A3D was used in a lot of games. A3D 1.0 is not bad, but A3D 2.0 can be really impressive even today. However, it can be quite expensive on CPU cycles. Make sure to get a Vortex 2 card and not a Vortex 1.

I've never messed with EMBM, but apparently it was a Matrox G400 series thing, CPU doesn't really affect things here, as I suspect the G400 Max will be GPU limited at all times with that feature enabled. I can't remember if other cards ever supported EMBM, how they supported it and if it broke compatibility with most games ( I think it did!). It certainly looks nice on Expendable. Probably not worth the performance hit though. Very few games supported Matrox's EMBM feature btw.

As far as performance goes, it really depends on what you mean enough, if you don't care all that much about performance, sure a PII 450 will be fine for most games. If you want great performance, you'd best look into a PIII 1GHz or Athlon system from that era. If you want 60 fps at all times, with that G400 Max and EMBM enabled... You can safely forget about it as the GPU does not have the horsepower 😜.

So the games are made for EMBM that back then only the G400 Max had but they struggle?

I did check what the requirements for the games are that are here in the Wiki.
It goes from Pentium 200 to Pentium II 450 and Matrox Mystique 220 to Matrox G200.

But i wonder 3 of them are DX 6.1, 7.0, 8.0a.
The G400 Max is only 6.0 - right?
How does it come they are made with EMBM/G400 Max in mind but have higher DX versions?

EMBM isn't exactly Matrox feature, they were first to license it from BitBoys Oy. Original Radeon and GeForce 3 can render EMBM just as fine and much faster.

MrGlasspoole wrote on 2020-06-03, 17:02:

And are there games where A3D is better than EAX?

I can name at least three: Thief Gold, Unreal Tournament and Deus Ex. There are probably more.

Positional audio is much more precise on A3D (even 1.0) than on EAX, especially when using headphones. Running the aforementioned games on A3D feels like having a wall hack, you can tell exactly where the enemy is, just by sound. That's simply not the case when using EAX.

For working EMBM i did read you need hacks/patchs if its not a Matrox?
If it works without problems on other cards then there is no reason for the Matrox?

My Windows 98 DirecX gaming PC is a Pentium 4 HT 3.2 + Radeon X800 XT PE.
But it has a Audigy 2 ZS...
Will a Vortex and a Audigy work together in the same PC?

I also consider moving the Radeon X800 to a Athlon64 4000+
I guess the Pentium 4 HT 3.2 is holding back the Radeon.
But then the P4 is gone 🙁

Would be nice to have a Pentium from every generation. But i don't see any use for a Pentium II

I am relatively sure that Intel IGP 845gv has also EMBM...

Sorry for bumping.
Wanted to ask :
is there more Matrox G400 (EMBM) games that requires exactly this hardware only ? Like Expandable? only can run on Matrox g400

Like I said before, EMBM is not unique Matrox feature, so AFAIK none of the games require it.

RaVeN-05 wrote on 2020-11-30, 23:07:

Sorry for bumping.
Wanted to ask :
is there more Matrox G400 (EMBM) games that requires exactly this hardware only ? Like Expandable? only can run on Matrox g400

no, there is a patch that fixes that for other cards.
http://redtux.rocik.net/projects/expendable