What about Matrox, eh?

[Rogue]

Anyone know what's up with Matrox lately? They are my favorite underdog company in the business right now. I haven't heard anything from them and this whole Nvidia/3dfx merger just narrows the field a little more. Could we see an ATI/Matrox merger to leave two major competitors in the graphics market?

 

[bernse]

I would doubt a merger, but the market could use a 3rd player now. They may see this as a chance. Who knows what their consumer R&D has been doing the past while, if anything. I am sure they are giving this a hard look right about now.

 

[Czar]

Its just nVidia, ATI and Matrox now... and *cough* bitboys...

I am a Matrox fan and I allways will be..

Now we have nVidiots and 3dfx zombies... what can we matrox fans call ourselves?

 

[WetWilly]

Matrox is notoriously tight-lipped. You can do that if you're privately held. Last rumor is that nVidia raided Matrox's engineers, and that's what caused the delay of the G800. Latest word on the G800 implied it would debut at GDC 2001, which means late March. Considering Matrox's track record for actual availability, that means the G800 wouldn't be available until summer.

I tend doubt we'd see an ATI/Matrox merger. I'm not sure what either of them would get out of it. ATI doesn't get a lot of additional market share, and they don't need Matrox's technology. There also seems to be hints of bad blood between them. Considering that nVidia is lining up as ATI's arch enemy, ATI was really stupid not to buy 3dfx.

 

[BurntKooshie]

The only thing concrete that we have to go on is what John Carmack said...."Matrox has solved the bandwidth problem". Whether that means embedded dram, or tile rendering or whatever, we don't know.

 

[WetWilly]

That's true, but curiously when he talks about Doom3, he doesn't mention Matrox anymore; nVidia's the one who comes closest to doing it right, at least in his opinion.

 

[Rent]

Carmack also made mention of ATIs 3rd texture unit which would prove to be extremely efficient for 32bit rendering. I'm just waiting for the Doom3 goodness to REALLY start rolling in

 

[Electric Amish]

Matrox and Nvidia are currently squaring off in court over the engineer controversy as well as other things.

Matrox will have a kickass card out. We'll just have to be patient.

amish

 

[Rogue]

Czar,

I think we can call ourselves part of the Matrox "Matrix", or maybe Matricies (sp?). Anyway, that sucks that Nvidia stole a bunch of engineers (although, steal is a harsh word considering the market tactics) from Matrox. Maybe we'll get lucky and the G800 will have an integrated Quad-head feature for quad-monitor support . Either way, I have a TNT2U right now and I have been waiting for an upgrade and I'm pretty sure I'm gonna go "alternative (ie.-Matrox, the underdog)" along with my AMD Athlon "alternative" system. Down with mainstream!

 

[BurntKooshie]

If we all did that then alternative would become mainstream, and we'd all revert back again

(ack....that actually happened in the music industry....:disgust

 

[Sir Fredrick]

That's only true if there is only one alternative, or we all go for the same alternative. I must admit I'm a fan of matrox as well, but I'm getting impatient.

 

[Rigoletto]

I don't get you matriots (matrox patriots). Have you ever actually seen any other video cards?? My v3 is real good to me.

 

[BurntKooshie]

I hope you're not calling me a matriot, because I'm still running a 4mb S3 ViRGEdx!

 

[Mem]

BurntKooshie LOL... nice one, maybe it`s time to upgrade.

 

[Deeko]

Hmm...while I've never owned a matrox, I rarely ever see someone with a Matrox card that doesn't like it. If they can ever get the G800 out, I may have to look into it. Shame they are "missing" some engineers....

 

[Czar]

A Matriot, I like it.


I AM A MATRIOT

 

[nickburns]

i have had ther matrox mellenium 1mb, and the mystique 2mb and finally the G400 max dual head, and i value its 2d. i play th e occasional game of UT or Q3 and some others and i have never noticed a problem with its 3d capability. I like the dual head and there DVD playback so i will be waiting for the G800...thats if i can stay away from the Marvel G450eTV

 

[Sir Fredrick]

I don't actually have a matrox card, but my mom's computer does, and I like it. I'm not big into 3d games, 2d quality is more important, but I still want to be able to play the occasional Q3 or UT (or whatever they come up with next). I'm currently using a TNT in my computer.

 

[MattStone]

I'm always rooting for the underdog, but I don't think that Matrox can eclipse both ATI and nVidia. nVidia's market share is too good right now, and will only get better...ATI has released its first "real" 3d board in the Radeon, and popularity is growing. Regardless of the competition that will follow the 3dfx buy-out, it won't be good for us consumers. My guess will be prices will continue to rise (except for "value cards&quot...and the market will have the same backlash against nVidia as it did against 3dfx. The v5 killed 3dfx because of all of the r&d, and no sales because of high prices (initially at least)...if nVidia starts getting proud, they will be eaten alive my the market. The future looks bleak...

 

[Remedy]

I wanna know what did JC actually see from matrox that made him say that, and does any one think that since nvidia snatched the matrox engineers that matrox may snatch the left over 3dfx engineers? They should bribe some GP engineers or do something to gain balance.

 

[dcdomain]

Fellow Matriot here...

Over at Matrox Users.com we call ourselves MURC's. Never bothered to find out what it stood for.. Matrox Users ... dunno the last two words. Anyway, yeah, I'm waiting for the G800. Hopefully it will be widely available before next fall.

 

[cyclistca]

I've always had a soft spot for them since they are a local company. In fact the head office is across the highway from the place where I work. I really loved The Matrox card that was in my last system. The problem is that they have never aggressively gone after the games market the way 3dfx and nVidia have. If they were to put out a kick ass card equil to some of the nVidia stuff I would pick it up in a minute.

I wonder why ATi and Matrox don't sell chips like nVidia?

Just another nVidia drone with my Geforce 2 MX card

 

[WetWilly]

MURC = Matrox Users' Resource Centre

 

[Modus]

The problem with Matrox as a company is that they're going after a market where the technology has basically been perfected for years: business desktop graphics. Both 2D speed and 2D image quality eached adequate levels under almost every video chipset manufactuer years ago. Much as it sounds harsh, Matrox is beating a dead horse.

Game performance is the true barometer of a modern video chipset, and that's where nVidia, 3dfx, and, to a lesser extent, ATi, always concentrated their efforts. The delay of the G800 only means that Matrox, never on the leading edge of 3D performance, will be that much further behind on its release.

Perhaps they can carve out a niche market for people with 21" monitors running CAD applications at 1920 x 1600, but for everyone else, a Matrox card at current prices is a tough sell.

Modus

 

[Taz4158]

<< The problem with Matrox as a company is that they're going after a market where the technology has basically been perfected for years: business desktop graphics. Both 2D speed and 2D image quality eached adequate levels under almost every video chipset manufactuer years ago. Much as it sounds harsh, Matrox is beating a dead horse. >>


I still spec Matrox for my networks. 600 plus machines. There is a LARGE corporate demand still for Matrox.