited by dq (edited 29 March 2001).]

[Maggi]

errm, are you asking for 3D performance or 2D like stated in the topic of this thread ?

[dq]

As far as I know, LDRAW seem to be made up of 2D wireframes(with 3D views)

[Snake-Eyes]

If those are true 3D views, that may be why you're feeling a crunch. As far as I know, most cards are so close as to be indistinguishable as far as 2D performance goes now. Of course, 2D image quality is a whole 'nother game.

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Ace. I'm like the Invisible Man- I'm here, you just don't see me that often.

[Ali]

I read once that Matrox made a 'Null Driver' that all it did was this:

Get a call from the application to draw something.

Say it was drawn.

Thats as fast as you can get, because the hardware doesnt actually draw it.

They said the G200 (could have been in the days of the Millenium2) was only something like .5% slower than the Null Driver.

IE: It would actually draw on the screen what the application wanted, then reply that it was drawn to the application.

That means that if Win2000 is faster than Win98 its because it passes the call from the application to the driver faster than win98 can. Or the win2000 driver is faster than the win98 one, which is quite unlikely.

Or I could be talking out my ass. I cant be bothered looking it up again, so this is just from memory.

Ali

[Pace]

Maybe this is GDI bypassing? Matrox used this in days gone by to speed it up - but Microsoft frown on it (i.e. they don't want their stuff getting bypassed!).

NVIDIA still do it I believe, and pay for the better bench figures in driver stability

P.

[Ali]

Nope, GDI bypassing is something different.

The Null driver never even puts anything onthe screen, so its not much good for anything except to see the fastest you could possibly get.

The GDI bypass grabs the call from the application without it going through the device manager (all OSs have 4 managers from memory, and I guess the video card is controlled by the device manager). That means the video card driver acts like the device manager for the OS you are running.

This is actually a bad thing. If MS changes their OS a little bit, and doesnt tell anyone, then the GDI bypassing driver could cause HUGE problems. It would possibly be possible for it to corrupt all you data on your hard drive. If this happened you would blame MS, and it wouldnt be their fault (for once).

Anyway, all it realy comes down to is that 2D speed is so close to being as fast as its possible to be, that its not worth worring about.

3D speed isnt even halfway there.

For 3D speed, you need to be able to have life like animation at the Hz rating of your monitor at any resolution.

If you have a 21 inch monitor that can do 110Hz at 1600X1200 you need to be able to do 110FPS with every feature turned on at 1600X1200X64. When that happens the only reason to buy a new video card would be for new features.

Ali

[dq]

Which goes to say that there are many factors that dictate 2D performance:

Drivers
Operating System
CPU
Memory
Bus
Video Accelerator

But it seems that our PC can't match those fluid speed I saw on the Apple G4 systems. Even though the G4s were using ATi Rage128 Pro(s)


[This message has been edited by dq (edited 02 April 2001).]

[leech]

I would say that's due simply to windows being a clunk of an operating system. Seems to me that XFree86 4.02 runs a lot more fluid for me on my machine than Windows does. Plus with enlightenment it looks a hell of a lot better. :-)

Leech

[ganyaik]

I agree with leech. Must be something with m$, because Solaris8 and QNX seemed a _lot_ smoother than win on my G200.