Matrox G400 MAX Retro Review
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ต.ค. 2024
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I used to beta test all the Matrox cards from the G200 through the Parhelia - loved those days, back when computers were proper fun!
Microsoft releasing another iteration of Direct X is what killed the Matrox Parhelia because Nvidia and ATI were able to quickly release refresh cards and Matrox needed more time for the Parhelia to be profitable but that was also fierce competition besides Microsoft throwing a wrench in the game.
@@apollosungod2819 That sums it up greatly. I also recall the Parhelia (I owned one myself) was broken with Doom 3. Their OpenGL implementation always kind of lagged behind. It's kind of funny, as a lot of people blame the original Doom for why the Amiga died, because it couldn't run it (initially, obviously there are a few ports for it and the Atari Falcon now). But for sure, Doom 3 made a huge punch in Matrox's face. It's sadly the reason I switched away from the Parhelia. Triple head gaming has never been the same since...
This really is an excellent card. Stable, good 3d for the era, and highly DOS compatible. My G400 just barely out performed my Voodoo 2 SLI, with more colors. Great choice for a 98 build.
The music is 200 years older. I like classical music, but nothing would make a retro video look old like the moonlight sonata.
Huh i played Expendable too those days, deeply forgotten memories, thanks for reminding😊👍
Amusingly, when I worked at Matrox, guess what videocard was in the workstation they assigned me? If you guessed a Matrox graphics card, you'd be wrong! Nope, they gave me an nVidia Quadro. This was in 2007, so it was long after Matrox was successful in the graphics card market, but it's not like we weren't still making graphics cards, the Matrox Millenium P690 came out in 2007, so they released graphics cards before, during, and after I was working there. But nope, nVidia graphics card, because apparently we didn't eat our own dogfood.
To be fair, I didn't work in the Matrox Graphics division, I worked in the Matrox Imaging division, where we made machine vision products. But still, you'd think, right? We also kind of hated the machines in the test cluster that had certain Matrox cards (like the G400 in particular), because the drivers didn't work well with VNC, which was a headache, but at least there they wanted to have a variety of configs tested, and that did include some Matrox cards.
While they fell out of the limelight, Matrox never stopped making graphics cards, they just focused more on business use. They kept making Parhelia-based cards for a while (the P-series like 2007's Millenium P690 mentioned earlier) and did a few die shrinks along the way. They kept doing that until 2008 when they released the M-Series (focused on quad display support), and in 2014 they switched to AMD GPUs on their own cards.
So whats happening with Matrox today ?
I Loved the Matrox in Games for Bump Mapping effects looks so good.
Back in the day Matrox Mystix was the Bomb I used tat card with 2 Voodoo2's in SLI for years.
Then Later Got the MatroxG400Max wow loved that card.. I saw a huge difference getting the Gforce 2 Creative Labs card in qualityl looks.
Matrox won by far but the Gforce was far faster and smoother.
But I used the Open GL driver from Nvidie and used them to run the Matrox way faster with wonderful visuals..
It's all drivers..
@@evilqtip7098 They make GPUs based off of AMDs actual lower end chips but with custom circuit boards with some other chips to enable much more options for outputting stuff. afaik their latest models have 8 mDP outputs on the one card and can work with at least 2 cards in the system with little issues for 16 screens with ease.
This video made me shed a tear for Matrox. ;(
Because it was competition. Something we barely have today. There was really something to choose between 3dfx, Nvidia, ATi, PowerVR and Matrox. Matrox also had some staunch supporters (not me) who passionately defended their brand in spite of its inferiority. There are some great stories to tell from those days, hence videos such as this one from Phil. Today it's just Nvidia dealing out the dishes with AMD trying to keep up, and the differences between them are so minor that they get blown way out of proportion by their respective fanbases.
Matrox and ATI had traded blows for best 2D engines on the market. In the very early 1990s, any serious "workstation" class machine (x86-- not sgi, Sun, or DEC, etc) had a Matrox card. When 3D became more important, ATI was able to eventually respond to the nVidia juggernaut with R200, but Matrox Parhelia was too little too late.
Matrox cards had superior 2D quality compared to Nvidia or Ati offerings. Had G450 Millenium maaaany years in use.
I still use Matrox millennium G200
The G400 Max was awesome. Still have it. When I made an upgrade from an old Erazor II to Matrox I realized the much better 2d quality the G400 Max had. I used it for a pretty long time. Next upgrade was a Geforce 3 TI500 from Hercules.
I had a G400 SH 16Mb back in the day. Very good card, very competitive with the TNT2 and Voodoo 3 3000 in direct 3D. It was only slower in OGL. I have bought some Matrox cards over the years. Bought a G400 Max wich is now artifacting, then another G400 Max that is still working perfectly, one G400 DH 32MB that stopped working, and another G400 DH 32 MB, that still works perfectly. The G400 performance is very similar to the TNT2 Ultra in Direct 3D at 32bit. Very good cards indeed for 1999. I still have a Matrox Millennium II 4MB to pair with my Voodoo 2 SLI cards and a Matrox G200 8MB, that was competitive with the Voodoo 2.
The reason you bought Matrox cards, back in the day, was for their superior image quality and 2D performance. Far before the 3D era arrived. Even then, I kept my Matrox and added a 3DFX card using the loop back connector.
I had one of these. What a neat, if oddball card. I loved the old Matrox full page ads in PC Gamer.
Still got my Matrox Millennium G400 Dualhead 32mb! it was my very first AGP card it played many hours of Deus EX!!
Man I got to play this game one day. Believe it or not, never played it!
I play through it once a year and i'm still finding new things hidden in it. very well made game very revolutionary for its time! highly recommend it!!
I had that exact one too since the year 2000, I used it a lot, then one day I turned on my pc (AMD Duron 1.1GHz) and it just beeped at me telling me there were no graphics card installed. So sad...
If you think Deus ex was revolutionary for its time, play its direct predecessors: Ultima underworld and System shock. Ultima underworld was released *before* Wolfenstein 3D and it had slopes, slanted walls, texture mapped everything, bridges, an automap that you could take notes on, an emphasis on exploration, a faction system, many different ways to defeat every obstacle (do you beat down the door and take durability damage on your weapon? Do you steal the key? Do you do favours and get the key in return? Do you bribe someone to unlock the door?). System shock is Ultima underworld in space. (System shock 2 is entirely its own thing). Deus ex is Ultima underworld above ground in a dystopian future filled of conspiracies.
Before Ultima underworld; first person RPG meant that you controlled a party of 8 different characters who took turns casting spells and bashing monsters, moving on a tile-based system, in a primitive world. In Ultima underworld you control one guy, and he's you; the dungeon is simulating a CRPG like a flight simulator simulates flight. It's the first immersive game ever made, and I really mean that.
I overclocked mine to the max and played GTA3 on it.
The water in expendable looks fantastic, it is almost worth having this card to run expendable in this way. And I thought that with a 3dfx it looked the best.
Environment Mapped Bump Mapping was only used on a few games .damn what a waste. RIP Matrox. I am still waiting on the Matrox G800!
Ah , I forgot how awesome Expendable was. They do make games like this every once in a while for mobile platforms but not nearly good as Expendable. Such a great game.
BulgarianPsychopath Shame the Android port was never updated to work with newer versions of Android.
My new favorite channel!
+VarietyGamer Cheers :D
+VarietyGamer
mine too. just watching this old stuff reminds me at the good old times. Lets build up a Pentium II
Mine too. This and Jayztwocents.
I had a G400 back in the day. Can't remember if it was dual head or not but it certainly had 32MB of VRAM. Was a great little card. My only problem I had with it was with Aliens vs Predator 2. Most of the game played fine with very good frame rates, but on the Predator's opening mission, if you changed vision mode and looked at an area where the skybox was visible the G400 would really struggle and fps would drop to the single digits. But if you looked anywhere where the skybox wasn't on screen, yeah the frame rate was fine.
Man, when I saw the Windows 98 splash screen almost shad a tear, good ol' times! thank you so much for bringin those memories!
+victor rodriguez Wow, strong reaction, that's awesome!
+PhilsComputerLab Of course! those were the days when I starded to like computers and games!
I love your taste in classical music!
Do you know what the name of the music is?
AXDOOMER moonlight sonata? love a bit of the ol' Ludwig van..
Yeah. Thanks. The version used in this video seems louder.
I had this Card! Back then it was an absolute ripper
I seem to recall owning something called a "Matrox Millenium" card in one of my old computers... totally forgot about that (and the days of the 3D accelerator card boom)! Wonder if it's still in one of my dusty old PCs somewhere?
The Matrox Millennium G450 DualHead I suppose?
Druaga1 has one
Can you do a video on different Glide wrappers? Which one is the best, compatibility etc?
Thanks for the heads up on this Matrox G400 MAX graphics card.I will have to obtain one for my vintage computer collection.I didn't know that they had such great environmental mapping back then.
Today I just ordered my first Video Apocalypse 3Dx (PowerVR ) PCX2 card at eBay for my collection.Some of those older cards sure are getting expensive lately.
+m9078jk3 Nice! Yes prices on some of these cards are quite extreme. The Matrox is actually quite universal, works with many games, others are really specialized but cost a lot more :D
I'm 16 and listen classical music since i was 5 yo. It's the only genre that i listen today. Thanks for remembering me of these wonderful Beethoven pieces, Paul! Also, i have one Matrox G450, but i can't use it because of a break in the AGP slot which unables me to install the card on my P4 HT board.
+André Campana Merétika When I pick music I often just randomly listen to all sorts of songs until I hear something that feels fitting. The Matrox card is a real classic. Built with quality in mind in a time when many cut corners to save money. So this piece sounded like a good match :)
Love your channel, keep it up man :D
+Sky Tenkitsune (It's Sky!) Cheers :)
Waiting on one of these arriving for a P3 retro build, Think your videos made my mind up on which card i wanted to use. Did try some other cards in the machine though (Geforce 6600LE, Radeon 9250, Radeon 9800XT) but they're just a little too new for the machine as a whole.
The more I try out other cards, the safer I feel with the good old Voodoo 3 :) But the performance is limited, beyond that an early GeForce is the way to go. I'm mucking around with a Super Socket 7 platform at the moment, testing all sorts of cards. So many issues with non 3dfx...
GeForce 2, this card, a Radeon, or if you're lucky; a Voodoo5 would all be ideal for a P3.
Awesome vídeo and EPIC choose of music.
+Rodrigo B.P You cant fight against the classical music of the moonlight sonata.
+Æmer0x True.
+Rodrigo B.P Glad you liked it!
Watching your channel is like being a young kid all over again!
+Luke Luoh Mission accomplished :D
+PhilsComputerLab so many memories...
I had this card and it was awesome back then.
I really loved it but I had to replace it with Geforce(I can't remember the exact model but I think it was Geforce 2 or 3) because it wasn't able to run the Harry Potter and the chamber of secret video game that my grandpa gave me for a Christmas present.
Thank you for the video. This brought my memory back.
Sir, you have very interesting videos, subscribed !
Thank you!
Hey Phil, do you own a ultrasonic washing machine to clean all your cards? it seems so.
I look forward to your review of the Parhelia and its 3-monitor support.
Some very nice images -- what camera do you use?
I have G200 cards in my old P3 boxes. Wonderfully stable and great color. And tough -- the only dead one I've ever seen had been run over by a forklift.
Always wanted to get one of these "newer" Matrox cards. Have you tried a G450?
If I recall right, G200 had VESA 2.0, but 400 and 450 only supported VESA 1.2, which means they won't work with some games and some linux distros.
Gateway used Matrox seconds as their video chip.
The 450 is slower, but was cheaper for Matrox to make.
You forgot to put a link to that compatibility link in the description...
I'd look for it myself but I can't quite tell what you're saying, unfortunately.
gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS/
PhilsComputerLab Thanks!
In the late 90's, this was my dream graphics card. Today, I own a system with a K6-3 400MHz CPU and of course a G400 MAX, as well as a Voodoo 2 for Glide games. I never got the G400 back in the days, although I did own a Mystique 220 and later a Millennium G200.
+InterruptRequest Yea it's an awesome card :)
Wish we could have gotten the G400 Tech Demo instead of the extended Expendable session.
+Kenneth Kolano Yea I agree, it's just at some point you got to call it a day otherwise it never gets finished. Time is the main issue :(
I just got one today for free and should definitely be better than my geforce vanta lt 8mb!
The card that gave you per-pixel shaded water animations before pixel shaders.
Thought for a second you were playing Future Cop LAPD
I had a Matrox G400 16MB in 2000, in my Athlon system.
Finally someone who dont make videos with shitty music :)
best intro ive seen
Another good review Phil.
personaly I'd go with a Radeon 64/7200/7500 32 or 64mb, even had 128mb pci versions, great dos support, has DX7 environmental bump mapping and can be readily found for £10 on eBay
+hardcore8uk I agree, the ATI cards surprised me actually when I tried them in Windows 98 :) I think the next card that I'll be reviewing will be the ATI Rage Fury / Rage 128 Pro.
I have that card with dual head configuration. I plan to use it in my future windows 98 build. Also, It works fine with windows XP and 2000
However they engineered them, they were always detectibly clearer onscreen. It was a real selling point.
Amazing video. Very nostalgic...however I don't see anybody playing the game that G400 was the best at: Unreal Tournament
Seriously, it was sharper and more fluid than the competition at that time :P Try it anytime, you'll see
Raonisk The TNT2 M64 was much slower than a G400 in UT, so the normal TNT 2 or even Ultra must be on the same league or slightly slower than a G400 Max in UT.
3:38 Well... My Quantum3D Obsidian 2 X-24 properties menu comes with overclocking sliders and vertical sync ;)))
Had the G100 (yes that was also a thing xD), as a normal graphiccard - but also had the Voodoo 2 for 3D stuff - was an awesome combination for that time.
Hi Phil.
Do you know by chance what the small IC with the black heatsink is on the G400 MAX? The one above the crystal.
Thanks.
(I have a G400 MAX that does not output any image on either of ports, however it is fully detected in Windows. Everything seems ok, just nothing on the output. Monitor enters in sleep mode)
I think Matrox could be an interesting competitor if they decided to re-renter the 3d gaming market. I think though, that they dropped out because they really didn't have any engineers that could design a GPU to the extent nvidia, ati and 3dfx was doing at the time, plus there was a lot of competition so I guess it made sense for them back then. G400 was around for a very long time, favorite for Linux machines back in the early to mid 2000's. They do currently make some PCI video cards, and I was looking at picking one up ( if I could find a nice cheap one ) to try out on older hardware. I love the box art of the Mystique 220, wish I still had the box to mine from the 90's.
Ive got the G400 Max (I think mine is an OEM Dell part, but otherwise identical to the retail one) , its actually not a bad card if one values 2D image quality (nice if you're running on an LCD especially) and some solid DX6 performance.
The card is quite CPU hungry from what Ive tested , more so than the Voodoo3 or Geforce256 so it really needs a PII 400 at least in order to be truly useful.
on a personal note I would still go for a Voodoo3 , although I will argue the G400 is a better card to have than any Nvidia pre GF2 (the GF256 has T&L and is a bit faster , but obviously that wasn't exactly a common feature pre 2001) and the drivers aren't as messy as ATI's drivers at the time.
This game reminds me of a top down Unreal. Anyone else get those vibes? What engine is that?
I like this video just tell me are you trying to do a video on the ATI rage Fury maxx video card
+Lu Wardner Cool card, that's for sure. I see what I can do.
phil teach us to ride the bench base for motherboards like you have, I am very interested
Broooooo.... I had flashbacks of Need For Speed 3, Unreal Tournament and Tonic Trouble
I keep meaning to pick up a Matrox Parhelia to try the surround gaming but I think they are limited to direct x 8.1 though, still be a nice collectors piece to own :)
+ThePlethora1980 Yea I also don't have that card (yet). I think it's more for Windows XP than 98, but the surround gaming sounds interesting.
the matrox was such a good 2D card, it just got outclassed by the new geforce options. the matrox had the best 2d image quality. I almost built two computers for work, a matrox one for photoshop/video editing and a geforce equipped machine for 3d work. was a bit too much for my budget tho so i went with the geforce.
Already outclassed by Voodoo before NVIDIA in my opinion
Similar music in this nice video : 3Dfx Voodoo2 SLI System Review
10bits color. And that in a time that most graphic cards were fighting about 3d gaming performance.
So yeah, it was never meant to be a super gaming solution. But if you wanted as good as possible colors you could do allot worse with other brands.
Matrox still exists today, even has a C-Series with guess what Desktop cards. Though they really are all about running as many monitors as possible these days. 3d performance? Not important. 16 monitors YES!
They stopped making GPUs though. All their current cards use AMD chips.
akabiscuitwaffle Nothing wrong with that.
Yeah, but it's disappointing to see a GPU manufacturer stop making GPUs.
At said time there were many brands making GPU's it is just that many didn't survive.
SiS broke off its GPU design into another company that made a dual GPU design. The XGI Volari. But by that point Ati and Nvidia had begin the big war. And of course Nvidia had bought 3dfx so....
Allot of smaller companies just stopped making gpu's. Intel, well intel always could put it in their CPU. And yes AMD had IGP's. But very slow VERY SLOW!
My point. Matrox choose to become business orientated. Multiple screens not one screen allot of gaming power.
You know I think that matrox is doing fine. Just fine.
Intel uses AMD for their integrated iGPU designs now. So even intel doesn't make GPUs anymore.
this piano soundtrack was played in Heavens promise korean drama :P :D .
man expendable looks just as good as Diablo 3 online only. without the internet lag!
I wonder how Mass Effect 3 would run on this graphics card if ME3 was made in 2012. It seems to run fine on max quality settings on my Dell precision m6400 that was made around 2009.
ME3 was indeed made in 2012, but it wouldn't launch at all due to the lack of DX9 and Shader Model 3.0 support.
would the matrox g200 be a decent agp card for windows 95 osr?
This looks very similar to the Matrox 906-04 Rev B, Is it the same? If not is it similar?
Wow, that was my first GPU. It was a real wonder, only had problems with AoE II with color errors no XP. The same once had AoE in +W7.
After some years, 7 I think I changed it to a ATI Radeon 7500. Now's dead, I broke a capacitor :( Server well too. Now I'm thinking: Is there any chance to review that ATI card?
All modern OSes have color problems with AoE.
Try using this fix:
pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Age_of_Empires
I think Q3A has a frame-lock at 91FPS. I run it at 91FPS on my Athlon 64 3200+ with a GeForce 9800GT.
Love your videos keep up the good work.
+barkinruday I appreciate that comment :D
picture is better than say voodoo, more blacks , better contrast, better colors ... but its slow in 3d dept so it had to go back XD i like bumpmaps tho
Such a shame they do not make newer more powerful gaming cards
The Parhelia failed to sell well.
I like how there's a GTX 1070 and 1080 out and you focus on the old stuff. Nice :)
+Boyborg690_ Yea, re-living the good old days :) The parts are also affordable :P
matrox g400 max graphics card is a good 2D accelerator with dual DAC
You could also check the Dungeon Keeper 2 with EMBM enabled.
+Adrian Andrzejewski Thanks for mentioning that game, I actually tried it but didn't know what to look for LOL Any idea?
+PhilsComputerLab
Use the following commandlines -enablebumpmapping and -enablebumpluminance to activate bump mapping on your G400.
Here's the link with screenshots (Lava):
www.hardwaretidende.dk/hard/artikel/41
Thank you, bookmarked!
I have a Matrox g400 - G4+MDHA32G.
Is see them online and they are not really cheap. 20€ minimum, why is that?
They have awesome 2D image quality and are often paired with Voodoo 2 SLI setups.
How does the image quality compare to the Voodoo 3 3500? Since the Voodoo card is pretty well known to have great image quality.
I do have both a Matrox G400 Max and a G450, but i never use them. I rather just put in a Voodoo 3 or a TNT2 card, even if there' not that big a performance difference. Nostalgia might be involved in that decision though... :)
+Stefan Johansson I can't give you an answer because I don't have any screen that go beyond 1920 x 1200 to see any noticeable differences. The G400 does however render in 32 bit and the image quality is really fantastic.
playing dungeon keeper 2 with a pentium 3 and a g400 32mb and its getting a lot lot slow down, same on my Voodoo 3 is this normal or is something going wrong?
I have a Matrox G400 in my Voodoo2 SLI system, I tried using it in some games before I installed the Voodoo's but I couldn't get it to work in D3D or OGL. Matrox's website is really complicated to get drivers and it seems they dropped all 3D support in later released drivers. I even tried it on a modern Windows 7 system with the last official drivers released and Dxdiag says 'no d3d acceleration support'. Maybe it only truly works in win9x with oldschool drivers.
+Storm Gaming Media Yea I found like 4 different Windows 98 drivers all scattered throughout the website :D
I linked the latest one in the description and also put a copy on my website just in case. I've only used them in Windows 98 SE though.
Star Trek armada used the dual mode to display a camera view on second monitor, have never seen this feature in any other game since
+Richard Havard That's pretty cool! Wish I had know that, would have been cool to showcase in the video :)
I had no idea that the G400 MAX was close (or better!) than the TNT2 Ultra! Gonna have to get me one of these babies for my collection.
By the way Phil, I have a few Pentium III machines (a 550Mhz Slot 1, and a 733Mhz Coppermine) but the motherboards have no AGP slots. I was looking for a good PCI card and managed to get a couple of Geforce 6200 PCI cards. Will these be okay? I remember they were quite fast at the time, but will they be compatible with Windows 2000 and those older motherboards?
Can you suggest an alternative PCI card worth running in those machines?
+TheVanillatech Look there are sooooo many options. Just experiment, benchmark, see how it turns out. Because every machine is different and a lot depends on the processor.
Note that the machine I used to benchmark these graphics cards is very fast and results may vary with slower processors.
PhilsComputerLab
Yeah I noticed. I tried paring some of my TNT2 Ultras with a Pentium 200 vanilla and even a K6-III 550 CPU, and those CPU's just couldn't push the card to reach benchmark scores that I knew the TNT2 ultra was capable of. Dropping it into a fast Pentium III would surely make the card a bottleneck. But none of my P-III boards have AGP slots, so I was thinking which PCI card do I go for?
The 6200 cards were pretty low end, but they came long after Pentium III's. I remember playing Doom 3 for the first time on a Pentium 4 2.0Ghz and a Geforce 6200 (AGP Turbocache version). It was bad, damn it was bad .... but it ran! In lowest detail, 800x600 and a playable 25-50fps. So perhaps I'll just use those in my P-III builds. They should handle any period correct games with ease, from the late 90's period, and they are passively cooled and small cards. I remember they compared to a Geforce 3Ti / Geforce 4 Ti4200 speeds under DX8, and an added bonus is the DX9 capabilities. Even though I wouldn't be playing DX9 games, on a Pentium III 700! XD
6200 should be very fast, but might be too new to use older drivers.
I will review newer cards on my channel, but not in the near future, lots of other videos I want to do :D
PhilsComputerLab
Yeah I was thinking possible driver issues. I remember System Shock 2 (and the lithtech engine in general) breaks after a certain Nvidia driver. Stuff like that might cause me issues. But I don't have any Geforce 2 MX PCI cards or whatever. Everything seemed to go AGP around that period, nobody made "real" gaming cards with PCI interface anymore.
I admit I don't think I have any 3D cards with PCI interface. Just older S3 Trio type cards...
What is the song title? Also this is a great video.
I have a Windows 98SE PC with the old white case and all :) Pentium 3 900MHz, 512MB pc133 SDRAM, 40GB HDD, Geforce 2 MX 400(PA256MX/II), Sound Blaster PCI 128!. Old Aopen 17" CRT. 5.1 Surround. Aopen white mouse and white keyboard. All from ~1999 and earlier!
Love it! I just play retro games all day on this thing. I can even use Firefox on Windows 98 SE to go on most websites like youtube (yay 240p). It's a sweet systemwith those sweet WIndows 98 desktop themes. Gimme the 90's!
+Jeremy Williams That's what it's all about :D
I'm in the middle of building a retro system :-) Old white case, ABit BH6 v1.1 Slot 1 board w/ ABit SlotKet !!!, 1.1GHz Coppermine Celeron, 768MB (3x 256MB) PC100 SDRAM, Seagate 120GB hard drive, Sparkle SP7000 GeForce 3 Ti/200 64MB AGP card, Realtek Ethernet, Sound Blaster Live! Value, white drives (Relisys DVD-ROM, LG CD-RW, Mitsumi 3.5" floppy), Cooler Master 500w MAX power supply. Going to put either Windows 2000 or XP on it. Maybe even a dual boot with both :-)
That's a very fine machine!
Thanks man I really want to finish it now! Forgot to mention it also has a D-Link PCI WiFi card and a USB 2.0 PCI card ;-)
I have two retro machines in the works, both running 98SE:
1. DOS/98 hybrid:
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-6BXC
CPU: Pentium III 600MHz
GPU - 2D: S3 Virge (for DOS and Win 3.1x)
GPU - 3D: Voodoo2
RAM: 64 - 128MB PC66 or PC100 SDRAM
HDD: 64 GB (partitioned for both DOS/Win 3.1x as well as for Win98SE)
Sound - DOS: Sound Blaster AWE64
Sound - A3D: Aureal Vortex 2
2. High-end Windows 98:
Motherboard: MSI-KT266 Pro 2-U
CPU: Athlon XP 3000+ @ 2.0GHz
GPU: ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
RAM: 1GB DDRAM
HDD: 128GB
Sound: Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
Maybe a DVD-RW drive
Do those seem killer?
another great video !
+Mari Paul Thank you.
Bum Matching? Isn't that Grindr?
why not play c.s,homeworld,nfs,colin mcrae rally 2, resident evil , quake 3
strange question but in running your benchmark for Expendable have you ever had the benchmark...go off script? as in not run exactly the same and get to the end boss? I'm noticing it seems to get stuck sometimes and does something completely random.
0blivi0n100 On what sort of machine?
well, I've run the bench before on a 1.4ghz Tualatin and a socket A rig with various cards and all went well. currently I'm benching a socket 423 1.5ghz P4 w/ GF2 Ultra and I've run 6 tests. of the 6, 3 ran as expected where 3 others at some point just went off the rails. the main character will just go a different way and usually get stuck in a corner. I think the movements are the same but the timing gets off and he turns before he's supposed to, or after.
Maybe that CPU is too fast. I don't think I've ran it on anything faster than a Pentium III.
It's possible, though I've run the benchmark on a 1.8ghz Athlon XP w/ GF4 without issue...so I'm not sure. I was running EMBM though on the Athlon and not on the P4 so maybe that slowed the Athlon down enough where it didn't go off script.
i had this card back in 99-2000
hey im building a retro pc with a soyo sy-7vba133u board a celeron tualatin 1.3ghz cpu what do you think about pairing that up with a geforce mx 440se or should I look for a better card, im planning on playing some ff7, warcraft2, starcraft unreal tournament and need for speed.
Just see how you go, it's all part of the adventure!
Try changing that Celeron to a full-blown Pentium III and grab the 1.4GHz Tulalitin model of that CPU.
The GeForce is fine, though a GF2 would be very optimal.
Parlehia was beast.
+Nikola Karovic First DX9 Card!
Too bad the card got overshadowed by the R300 and FX series.
gz. Featured on computerbase again. :)
Drakan supported Enviromental bump mapping?!
Since EMBM is already part of the industrial standard starting DirectX6.0, can we play Expendable with EMBM patch on current 3D cards?
I'm afraid not, the executable checks if a Matrox card is present.
You've got way too little views on this one.. the montage and music in the beginning is just awesome. .
good video really nice way you made it simple and rich of info... thank you for stop asking for like and so on, im starting to like this channel once more^
+Shaorin Shugogetten Haha, well I still ask for sub every now and then :D
+PhilsComputerLab well i see.. im just a person that hate when poeple ask for it, for asking is bad,,, if someone like it then they will rate and like. i just feel its not worth likeing or subing just for you or someone ask for it, i ahve unsubed a few for they allways ask for it,,, usely people are really good in the start but as soon as they get some subs they ask in all the video's i ahve had a few of those and its sad, ^^ but still keep the work up, its nice to see whats new, im new to win98 and DOS i did play around with it when i was little but never get a own pc. so its cool learn about i think its more cool then the new OS's today
Yea, I do take comments on-board and try to make it better. Like I used to have a intro for a while. It was nice, but I think it's better to have an intro that is unique for every video, rather than a generic one. Like in the Matrox video, one that sets the mood so to speak.
And I like to go straight into the action. I find a lot of videos you can skip the first 1/3 because the person just talks about what they are going to do and things they aren't showing because something wasn't working or other information...
So I try to keep it short and sweet but have something interesting to watch at the end, not for everyone, but someone will like it. I don't believe in making your videos longer, just to have long videos, if you can say what you want to say in a short time, so be it.
+PhilsComputerLab yea you are right. i gree in the way you do. you learnt alot, i think i nearly watched all the video's you made. and its so cool to see people get better learning amkeing things diffrent and see then grow.
i think that way of makeing it unique are thet way of standing out. and thats make it good. also its fun to watch someone that give info about thing problems positive things. and also get a good voice to listen too,
i can see that you look up thing you know what you are talking about and this make it so m,uch more fun to watch. i know it take long time to find info about everything make the testings and all this. maybe this vid here its 20 min but took you like 10+ hours to make. but sure its a long time but its more fun to watch something thats good and well made.
for me i dont do so much videos i would like to do i don know of what, i dont know what is intressting to show, or talk about....
+PhilsComputerLab do you know any better way of getting USB support on windows 98? i do use the native_usb_2.0 file you have, but it makes my OS like the start menu to english and i dont want that.... if i try to install it and then and reinstall 98 then when i input a USB it says please inseart windows 98 CD. when i do its want to replace a file either it want to keep old file thats newer then the one on the CD or it want to replace it.... no mather what i do it ends up in blue screen. so when i restart the PC everytime i insert a USB it goes to blue screen.
i have installed the drivers for the PC its a OEM pc from compaq, but it dont want to give me the USB support even if it find all the things. for it does i can install all the hardwhere on it no problem but i cant get the usb to work. so thats why i use the native thing.... sad its kind of only made for english and the bit of old school thing i would like to do are that i want to have my OS in my own language its look so cool,
todays OS i dont care, i like windows 7 in english but i use 10 now and thats in chinese. i dont like to have it in my own language this is only for windows 98 i whould like to have. but if there is no other way then i will let it be... nothing i can do..
and if i installed the unoffical service pack it works for sure but my OS get's most into english that way really english, thats ok i can skip that one for i know that one for only for english windows so i can live whitout it, or do you recommend i install a english windows and use it? i dont really know what it really helps you whit, i know it fixes some bug and give you all the updates with you cant get anymore.
thanks for your fast responses^^
Can you link drivers for your A3D card? I have the Aureal Vortex 2 but no drivers. :(
Chck my website, I've uploaded all the drivers :) www.philscomputerlab.com/aureal-vortex-2.html
PhilsComputerLab
ty :D
I'm guessing here but wasn't this the first card to have environment bump mapping...
just noticed the notation..
That's why it was bundled with the game Expandable. To show off the bump mapping. Also very good image quality on Matrox cards. They were praised for their signal quality. Made a big difference back in those days.
Matrox C900 looks awesome too
+MP-Tuners Productions Never heard of that card, sounds more modern? Does it work in Windows 98?
+PhilsComputerLab www.guru3d.com/news-story/matrox-c900-graphics-card-with-nine-displayports.html Upcoming Matrox Workstation Card. Support 9 1080p displays.
18 screens with 3 cards :) Very cool.
Yeah, also btw Phil if youre looking for another Matrox card to review someones selling G550's New in box for 9 dollars on ebay. www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Matrox-Millennium-G550-G55MADDL32DR-AGP-Graphic-Video-Card-Dual-monitor-/252371701814?hash=item3ac2869036:g:awMAAMXQTT9Rzzbf Not my listing, just throwing the Idea youre way.
PhilsComputerLab actually just with 2 cards :)
I had a G450, it was so terrible for gaming. It was the only dual head card I'd seen though and I got it for free, but it just frustrated me because even older TNT and 3dfx cards would just wipe the floor with it in games. Though if I recall games just weren't Matrox's focus. Most of the reviews for the card talked about the VGA signal quality, and I think I remember seeing a noticeable difference in sharpness and colors compared to nvidia cards. Of course everything is digital now so that doesn't matter, but then I can see why in a lot of settings that would be desirable.
The G450 is a little bit slower, but otherwise 100% identical. It was a cheaper version to produce for Matrox.
As for Castle Wolfenstein, that'll use straight up VGA. Any 2D acceleration the card had (hardware blits. fast clears, etc) won't be used unless the DOS program had specific knowledge of those features and knew what IO ports to use to make it do its magic. DirectDraw fixed this tough, and you had these hardware profiles that exposed to the software what features were available on the card, and DirectX handled either implementing that feature in software or using the hardware acceleration for it. But for a game like Wolfenstein it's all the same.
Oh, I thought you just said "Castle Wolfenstein" since you were talking about 2D. I seem to recall running RTCW on the G450 with some limited success. It seemed to handle most of it OK, except when certain lighting effects were active, then the frame rate would tank. I know in Counter Strike my frame rate would drop down to like 5 fps if anyone turned a flashlight on, and the smoke grenade were even worse. It was a very shaky card for gaming, an older and cheaper TNT would have been better.
How about doing a test on the intel i740?
Yea I'd love to!
I wonder what types/brands of cases you could use for builds like these?
+David Halligan Well I got that test bench so I can work faster on projects :) Sometimes I do use a case, so you'll often see the same one over and over :D
Anyone managed to BIOS flash one of those Millennium Flex 3D Edition bundled with the RT2000? It´s basically a G400(RAMDAC 300Mhz) running MAX memory chips(200Mhz) but with only 100Mhz on the CPU. None of the official MATROX tools worked for me. They don´t even recognize the card. I think it also uses the same PCB version of the MAX. I believe it could, with active cooling, easily reach MAX's level if you could overclock the CPU independently of the memory clock.
A late reply but somebody could find it useful - there is a way to flash the BIOS, I have successfully done it. I had to use special version of PROGBIOS, unfortunately I don't remember where I found it. You have to edit PINS settings in the BIOS, that's were the frequencies are stored. Simply flashing BIOS won't work. Just be sure you have a chip with a "plus" sign as it has been binned to work at G400 MAX frequency. Anyway, it's still possible to just force G400 MAX drivers and overclock the card afterwards. Will work the same.