VOGONS


First post, by 386SX

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Hi,
in your experience, which PCI/AGP video card had the absolutely BEST digital to analog VGA output for a CRT in terms of signal stability,strenght,geometry,colors,details...? Usually for the one I've seen and testing lately I would say the G400 not only for the directly connected results but also cause trying it with the Dxr3 dvd card it seems one of the only capable of mantain great quality even through pass-cable.
Thank

Reply 2 of 10, by Logistics

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Professional-grade cards such as the Quadro series of cards are known to have better output and clarity than their Geforce counter-parts. I'm not certain if base-model Quadro cards also enjoy this luxury but generally they are regarded as better. I would imagine the FireGL cards, which I believe are Pro-grade counterparts of Radeon cards or similar. But Quadro's are much more plentiful.

And of course because of their large footprint in the professional world, general Matrox cards have great output and clarity.

Reply 3 of 10, by PhilsComputerLab

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For me Matrox G400 /G450 is the reference here. With later cards I think VGA quality wasn't an issue any more either.

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Reply 4 of 10, by 386SX

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In its time the Voodoo3 output seems good when compared to the various S3 Virge/Trio or Voodoo2 combination but it would be nice to see if better or not with the G4xx.
I was thinking to those generation of vga cause probably later when everyone were developing on the digital output, as already said, analog output was probably left at its own end.

Reply 5 of 10, by 386SX

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I've found a G450 and switching from the G400 I had to this. What do you think about both cards? Could the G450 be considered just a smaller process version of the G400?

EDIT:
I've read older threads and considering numbers in benchmarks and features I think I will try the G450 having probably the last and better native soldered analog output (and ramdac?) to use a dvd decoder card or maybe a voodoo2.

Reply 6 of 10, by 386SX

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Actually testing the G450 16MB with the Creative Dxr3 decoder on Athlon 1000/KT133/1GB on a cheap CRT 17". Man... it's quiet impressive the quality of the analog output. Even with the dxr3 analog overlay the signal remains quiet good. The 3D speed as I imagined from the reviews seems a bit lower of the G400 but need more testing.

Reply 7 of 10, by vetz

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If you have a Epiphan capture card you can actually compare the signal at a much better method:

Elianda have done some tests here:
Graphics cards signal comparison, image quality

I recently acquired a DVI2PCIe card myself and with the tools from Elianda I've tested some of the cards I own and the results vary quite much. Matrox is the one brand that keeps getting good results. Then again VGA signal output is not everything. It's the whole package with features and compatibility.

3D Accelerated Games List (Proprietary APIs - No 3DFX/Direct3D)
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Reply 8 of 10, by 386SX

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vetz wrote:
If you have a Epiphan capture card you can actually compare the signal at a much better method: […]
Show full quote

If you have a Epiphan capture card you can actually compare the signal at a much better method:

Elianda have done some tests here:
Graphics cards signal comparison, image quality

I recently acquired a DVI2PCIe card myself and with the tools from Elianda I've tested some of the cards I own and the results vary quite much. Matrox is the one brand that keeps getting good results. Then again VGA signal output is not everything. It's the whole package with features and compatibility.

I didn't see that thread great reading! I don't have the card for testing it but the difference is quiet visible as said at 1024 (but imho even less). I am testing also the dvd decoding of the dxr3 so it's not connected to the video card and until now the G450 feels to be the best in text sharpness and colors. For this reason I hope to test some of the internal vesa accelerator card available in those times (C-Cube for example). By the way the crt technology itself in my opinion is a clear winner too here.

Reply 9 of 10, by idspispopd

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386SX wrote:

The 3D speed as I imagined from the reviews seems a bit lower of the G400 but need more testing.

Phil has also done a comparison, don't know if you have seen it:
Matrox Roundup G200, G400, G400 MAX, G450 and G550

Reply 10 of 10, by 386SX

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idspispopd wrote:
386SX wrote:

The 3D speed as I imagined from the reviews seems a bit lower of the G400 but need more testing.

Phil has also done a comparison, don't know if you have seen it:
Matrox Roundup G200, G400, G400 MAX, G450 and G550

Thanks!