G400 Max OpenGL question

[snOracle]

I have read a few reviews that flame the G400s OpenGL support. Everything else about the card is supposedly wonderful. I ordered one and would like to know if it really sucks that bad. I haven't found a really good comparison between it and a V3 or a TNT2 Ultra as of yet.

Thanks in advance for you input.

[collinj]

Well, there are several reviews of it out there that compare it to V3 and TNT-2, and they all show the OpenGL support of the card is horrendous.

You can see reviews of it at www.sharkyextreme.com and www.tomshardware.com and they show some performance comparisons at both sites as well.

If Matrox can get their OpenGL ICD up to speed, they truely will have a winner on their hand. But look what happened with the g200, they promised an OpenGL icd, but never delivered.

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Collin J
HWC Administrator
Moderator: Support and General discussion.

[Vidfreek]

direct3d performance on p3 systems is right up there with the TNT2 Ultra, but the opengl doesnt even touch anybody elses. hopefully they can get their act together and get that ICD worked out before the card officially ships

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At last, We will reveal ourselves to the Jedi.

[Ronin]

I took Nvidia a year after the launch of the TNT to get the drivers dialed in. Good thing for TNT 2 buyers because the drivers are great today. My guess is Matrox will need a year to get their drivers right, and since the G400 is totally different from the G200, don't expect any improvement for that obsolete card.

[(Chanse)]

Nvidia has had the best consumer ICd for a while. Back when I ran my riva 128 the ICD worked, not perfectly, but better than all the other companies' ICd's out now. And the G400 is not totally different than the G200. If the ICd sucks for one ,it will suck for all.

[neg]

I once bought a G200 card, and I'm still waiting for OpenGL support. The wrapper they have delivered with the card is not good enough, only about 12fps (Crusher) om my Celery 450 128mb... dissapointing.
And that is the reason I would never by a Matrox card again... maybe.

And what is ICD an ab. for (what does it mean) ?

R.
Mads

[collinj]

ICD stands for Installable Client Driver.

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Collin J
HWC Administrator
Moderator: Support and General discussion.

[snOracle]

Thanks for all your input everyone!

[djroberts]

Horrendous is only having 5 levels of mip maps for Quake3. Indeed the G400 has a slow ICD, but at least it looks a heck of a lot better then the TNT2 and if you scale it down it will run plenty fast and still look as good as a TNT2. I wouldn't suggest it over a TNT2 for OpenGL only, but I would if you mostly play D3D games with a few OpenGL games.

- DJ

[Zakar]

Faith is waining...

They may create a decent opengl tcd, but it will take a good 6 months to a year to perfect it.