Matrox is making a comeback!!!

Candyman · May 8, 2002, 04:17 PM

Well, well, well...it seems like Matrox is making a comeback into the 3D arena...again!

May 14th is gonna be a good day. I have always liked Matrox (still have me G100, G200 and G400MAX video cards). I hope that this new product will kick some butt!

What do you guys think? Will it be successful or will it die like their previous cards?

***Zardon*** · May 8, 2002, 04:27 PM

matrox cards always had great IQ, but I dont know about their stake on the 3d game playing market.. I hope they prove me wrong as competition is a great thing for us all.

I used to own a matrox millenium.. what a great card it was in its day... beautiful picture clarity.

I hope other people know more about this card, would be great to see them getting a hold on the gaming market !

May 8, 2002, 04:32 PM

These are expected specs:

80Mio trans.
350MHz/350MHz (700 DDR) core/memory
512bit 2D graph.core
256bit memory architecture
20-23 GB/s
4 pipelines and 4 TMU/pipeline = 16 (!) text. per clock!
4 vertex shaders
not full-DX9
pixel/vertex shader 2.0
displacement mapping
40bit color space
Triple-Head
8x AGP...

Jeff · May 8, 2002, 04:32 PM

I too owned a Matrox Millenium, great 2D, and I loved it, but my G400 had no 3D goodness like my Radeon has.

Candyman · May 8, 2002, 04:32 PM

And to think I was gonna swap my 8500 with a G400MAX because of the IQ....I am glad to see that the 8500 is (almost) on par.

Vaporizer · May 8, 2002, 05:02 PM

looks like a damn expensive card.... also looks sweet tho.

***Zardon*** · May 8, 2002, 05:31 PM

we have just set up a matrox section for all you guys who still have a card.

~~WyreTheWolf~~ · May 8, 2002, 09:03 PM

TRIPPLE HEAD??!?!?!??!

3 monitor outputs???? OK, I am going to have to try one of these out...

Nologic · May 9, 2002, 09:38 AM

hmm from what I recall of my old G400MAX was that it had the best DirectX of its time, it just blew chunks when it came to OpenGL is all, and since Quake was the in game at the time, a card was junk unless it kicked butt with that game.

I'll be very happy to see a new product from Matrox and maybe even pick one up, but I'll be very surprised if it keeps up on the OpenGL front.

Krusher · May 9, 2002, 10:18 AM

I haven't heard much specific about the new Matrox cards specs, and what will be better with it. Personally I'm expecting a furious comeback, especially when thinking about how long they have been quiet on the 3D front. (Strangely enough, this looks very similar to what 3DLabs is planning to do.) I assume that this will be quite a comeback, when looking at the time Matrox have had to work on this.

But, for those who might be in doubt of this born to be beauty (am I a little drastic here?

, check out this flash on their web page: http://www.matrox.com/mga/
It's actually just a simple animation, were you'll see sundogs, also known as Parhelion (the light in icecrystal phenomenom) which the new chip is named after.

I don't think I'll be investing in anything now soon, simply because I'm a poor basty. :P
But I will be checking out just about everything I can get a hold of about the chip.

***Zardon*** · May 9, 2002, 12:35 PM

yeah I tend to agree Matrox really had some of the best IQ on the market, along with some great 2d acceleration. it will be really interesting to see how things develop on this front

it will be posted here as soon as we hear anything

Slacker · May 9, 2002, 02:23 PM

Unfortunately, for Matrox, in order to make a comeback you must have come and left.

I (and most peepz) have always held Matrox with high regard when it came to 2D quality and sharpness at high-res.

But, Matrox has never put any real effort, not even good PR, into 3D...

I hope that this time they put their all into this product; something competitive with the ti4600 and 8500 would be astounding, but not expected in their first real try (if indeed this is it)

We'll see if matrox has developed 3d balls or not.

UberLord · May 9, 2002, 02:30 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Nologic
hmm from what I recall of my old G400MAX was that it had the best DirectX of its time, it just blew chunks when it came to OpenGL is all, and since Quake was the in game at the time, a card was junk unless it kicked butt with that game

I agree - the thing that sold me on the G200 was the fact that it was the first card to support full D3D with Unreal 1. My old PCX2 had had its day and a Voodoo2 couldn't be justified - so I convinced my company to buy me a G200 (along with a new PC - just swapped the cards

). Drivers were the only thing that let it down. It wasn't as fast as the Voodoo's for 3D, the the image quality was unbelievable