Matrox G450's Quake III Arena performance

[Charles]

Why is it slow? Even slower than G400 Max?

 

[Auric]

Matrox has shown no talent where 3D is concerned but seemed to have shat the bed on the G450 thinking they could cut costs even more by going with a single 64 bit memory path and making up for it with DDR. There is very little, if any, improvement for the buyer of the G450 it is just cheaper for Matrox to manufacture. I suppose without the cost cutting measures the G400 would have to have been scrapped due to it being woefully uncompetetive for the price. Now they are trying to extend its life as a low-end product by integrating everthing on a smaller chip.

 

[Radboy]

Charles, can u post sources? I would like to see.

 

[Remedy]

Auric, You still don't get it do you? It was never meant for gaming and why do you keep subscribing to threads that discuss this card anyways? Would you compare a ATI Radeon to a Riva 128???

 

[Charles]

Here it is, Radboy:

http://www.aceshardware.com/Spades/read.php?article_id=15000170

 

[Charles]

Yes, I agree. It was never meant for 3D gaming. I'm not even sure if they design G800 for hardcore gamers. Just wait and see...

 

[SSP]

Repeat after me.

G450 is not a gaming card.
G450 is not a gaming card.
G450 is not a gaming card.
G450 is not a gaming card.
G450 is not a gaming card.

Got it? Good

By the way, G800 is not based on the G400 or the G450. Just wait and see...

 

[Auric]

ReMeDy{WcS}, I answered Charles' question. To answer yours, the core was meant for gaming and only became available about a year ago. Do you think they will not scrap the G400 which is costlier to produce just so that can be their gaming card until the G800 comes out next year or whatever? Not likely. So they have made a bad product worse and have effectively withdrawn from the gaming market. Just as well. Mystique, G200, G400: sad history of attempts.

Number Nine did not make the transition to 3D and could not survive on 2D alone. 2D is "finished". The only thing Matrox has going for it is the multi monitor fuction under one OS as far as I know. As far as comparisions, it would be fine if the Matrox card was really cheap but it isn't.

The whole "business" thing is a myth. The only businesses it might be good for is financial and graphics, with the former only benefitting from the multi monitor support and not particulary from any perceived quality in ultra high resolutions. The majority are well served by a $20 ViRGE.

I'm just saying Matrox can't survive on products like these much longer. More progressive companies will simply take their market niche from them like candy from a baby -just for the fun of it.

I have not subscribed to this thread or any to do with the G450. I don't particularly care about the product or the company (especially now that I know it is nothing I would buy) but like most people here just like discussing this junk for whatever reason.

 

[Auric]

Yeah SSP, just wait... and wait... and wait...

 

[Sohcan]

<< Why is it slow? Even slower than G400 Max? >>

Simple, the G450 is clocked at 125MHz (250 mpixels/sec), and the G400 Max is clocked at 175MHz (350 mpixels/sec). The G450 isn't a gaming card.

 

[Electric Amish]

Auric, what the hell is your problem? The Mystique, G200 and G400 were all great cards for their time. I owned (still own) all three. They all played every game I threw at them as well as every app.

I use the G400 in my current box now. It plays UT and Q3A perfectly. Fast and fluid and with the best picture quality in the business. Especially for the current price. You can get a vanilla G400 online for $100-$125. Excellent 2D. Excellent picture quality. Perfectly adequate 3D. What more do you want? So it doesn't get a bajillion fps in Quake. It is still perfectly playable and better looking than on any other card.

When (if) Matrox gets the G800 out...we'll see what they can do.

amish

 

[ElFenix]

uh, as i recall the g400 max is faster than a tnt2u, and came out before the geforce 256, so it was the fastest card on the market for a while there. i guess thats a failure at 3d, isn't it?

the g450 is slower than a regular g400 because of the ddr ram. ddr isn't quite double the speed in real terms because of some overhead. so its like 90% faster instead of 100%.

 

[Remedy]

Thank you Sohcan,Eamish, Elfenix... Auric please don't talk unless you have some valid points to bring up with facts behind it.

 

[zippy]

Yeah, what the defenders of matrox said...I didn't get here in time. Sorry I let ya down.

Heh, anywho, a simple overclock to that core will achieve some very nice scores...I mean, I would imagine a 125MHz core->225MHz core overclock is very likely considering that the die is smaller...I'm surprised that it isn't clocked at 200MHz.

 

[Charles]

Will Matrox release G450 Max?

 

[Czar]

No Matrox doesnt have to give out a Max version because they allready made a good card that is &quot;not&quot; meant for gamers.

 

[Hardware]

Yes 2d is finished 3d rulez now!
For a good review read this
http://www.tecchannel.de/cgi-bin/printarticle/printarticle.pl?id=hardware/534
even the core is 0,18 they used the same slow 125 mhz!
The price for the g450 is the same as for a good geforce2 mx!
The 2.nd head with a low 200mhz ramdac and near no nt4/w2k support is the last nail on the coffin

 

[Sohcan]

Did you completely ignore everything said in the other Matrox post?



<< Yes 2d is finished 3d rulez now! >>

Yes, in your own little world...the G450 is aimed at the corporate world, not the budget gamer like the GF2 MX. Yes, hi-res 2D is very important in the business world...there are some very obscure programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Pagemaker...ever heard of these?



<< even the core is 0,18 they used the same slow 125 mhz! >>

Refer to above comment...the G450 is not a gaming card. The die shrink allowed for the use of only passive cooling and reduced size and board costs.



<< The price for the g450 is the same as for a good geforce2 mx! >>

They're not even in the same league...the image quality of the GF2 MX at 1600x1200 and above just doesn't compare to Matrox (yes, I have seen them both). &quot;Matrox has always been the king of 2D image quality, and the G450 does nothing to change that title other than reinforce it. The sharp 360MHz RAMDAC the G450 borrowed from the G400MAX provides for a very sharp display at 1600 x 1200 and even at higher resolutions provided that you have a high end monitor capable of displaying such resolutions.&quot; (http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1315&amp;p=10)



<< The 2.nd head with a low 200mhz ramdac >>

Anand doesn't think so: &quot;On our Sony FD Trinitron GDM-F500 display the G450 provided a sharper picture than any competing card we tried, but that is to be expected from Matrox. What was even more impressive was that the image quality of the secondary display at 1600 x 1200 was definitely acceptable.&quot; (http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1315&amp;p=11)

Sit down, admit to yourself that there is a computer market other than gaming, and stop this childish onslaught of repetitive posts...

 

[ragiepew]

this is quite funny...

Hardware seems to think that the mass market for vid cards is the gaming market... that is just plaing dumb. The gaming market (as big as you may think it is) is not really big compared to the corporate and regular consumer market where 3d performance is not #1 on wish list. If you are a hard core gamers then you dont even really have a choice other than a GF2 or Radeon... you wouldnt even be looking at the g450, plain and simple.

 

[Remedy]

Do you know what 2D is hardware? Without proper 2D, Websites like Anandtech cannot be design and image editing in Photoshop 5.0 couldn't be edited to its fullest potential. Which in fact is what the G450 is meant to do. Why this so hard for you to understand?

 

[Soccerman]

heh he never responds after stirring it up.. sometimes I wonder if he even knows he's stirring it up!

NO this card isn't better then the Geforce MX FOR GAMERS at default clock! Matrox however I think should have reduced the price of the card more then they did. if they brought it down to Voodoo 3 2K levels, I'd seriously consider getting one!

ALSO, the business market is a much larger market then the Gaming market. ie, almost ALL businesses have computers integrated into their workplace. some even have 1 per person. I think that makes Businesses at LEAST 50% of the share right there (if all the people who use computers at work have a computer at home, which most DO).

at home however it's common that you have MORE then ONE person on that one machine, so the amount of computers per person is alot lower at home then at work. remember these are typical numbers. THERE ARE EXTREMES..

 

[Sephiroth_IX]

Not a gaming card.

G800 is a gaming card.

done.

 

[kuk]

Sohcam: I could be wrong, but I think that for the G450, Matrox has a better 2nd-head RAMDAC, compared to the G400. I read this somewhere ... can't really back this up. Some research may clear this up

 

[Charles]

The history of my video card.

I bought a G200 8MB SGRAM about 2 years ago and I was happy with it till I start playing Quake II again (That time Quake III Demo beta version was just released). The OpenGL support was so bad that Quake III wasn't playable even at 640x480x16bit.

Then, I start using NVidia. I owned TNT2 Ultra, GeForce DDR, and now finally I own a GTS card.

I'm hoping that the next upgrade for me will be at least Matrox G whatever that has vivid 2D color and good 3D performance.

Just wait...

 

[Hardware]

Matrox has to sell cards to survive like ati and 3dfx so the gamer market is important!
Take a look at number nine they thought the same &quot;who cares about 3d we have good business cards&quot; and they went out of business!
Yes one again the 2d part on the g450 is fine but is it enough to sell a old desgn gfx card?
e.g. most of us think the same awesome 2d but cant buy it &quot;I need 3d too&quot;