New Matrox BIOS for G200 - 450

[Guru]

Matrox has released a new BIOS for the G200, G400 & G450 Series of Graphics Cards. Here's the noyes to the BIOS Utility;

Matrox Setup & Utilities (v.2.51.002)
Supports G550, G450, G400 & G200 series
Download now, Dated 3rd October in case you're not sure what you're looking for. Over in Equifax our Training systems still actually use G200 Graphics Cards.

http://matrox.com/mga/support/drivers/bios/home2.cfm

[Venturer]

This BIOS pack have new bios version only for G550!
G200/G400/G450 bios is the same of 2.08 pack!

[K6-III]

Does it fix EMBM???

[Greebe]

If you are refering to EMBM on the G550, nope. That's the way the card is sadly enough.

[Colin Morey]

eh?

run that passed me again please,... is there some kind of problem with the G550 and EMBM?.

Colin

[Wombat]

Yep. The short explanation is "it looks like crap".

They changed the implementation with the G550. It looks worse AND it's slower.

[Randy Simons]

Sjees.. Sounds not too good for an upcoming card. They already ripped the hardware smoothing for the second head on the G450, the 2D speed of the G450 is sub-par with other cards on high resolutions (dunno about the G550 on this actually) and now this

It seems it's a matter of time they get rid of hardware overlay, hardware zoom, and hell, even the entire 3D part, because it can be done in software.

My next graphics card will be a Matrox, IF they keep it in the spirit of the G400, namely "hardware is gooood". I'll be happy to pay €10 extra for an feature that uses real hardware to get it done instead of some CPU-intensive software.

[edit]
Yah I know, they do sell more cards to OEM than everything else. We'll simpel solution: make a great card for the professionals/enthausists and let them spread the good word. Then make a cheaper version of the card(less hardware, more software) for the OEM market. Seems easy enough to me..[/edit]

[Maggi]

Re: eh?

Originally posted by Colin Morey
run that passed me again please,... is there some kind of problem with the G550 and EMBM?.

Colin

http://www.xbitlabs.com/video/matrox-g550/

and scroll down to where they posted according screenshots from Battle Zone II and 3D Mark 2001 ...

In reality it looks even worse, cos those pictures are somewhat 'softened' by use of JPEG compression.

[Indiana]

Even from those pictures I'd say the game would look much better without EMBM than with THIS EMBM...

It's really a shame that Matrox consequently destroys everything they've been strong: beginning with the crippled in many ways second head on the G450 (thus seriously crippling the advantage over the competition they had with dualhead) over the choppy PAL DVDMax problem (DVDMax would otherwise be another advantage over the competitiors products) and the according to some worse 2D quality of the G450 and G550 up to the non-functional EMBM (another technology once exclusive to Matrox) of the G550.

When will they start buying the same RAMDACs and RF filters Asus are using to fully destroy even their "last resort", the 2D nimbus?

[Greebe]

For any company to start buying the same ramdac's and filters they will have to get it from Matrox... or reverse engineer Matrox's chip (it's integrated, Doh!

[Indiana]

Actually, I meant Matrox using Asus' components and not vice versa... since Matrox seem to like everything that's cheap in the last few months- OEM ruleZ

[atko]

Did you know?

Originally posted by Indiana
since Matrox seem to like everything that's cheap in the last few months

This is why Matrox integrates everything (ramdacs, TVO things, etc...) into the G450/G550 core, and not using 3rd party things...

[Greebe]

atko, that's the flipside of the coin... they integrate because it's cheaper to do and requires less PCB space which lowers cost further.

It always boils down to how inexpensively can we make this

[xortam]

... not to mention that tighter integration increases product reliability, decreases power consumption, etc.

[atko]

Originally posted by Greebe
they integrate because it's cheaper to do and requires less PCB space which lowers cost further.

Yeeeesss... But that's what I wanted to say...