Nice article.

Can't wait for part 3 and 4.

I think they did not include enough detail in the paragraph about the i740. They made it sound better than it actually was. They made no mention of the performance hit that sometimes resulted from using AGP texturing exclusively when both the CPU and the video card would try to access main memory at the same time and they never made mention of the PCI version of the card at all that had onboard texture memory and was actually faster than the AGP version because it avoided the conflicts between CPU and video. I'm also not too sure of the accuracy of the statement that some designs put textures into frame buffer memory. I had never seen anything about that in any spec sheet or review of any i740 card that I have ever read.

It also says that the Voodoo2 was a 2D/3D card, which comes as a surprise to me since I still have to chain my V2's to another card for 2D.

The introduction with the 2D part is rather weak. It focuses on ATI and didn't even mention the most important milestones, like
how VGA standard was introduced
The IBM 8514/A as predecessor of later Super VGA cards
2D acceleration extensions...
TIGA as first solution for TruColor Graphics

Seems very ATI focused in my opinion.

Well ATi is the only one that crosses the whole history, from beginning to now 😉

This can't be true since ATI was founded in 1985.
Since 2006 it's just a brand of AMD.

elianda wrote:

The introduction with the 2D part is rather weak. It focuses on ATI and didn't even mention the most important milestones, like […]
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The introduction with the 2D part is rather weak. It focuses on ATI and didn't even mention the most important milestones, like
how VGA standard was introduced
The IBM 8514/A as predecessor of later Super VGA cards
2D acceleration extensions...
TIGA as first solution for TruColor Graphics

This, also. Number Nine was practically persona non grata in the article until they mentioned the SGI LCD monitor bundle that was released when Number Nine has a longer history with some significant cards like the Imagine series.

The G400 also introduced Environment Mapped Bump Mapping (EMBM), which provided better texture representation. For those with slightly deeper pockets, a higher clocked G400 MAX at $250 ensured you had the fastest consumer card in the market until GeForce 256 DDR-based boards such as the Creative Labs 3D Blaster Annihilator Pro hit the store shelves in early 2000.

I learned something new, I had no idea a Matrox card was the best card to have at any point in time in the 3D card market, considering I had the internet back then and researched products I wonder why I bought a Voodoo3 card? Perhaps because I did'nt have an AGP slot and the 3dfx card was the best price/performance option for PCI?? Still im suprised I had no idea the Matrox G400 was such a good card, I always thought it was TNT2 or Voodoo3 before the Geforce came on the market.

The G400 Max was an excellent card but didn't hold on to any advantage for very long. I owned one for some years as it was 'good enough' for what I was running but had to ditch it and drop Matrox for Nvidia for performance!

http://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/Matrox#G400

So basically, OpenGL sucked on the G400. D3D however was awesome!
3dfx was obviously the most compatible card of the era.

Nobody cares about this but I have to say it.
PDP-11 wasn't a mainframe, barely a minicomputer (very powerfull though).

The article is crap, it starts with the origins, mention SGI and then switchmode to PC, totally ignores UNIX workstations which for a long period were the only way to do graphics at all.

matrox introduced bump mapping. But wasn't cheap anyway.

dirkmirk wrote:

The G400 also introduced Environment Mapped Bump Mapping (EMBM), which provided better texture representation. For those with slightly deeper pockets, a higher clocked G400 MAX at $250 ensured you had the fastest consumer card in the market until GeForce 256 DDR-based boards such as the Creative Labs 3D Blaster Annihilator Pro hit the store shelves in early 2000.

I learned something new, I had no idea a Matrox card was the best card to have at any point in time in the 3D card market, considering I had the internet back then and researched products I wonder why I bought a Voodoo3 card? Perhaps because I did'nt have an AGP slot and the 3dfx card was the best price/performance option for PCI?? Still im suprised I had no idea the Matrox G400 was such a good card, I always thought it was TNT2 or Voodoo3 before the Geforce came on the market.

The G400 was overshadowed by the introduction of the GeForce 256. Once the GeForce came out, the game changed dramatically and Matrox wasn't able to keep up. Their comeback card, the Parhelia, was then totally eclipsed by the Radeon 9700 and that was pretty much all for Matrox. They were forced into niche markets after that and never released a competitive gaming card again.