GXL750 wrote:

The DVD functionality is minimal and will work with most CPUs you could have bought off the shelf in 1999 but is still anemic. The 3D acceleration was okay but you would have been better off with a TNT2. The shining point was dual head (not very common in 1999) and the DAC which provided a very nice 2D picture quality. They tried to market the card as a gaming option and it's known as being the fisrt Matrox card to be good for games and it even had a few features ahead of it's time but ultimately, this card was less for gamers and more for CAD artists and people really concerned about the resolution and quality of their MSPaint bullhockey, Jail wardens (and other people with an interest in security systems) benefited much more from this card than a person who wants a smooth running game.

When using the later drivers (with TurboGL), it kept up and even surpassed the TNT2 Ultra and Voodoo3 3000 in some cases when it came to OpenGL. Direct3D performance was on par with the competition too... It was just the early drivers that let it down a bit when it came to 3D gaming.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/378

The TNT2 cards were good for gaming, but the 2D quality and even the DVD playback wasn't that great imo.... I think even the 3D quality and colours appear better with a G400 too!

PowerPie5000 wrote:

The TNT2 cards were good for gaming, but the 2D quality and even the DVD playback wasn't that great imo.... I think even the 3D quality and colours appear better with a G400 too!

I cannot state anything about DVD playback since I've never used it on TNT2, but the 2D and 3D output quality varied from manufacturer to manufacturer. I had a made-in-China el-cheapo Eagle TNT2 Pro that had crisp-clear 2D and beautiful 3D too. Once I made a step toward GF2 I could see a drastic drop in display quality. Thats why I always say - avoid GF2 altogether 😀

I will never say that about TNT2, since I've had a very, very nice experience with them. 😊 G200 also has very nice output 2D output, but I've never used it for gaming. I wouldn't place my money on it to be a 3D champ though.

elfuego wrote:

PowerPie5000 wrote:

The TNT2 cards were good for gaming, but the 2D quality and even the DVD playback wasn't that great imo.... I think even the 3D quality and colours appear better with a G400 too!

I cannot state anything about DVD playback since I've never used it on TNT2, but the 2D and 3D output quality varied from manufacturer to manufacturer. I had a made-in-China el-cheapo Eagle TNT2 Pro that had crisp-clear 2D and beautiful 3D too. Once I made a step toward GF2 I could see a drastic drop in display quality. Thats why I always say - avoid GF2 altogether 😀

I will never say that about TNT2, since I've had a very, very nice experience with them. 😊 G200 also has very nice output 2D output, but I've never used it for gaming. I wouldn't place my money on it to be a 3D champ though.

I think it was always a bit 'hit or miss' trying to pick a TNT2 or Geforce card with great 2D quality. I remember my friends TNT had better 2D image quality than any TNT2 or Geforce card i've ever owned (except more recent generations of course)... I think i had a Voodoo Banshee at the time which was also good.

ATI and Matrox cards were the best back then for DVD playback (from my personal experience)... The Voodoo 3 had smooth DVD playback, but it always looked a bit too 'soft' and slightly washed out for my liking. I never had any real success getting perfect DVD playback with a TNT2 though, but maybe it's just my luck 🤣.

Even video cards without MPEG2 acceleration still have other video functions like scaling and color space conversion. Can affect DVD output quality.

Sometimes there are also problems with RGB levels because PC displays and TVs are different. If blacks are grey, that's likely the issue.

swaaye wrote:

Even video cards without MPEG2 acceleration still have other video functions like scaling and color space conversion. Can affect DVD output quality.

Sometimes there are also problems with RGB levels because PC displays and TVs are different. If blacks are grey, that's likely the issue.

Is not manual color settings can solve this problem?

leileilol wrote:

I know right? […]
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I know right?

Are her nipples hanging out? 😳

that picture was intended to see how far it can go in texture size. 128x128 at best apparently, constantly mipping down with a short lodbias. Ridiculous compared to PCX2 (which can handle her at 256x256)

No nipples, she just happens to be very busty. Kinda like this.

Can anyone confirm if carmageddon III used EMBM out the box. I was just reading a 1999 issue of Maximum PC and the Matrox Tech rep said it would! 🤣

Just picked up a G400 Max and really want to try that with a Voodoo 3 2000 PCI in the same rig.

http://www.murc.ws/showthread.php?13919-TDR20 … M-Where-d-it-go

Looks like he had a G400 😜.
I guess it doesn't support it.

Maybe have a look thru configuration files for unsupported options.

swaaye wrote:

Maybe have a look thru configuration files for unsupported options.

That could work too. Ini files and registry entries are usually a good place to start looking for these.