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To: peter michaelson who wrote (7577)	5/23/1999 3:30:00 PM
From: wily	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14778

Peter, You might want to check out the new Matrox G400 and G400MAX. It has an extra head for a second monitor/TV. They are soon to be released and were just reviewed by AnandTech: anandtech.com Note that the second monitor is not supported to the same resolutions as the first monitor. w

To: peter michaelson who wrote (7577)	5/25/1999 8:15:00 PM
From: wily	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14778

Peter, The new Matrox video card is getting a lot of attention. Some very positive remarks today on Ars: ars-technica.com ___________________________________________________________________ The G400 report A host of interesting developments has surfaced over the past weekend surrounding Matrox's new G400 and G400 MAX video cards, which appear to be serious contenders for the next-gen video crown. First, id Software's Brian Hook updated his Q3Test benchmark numbers with scores for the G400. He slapped all the results together into a web page for easy reading, then he updated his .plan file with commentary on the scores. At 1280x1024 in 32-bit color, the G400 MAX churned out an average of 30.4 frames per second, utterly crushing the TNT2's score of 13.1 fps. Hook's comments: Holy Mother of Moses, did you see those G400 MAX scores at 1280x1024?! That is pure devastation in fill rate the likes we have not seen in years. Now, granted, they are running with a 16-bit Z-buffer, but still...those are pretty awe inspiring numbers. Now, the flip side is that they're NOT the fastest at 640x480, which means that their throughput (i.e. drivers) could use some work. The excitement continued as another developer weighed in with commentary on Hook's benchmarks: Ritual's Jack Mathews wrote up an analysis of the numbers for his roommate sCary's hep page, the Shugashack. Here's Jack's take on the G400's scores at 1280x1024: That's absolutely incredible. This proves that Matrox's hardware people are much more clever than the software ones, as it should be beating the pants off of everyone at 640x480. I'm going to keep an eye on this card, it almost sounds too good to be true. Judging by these remarks, it looks as though my earlier speculation about the G400's fill rate vs. triangle throughput may have been correct. However, the developers seem to think the G400's triangle throughput problems can be remedied via software updates. That makes the G400 a heckuva compelling piece of hardware. Also during the weekend, Jeremy at AGN3D posted a review of the Millennium G400 MAX, giving the the card a perfect 10 out of 10 score. He claims the video signal quality is the best he's seen: Moving to 1800x1440 was a very easy task and surprisingly the quality of the onscreen image was as good as 1600x1200 with my TNT2 Ultra! For those of you with better monitors than my 21" Viewsonic P815-3, you can also move up the 2D size of the image to 2056x1536x32. This ability to handle the high resolutions and to handle them good, truly set the G400Max apart from the competition and make it the true choice for business users who need the best 2D card on the market. AGN's review, like most of those published last week, emphasizes that the G400's 3D rendering quality is second to none, as well. Get the idea folks like this card? In his follow-up comments on his G400 review, Anand paid Matrox's new baby the ultimate compliment: "I can say this, the G400MAX will be making its way into my own personal system very soon." Assuming Matrox can cough up some decent driver optimizations, an OpenGL driver for Windows NT, and--eventually--decent *nix support, the G400 line could make Matrox the 800-pound gorilla of the graphics market this summer. You may wanna hold off on that TNT2 Ultra purchase. -Damage