A Long Time Ago In a Galaxy Far, Far Away...

[Jedi Master]

I used to own a Matrox G400 Max, and be a subscriber here.

But then I purchased a system that came with an ATi Radeon 8500. Nice card, overall good performance, but...

I don't play too many games any more. See...I went out and purchased this little program called Photoshop 7, that I'm trying to learn.

The 2D quality of the Radeon 8500 is acceptable, but nothing like a Matrox.

I'm considering purchasing a G550 for my system, but would appreciate your input..

1. Driver stability - ATi's drivers have improved dramatically (I had one system with Win2000 Pro that would give these wonderful STOP errors with an ATi card). Obviously, with Photoshop and other applications, driver stability is important. How are Matrox' drivers for the G550?

2. DVD - yeah, once in a while I watch one on the computer (especially The Beach Boys Nashville Sounds during a long work session). In checking through all the Matrox documentation, there doesn't seem to be he ability to change the brightness of the DVD - is there a way to do this? FYI, using WinDVD 4.

Thanx!
One Old Jedi...

[Neomagic_Twist]

I have a system with a G550 in it, and it's the stablest of things. Never had one crash in 2D. Crashed after a few minutes in games, which was a heat issue, put a fan on the heatsink and it went away.

[Dogbert]

Welcome back man.

What did you do with/to your G400 MAX ? I think it would be better than the G550.

[ayoub_ibrahim]

In checking through all the Matrox documentation, there doesn't seem to be he ability to change the brightness of the DVD - is there a way to do this?

can't say about winDVD4 but you can alter brightness with powerDVD XP!

[Mikko]

Matrox DualHead options allow you to adjust the brightness of DVDMax and TV-Out.

[Jon P. Inghram]

WinDVD has brightness and gamma controls built-in.

[Jedi Master]

Thanks for all of the responses.

The G400 Max was in the system that I gave to my sister in law (sigh...).

Thanks for the tip on WinDVD 4 - found the sliders to adjust the brightness, gamma, etc.

O.K. Here's the tough question...I run my monitor (a Gateway VX900 - Similar to the Hatichi 751 - 19" monitor) at 1152x864 under WinXP. Text is only slightly fuzzy. Will there be a noticable difference going with a G550?

FWIW, I don't play too many games any more. Just had my fill of Jedi Outcast on the 8500 (interesting note on their drivers - although didn't experience any crashes, their latest drivers caused intermittent flashing during the game - the prior drivers didn't).

thanx
cp (aka cputnam of several years ago - now just One Old Jedi)

"Work is for people who don't know how to surf"

[Jedi Master]

Wow!

That's all I gotta say...

Switched out the stock ATi Radeon 8500 for a G550.

Sharper text, cleaner, crisper graphics...better images.

This should make working on Photoshop and the MCSA CD ROM videos I'm using a lot more enjoyable.

Don't get me wrong - the ATi is a nice, standard, all around card. Definitely beats an Nvidia GeForce 3 at image quality, and only barely lags behind a GeForce 4 as far as processing power.

But there's more to life than games (did I REALLY say that?)

Maybe in a few months, I'll spring for the new Parhelia. But this does just fine for now.

[Dogbert]

Congratulations man

Enjoy !