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Review Of The Matrox 32MB Millenium G400
The Damage Report is currently featuring a review of the new Matrox card. I've been playing with the GeForce 256 lately - very, very pretty stuff, but I'd be interested to see how this compared.
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I happened to like this article. It was a good review, discussing more than just a few silly Quake and UT timedemos.
Yes, linux numbers would be nice, but not very useful to review the hardware, given the current state of Linux 3d drivers. slashdot isn't a linux news site, after all.
And yes, dualhead should work, under XFree 4. Try checking the hardware compatibility list, or whatever they call it. It's linked on the main xfree.org page.
As has been stated (repeatedly as far as I can tell), XFree86 has built in 2D support for the G400, including support for it's dualhead feature. You can get OpenGL support from the GLx project.
It's one of the best, and most widely supported, cards out there (hell for linux it beats nvidia into the ground).
As always, Matrox has excellent linux support. G400 runs fast and steady under XFree86 SVGA server. You can overclock the board with gMGAclock, a GNOME-based overclocking utility for Matrox G400 cards.
RFC1925
Have Matrox got stuck at this letter of the alphabet; nay this product name? The Millenium series seems to have run for a long time now as did the Mystique; it seems that video hardware manufacturers seem to get stuck with only one 'theme' for life:
Creative: Absolutely everything Blaster
ATI: Rage, Fury etc; anything to do with getting mad
Now Matrox: Any card you want so long as it starts with M!
I'm sure there are many more examples out there, can anybody think of them?
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
the G400 max runs on a 100mhz faster clock speed the reg G400 shown in this review. I believe sharky extreme did a review of the MAX and showed with the G400 MAXes (at the time) beta drivers it was a hair slower then the TNT2U.
And the TNT2 does NOT look better then the G400 in visual quality, I own both (a G400 MAX anyway) and the G400 has a slight edge on the TNT2. (TNT2 on my windows box, G400 on my linux box). Allthough, you accually have to sit down and take a good look at both before you decide.
This review was done very poorly. a G400 MAX vs TNT2U would have been a better selection. They decided to equate it price vs price instead. So i guess their GeForce DDR review will pin the card up against other $250-$300 cards? Yeh, right.
Oh well.
It has full OGL implementations under 9x, 2000 and NT4.0. XFree86 has built in support for all Matrox cards. You can get OGL support via the Glx project here http://utah-glx.sourceforge.net/
The one thing I would like to know is why this card is being reviewed now? It's been out for a number of months now, at least since last summer. Not that it's a bad card mind you, in fact, while it may not give you the highest frame rate around, it sure as hell will give you the best image quality around.
But hey, whatever. It doesn't really matter, it just seems a little strange.
HedsSpaz
Argh! I've loved Matrox cards since I first had a Mystique (not a 220, just the original). For a programmer, I find that 2D image clarity should be FAR FAR FAR more important than an extra few FPS in some game! Thus, I get very irritated at reviews which gloss over visual quality, and only worry about fill rates or whatnot.
This review was a refreshing, and relieving.
I have a Millennium II now, and I find that the image quality, in 2D, is amazingly clearer, than the output of the TNT2 or Voodoo3. I've used Matrox cards for roughly 4 years now, and now looking at displays of other cards, feels like looking through a piece of thick plastic.
With the disappointing performance of the G200, though, I was worried that Matrox woudl get run out of business, simply because of the sudden insane focus on 3D speed. This article makes me feel a bit relieved, since it shows that Matrox 3D can keep up with NVidia where it counts, in Quake, run under the #1 gaming platform, Windows 98.
That, and with Matrox showing far more commitment to open drivers than NVidia (binary driver for XFree 4? Gag!), I'd guess that NVidia will fall behind 3dfx and Matrox in the small, but activist, open source community.