read this.. it's fun!

[dZeus]

http://www.orcweb.ch/turbotech/artic...0honor-01.html

[Thundrchez]

ROTFLMAO! Nice summary of current events. My G400 looks real good, and it does OK. I've played around with some nVidia cards before, and even with their insane 3d performance, I prefer the G400 all around.

[DuRaNgO]

nice job, dzeus!

[Joel]

Hey dZeus,

I posted this over on the Matrox Hardware Forum too, so I hope you don't mind?

Joel

[HollyBerri]

Good work, dZeus! Nice to hear somebody say it good and loud!

------------------
Holly

"All we need is a voluntary, free-spirited, open ended program of procreative racial deconstruction."
-Jay Bulworth

[Chris B]

Well hallelujah... gotta show that one to my nVidia loving friends.

Seriously though... someone should collect all these articles in a "Before you bag on Matrox and get flamed" thread for the FAQ

[Vlip]

Well, that is exactly what I thought after toying around two hours to get that f**ing Gefarce to work in more than two games on my friends computer ;-)
(Rogue Spear completely white textured! WTF these monster with 64mb of onboard RAM was not able to cache RS's textures???)

I love my G400!!! (That doesn't mean I don't want to see the "G800")

Vlip

[dZeus]

np Joel. I knew you would find this a nice article, even if the facts are a bit twisted, it always is nice to have a reviewer that 'isn't married to nVidia', talking about the f*ckup up 'dualhead' features of the Geforce 2 MX (which is also talked about in the Tom's Hardware review of TwinView cards), and also sums up about the quality of the 'nice' detonator drivers.

[Vlip]

What I absolutely dislike in this article is the fact he is not actually using a G450 and a MX, but instead he uses a G400 and a GTS and somehow he makes the statement that it should be the same for some reasons.

I know he might be right, but that's not a good point if you want to make a good benchmark!

Vlip

[DosFreak]

1. I noticed NO DIFFERENCE AT ALL in resolutions of 1024X768 and below between my G400 and Prophet 2 GTS 64m in 2D.
2. At least the Geforce supports S3TC. The G400 does not. Soon S3TC will be fixed. In fact someone has now made it possible to use the S3TC textures in UT on Nvidia cards. Can the G400 do this? no.
3. Although the reviewer states that most reviewers only post benchmarks between 2 games:

1. I only see pictures of ummm... 1 game.
2. I don't see ANY benchmarks at all.
3. The review states percentages and "feelings" of gameplay. Gimme a break.

[Greebe]

OK DF whatcha want broken?

Actually from what I've seen so far he's quite accurate. Shame he can't (nor can I, darn NDA's) provide benchmarks on the G450.
Let me add that he's not 100% correct on all aspects of why, but none the less true.

Also we weren't talking low res ie 1024x768... Try 1280 and up and tell me the same. Try 1600x1200 x2 sometime on a MX, It won't do it!
The pics of one game are only for an example of what we already know. To benchmark wouldn't one need both cards? As he already stated, didn't have. Now you complain that NV has S3TC, while the G400 (and especially considering it's age) wasn't intended for this in it's design... Hmmm anything else I may have missed?

[DuRaNgO]

hehe, don't you like the feeling of being thrown back on top!
jim

------------------
P3-700e @ 1052! Check it here!
Abit BE6-2
TwinMos 128mb pc-133
Matrox Fusion Plus F800 AGP with 64mb fcram
Maxtor 15.3gb 7,200rpm
SB Live!
Winblows 98se & DX7
and 384k DSL!

[DosFreak]

I wonder how hard it would be to make a program that could generate images through the video card at all sorts of different settings and then compare these pictures to different video cards WITHOUT HUMAN INTERVENTION. At the end it would produce a score for the image quality itself providing as a default just a number and no pictures unless chosen. Hmmmmmm.....

[paulcs]

He posted benchmarks on page four and given that he didn't test either the G450 or the GeForce2 MX, he probably shouldn't have. An editorial is an editorial. If that's what he was trying to do, well fine. But if your editorial starts looking like a head-to-head review or a "shootout," then you should should have and use the the hardware being covered.

I think he made some good arguments, but the piece itself was a little half-baked. I think his argument was better thought out than the piece itself.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[DuRaNgO]

HERE'S another write from Via Hardware stating the same info about Nvid's s3tc

a snip:

However, it does give a health boost to framerate, as many discovered after NVidia released its S3TC-enables 5.xx series of drivers. In fact, many websites reviewed these drivers, extolling their 32Bit performance. Rarely touched upon was the cost of this increased 32Bit performance. NVidia's version of S3TC was actually a driver hack, made possible by a licensing agreement with S3. Also, NVidia's TC only works under OpenGL.

jim