Need your opinions on a trade gone... weird.

[notfred]

Ok, someone here on these forums wanted to trade an older radeon card (PCI) and a crappy rage pro card for any dual head PCI card. I offered a G450 card that I had here in trade. He acepted and we cross shipped the items. Two days ago he got the G450. He's disappointed with the performance. Now, there's nothing wrong with the G450, he just failed to read the specs on the thing.

He wants to trade back. I don't really want to, I'd rather have the radeon card. I don't need the dual head capability and I'd rather hve the improved 3D performance. We both help our ends of the deal, jsut as we said we would, but now he has buyer's remorse. Am I morally obligated to return his video cards?

I already spent a week using a 4mb rage pro card and paid for shipping once, and the card I sent works exactly as it's supposed to.
I'd like your input.

 

[SWirth86]

I don't see how you should be obligated in any way to send it back.
It's his fault for not researching at all, so you shouldn't have to go out of your way to cover up for his mistakes.

 

[UNCjigga]

The deal is done. A trade's a trade. Tell him to trade it for a Radeon VE. Not as good as a regular radeon, but the VE's 3d is better than a G450. You can say your sorry he's not happy, but its his tough nuts.

 

[McPhreak]

nope. He shoulda read the specs.

 

[ElFenix]

you're in the right dude. unless the other guy is skoorb.

 

[Aves]

I would not trade back. The deal is done.

 

[Evadman]

Deal is done. You are not required to do anything.

I honestly don't know what I would do. If he really wants it back, and you feel like being a nice guy, then I would probably trade it back as long as he paid for the shipping of your card originaly, and the shipping that you have to pay to send it back.

 

[amdskip]

deal is finished, don't worry about it

 

[smp]

Man I once had this guy sell me a PCI radeon (w00t, loved that thing) .. and I had it for like two days and he writes back to me and says he desperately needs the card back. He had sold it on his friend's behalf and that friend's dad was royally pissed at the other kid for letting his buddy sell off this perfectly good card to some loser on teh net .. or something like that.
Anyways, the kids was really nice and paid for shipping it back and refunded my money and everything. I really wanted to keep that card but I felt bad for the guy. Who knows, maybe he was lying but I don't see what he could have gotten out of it.

Your situation though.. it's like .. uh, you usually ask questions about the card before you buy! I always do some research if I'm unfamiliar with the item .. like, "hey buddy! You're a nice guy and everything, but I never lied to you or mislead you in any way, this is on your head, not mine" .. and then go play some quake on his old card. or something

 

[poopaskoopa]

Are you Wal-mart? Of course not. It's a done deal.

 

[Viper GTS]

What is he trying to do, play UT2K3?

It kicks ass for 2D, but don't expect to game at anything higher than 640x480x16 in 3 year old games.

He's a dumbass, you owe him nothing.

Viper GTS

 

[KingNothing]

First of all, I am well aware that the Matrox G450 sucks at 3D. I don't play 3D computer games. I acquired it to free up a PCI slot in my machine. Before getting this card, I read Matrox's information as well as Anandtech's review of the 32MB version (I have the 16).

My initial beef with the card was that, contrary to everything I read on the website, it treated my two monitors as one double-wide monitor. As such, it would only run in 2560x960 x 16 bit color at 60Hz. This was surprising since even my ATI 8MB Rage Pro could do 1280x1024 at 32bpp at 75Hz. Another problem I encountered was that video files would skip when I played them. I was using the latest drivers from Matrox's website for Windows 2000. Tonight I was playing around with it and it suddenly decided it would run in 32 bit color, albeit still at 60Hz. The video is no longer skipping either.

All of which is to say, what the card does and what Matrox's website says it can do are two different things for me. Notfred isn't to blame for this because he wasn't running dual monitors on the card and so had no way of knowing how it would behave.

Concering the trade, I politely asked if notfred was willing to trade back. A simple no would have sufficed. He has every right to keep what I sent him. I left him positive heatware because the trade went smoothly. I would appreciate the same.

 

[Viper GTS]

Originally posted by: KingNothing
First of all, I am well aware that the Matrox G450 sucks at 3D. I don't play 3D computer games. I acquired it to free up a PCI slot in my machine. Before getting this card, I read Matrox's information as well as Anandtech's review of the 32MB version (I have the 16).

My initial beef with the card was that, contrary to everything I read on the website, it treated my two monitors as one double-wide monitor. As such, it would only run in 2560x960 x 16 bit color at 60Hz. This was surprising since even my ATI 8MB Rage Pro could do 1280x1024 at 32bpp at 75Hz. Another problem I encountered was that video files would skip when I played them. I was using the latest drivers from Matrox's website for Windows 2000. Tonight I was playing around with it and it suddenly decided it would run in 32 bit color, albeit still at 60Hz. The video is no longer skipping either.

All of which is to say, what the card does and what Matrox's website says it can do are two different things for me. Notfred isn't to blame for this because he wasn't running dual monitors on the card and so had no way of knowing how it would behave.

Concering the trade, I politely asked if notfred was willing to trade back. A simple no would have sufficed. He has every right to keep what I sent him. I left him positive heatware because the trade went smoothly. I would appreciate the same.

The limitations you are experiencing are likely due to your OS of choice (Win 2K), not the card.

Try using the card under XP, your results will likely be much better.

I ran dual displays (under XP) on a G450, & had no problems whatsoever with color depth or refresh rate settings.

Viper GTS

 

[UNCjigga]

Originally posted by: KingNothing
First of all, I am well aware that the Matrox G450 sucks at 3D. I don't play 3D computer games. I acquired it to free up a PCI slot in my machine. Before getting this card, I read Matrox's information as well as Anandtech's review of the 32MB version (I have the 16).

My initial beef with the card was that, contrary to everything I read on the website, it treated my two monitors as one double-wide monitor. As such, it would only run in 2560x960 x 16 bit color at 60Hz. This was surprising since even my ATI 8MB Rage Pro could do 1280x1024 at 32bpp at 75Hz. Another problem I encountered was that video files would skip when I played them. I was using the latest drivers from Matrox's website for Windows 2000. Tonight I was playing around with it and it suddenly decided it would run in 32 bit color, albeit still at 60Hz. The video is no longer skipping either.

All of which is to say, what the card does and what Matrox's website says it can do are two different things for me. Notfred isn't to blame for this because he wasn't running dual monitors on the card and so had no way of knowing how it would behave.

Concering the trade, I politely asked if notfred was willing to trade back. A simple no would have sufficed. He has every right to keep what I sent him. I left him positive heatware because the trade went smoothly. I would appreciate the same.

Are you sure you have the latest drivers? I'm no matrox expert, but I am the owner of a laptop with an ATI Rage CE Chip that has dual display support. I also use Windows XP, which has native dual display support (WinME the same?) In Windows XP, all I need to do is hook up the external monitor, and under video properties a 2nd monitor shows up. On the 2nd monitor, I enable "extend my windows desktop to this monitor" and it does it (lets me choose resolution independently, bpp independent, Hz independent. Also lets me move mouse cursor from one to the other.) A G450 has more video RAM and a much better RAMDAC than the chip I have in my notebook--its also newer than that chip. I would suggest newest drivers or an upgrade to Windows XP (maybe the features mentioned on Matrox's website are only available on WinXP?)

Edit: Blah, ViperGTS beat me to it!

 

[KingNothing]

The weird part is, Windows doesn't know I have two monitors anymore. The Matrox card seems aware of this, but I don't have the whole "extend my windows desktop onto this monitor" thing that I used to have with two video cards. Matrox's site doesn't mention any Win2K limitations, and I've had bad experiences with XP so I'm not eager to switch. I do have a brand new 60GB hard drive waiting to be installed though, so maybe over fall break I'll give it a shot...