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Hardware

Talking with Matrox 40

Posted by Hemos from the make-games-faster dept.
SystemLogic writes " SystemLogic.net has posted an interview with Matrox. They cover many topics, especially based around the G550 which was recently announced. Other things include the reason for leaving the 3D performance market, Linux support, future technologies, company economics, Athlon MP support, and more."
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Talking with Matrox More

Talking with Matrox

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  • "I like my shirt on my back, so we are focusing on a market we can win in." Sounds good to me, sad that they aren't going to at least try for some better 3D.
    -----------------------------
  • You might want to try AVI_IO. It's a capture utility that greatly exceeds the functionality of that bundled with most capture cards. It is rock solid for maintaining Video/Audio sync and it will seamlessly generate multiple files if the capture segment you're dealing with exceeds the limitations of your OS's file system. More info about it can be found at their site [www.nct.ch]

  • Matrox Driver Lies (Score:4)

    by tomblackwell ( 6196 ) on Friday July 20, 2001 @12:10PM (#71737) Homepage
    Matrox has hung a (previously very loyal) segment of their market out to dry by promising, then not releasing functional drivers for their MJPEG video-capture cards. When the date of the driver release arrived, they announced that they were dropping support for the MJPEG recording features of the cards, essentially turning a $200-$300 compressed-stream capture card into the equivalent of a $29 TV tuner.

    The Matrox Droid does mention that "It is usually better to release less updates that are robust with a lot of bug fixes than a lot of frequent updates that resolve less issues and have not been QA'd extensively". In my experience, Matrox has trumpeted features of their cards, and operating systems that they will (eventually) run under, but then has given up because it would be too difficult to make the drivers work correctly.

    I would highly recommend that anyone who might be considering buying a Matrox product steer clear of them.
  • So thats what that little green line problem is from... damn it.
  • "I wanted to use it under Win2K since it is the best platform for video capture"

    Huh? What kind of logic is that?

  • Matrox MIL capture (Score:5)

    by hackman ( 18896 ) <[bretthall] [at] [ieee.org]> on Friday July 20, 2001 @11:27AM (#71740) Homepage
    That interview had too many graphics acronyms for my taste. I know plenty about computers, but keeping up with all the latest Graphics acronyms is too much for me.

    Matrox has some decent graphics boards, and I think they're going the right direction by leaning away from the gaming 3d market.. However my most frequent interaction with Matrox is through their capture boards. Our Computer Vision and Robotics Lab uses a lot of their Video Capture cards (MeteorII) and I sure would like to have had a couple questions asked about that as well, but then I guess not many people care about video capture in this audience.

    If you're in the know, the new MIL licensing scheme seems absolutely ridiculous and appears to be getting worse - the prices for their vision libraries are through the roof ($2000 and up!). I can't imagine it being worthwhile for anyone to spend the thousands required to purchase a license for the new full MIL version! Especially when good and free libraries like the Intel IPL and OpenCV and Microsoft Vision SDK are available for free.

    Brett
    UCSD Computer Vision and Robotics Laboratory
  • yep... mod this one down as soon as you can please.
  • Matrox has not supported Linux for it's video capture products at all. In fact, they even refuse to return emails inquiring about such support.

    Isaac Connor
  • 2 grand really isn't that much for a library, especially a good one. That's rather cheap, really. Such toolkits aren't targeted at people, but at corportations, who have no problem spending that kind of money. Have you looked at LEADTools? A good redistribution licencse (that's for redistributing their DLLs) costs around $40,000. And people *gladly* pay it.
  • I've used both NVida and Matrox and I have to say that the Matrox card has much sharper graphics on X. (I'm speaking of 2D...I don't have any games at work)
  • At work i'm running a G400Max at 2048x1536 side by side (on my dual/triple head, since the matrox can accually handle 2 heads at lower res) with a competitors card outputing to identical monitors. The Matrox looks sharper at 2k than the NVIDIA at 1600x1200. I swapped the monitor cables, the monitors etc. I didn't believe that there could be that much diffrence but there is. The moral of this little story is that 2D image quality does matter since I spend more time at work looking at these two heads in two days then I spend looking at 3d games at home in a week.
  • I've messed with that and have them both set to the same scan freq independent of res. Right now I'm running them both at 70Hz. The higher refresh rates put more stress on the ramdac amps, I haven't put it on an O scope but I suspect that much over 1280@70 Hz the NVIDIA gets a little 'noisy' and has a harder time driving a clean signal. NVIDIA sells these cards for the gamer market, the focus is probably at max 3D speed at lower res and the video signal drivers are one area where corners get cut. I should run both cards at the same res/refresh and put them on the O-scope and capture what the signal looks like with my monitors loading the drivers. While im at it I should also check to see how exactly matrox is driving two video signals with the same ramdac.
  • I've actually just started using MIL Lite where I work at. I've actually been rather surprised at how the library is written -- been very easy to wade through, as opposed to other 3rd party software I've been subjected too. Additionally, support that they provide has been top notch as well. One of their reps actually ended up writing some GNL code to work around a problem we were having (there isn't a mechanism to cancel a grab in progress via MIL). Their liscensing is expensive, however (as far as I know) you don't need a liscense for each site you deploy software to. The reason WHY it's expensive because a) it has a small market b) it's GOOD c) they spend a lot of money supporting the product
  • don't you think the "russian=communist" stereotype is a bit old? ;)
  • you should download the latest win2k drivers ;)

    g400 dual head working as 2 cards flawless here under 2k .. it took some time, but its worth ! :)

  • Go to www.matroxusers.com, and click on the Video Editing forum. Many people are incredibly disgruntled with the lies and BS that Matrox has fed us for over a year, and many have stated they'll never buy a Matrox card again, myself included.

  • Anyone have any info of a possible G550TV card with FULL win2k support?

    I know this is sort of off topic.
  • They cannot compete with NVidia, so what do they do? They target the mobo builders, the corporate market, and the entry level builders.

    Sounds like a good plan to me. :)))
  • Yes, NVidia is diversifying, but will they spread themselves too thin in the process?

    The real money is in the chipset, so it is expected that EVERYONE will be collectively tackling Intels monopoly on chipsets.....
  • Many people argue against it for economic reasons. In many cases, a larger monitor with a single (headed) video card configuration will offer more screen real estate, yet cost less.

    Of course, if you've already got a large monitor, why not have more than one? And so on... I've got a multimonitor setup with 19's at home, and I love it much more than any single 21" I've ever used. The separate spaces seem easier to use -- code on one screen, debug info on the other, etc.

    --

  • I will echo the comment of the other poster who stated that Macs may have had this functionality, but I'll be damned if I have ever seen it in any of the print shops I have worked at or visited, from small newspaper offices to high volume print shops.

    As for DualHead, you can read more about it here:

    http://www.matrox.com/mga/products/mill_g450/featu res_dh.cfm [matrox.com]

    --

  • D'oh! The point I was making was that there are several features in DualHead that make it more than just a bigger desktop, and that info is in the link provided (once again):
    http://www.matrox.com/mga/products/mill_g450/featu res_dh.cfm [matrox.com]

    --

  • I was under the impression that recent drivers for the G400 and G450 had also got around this as well.
  • RTMac is cool, but you DO have to render. It provides display of NEAR Broadcast Quality PREVIEW Video in real time. If you plan on putting it to TAPE which we all do, you STILL have to RENDER. It only does a handful of the transitions in Final Cut... and Compositing... NOT REALLY. Unless you composite things that don't move, change shape, size - if you put text on a motion path, it won't give you real time. All in all RTMac is a nice product since it does provide NTSC Video Out, the Ability to Convert Analog Video into a Firewire Stream, Provide VGA out to support a second monitor... and last, it provides a mediocre real time preview for work in Final Cut Pro. Don't be fooled by READING about it (the definately STACK the DECK, even in DEMO'S I've seen). Give it a try, I'm sure you'll be disappointed.
  • HeadCasting is great, but it doesn't capture one important aspect of talking face-to-face - facial expressions. All it does is move the lips according to your voice. I'd imagine this is pretty cool, but somewhat pointless. It just adds a fake dimension to the conversation.

    Matrox is cool, though. I love my G450. I don't play 3d games much, but it is sufficient for when I do. I don't feel the need to upgrade to a G550 anytime soon, however.
  • Can you give me a bit more info? Doing a search on "render" in the mailing list archives gives more than just a few hits....

    ____
  • Take the technical side lightly ...
    Interviewer: "I wonder if that's even more than the number of T&L titles shipping today?"
    Sounds a little misinformed, since, in most case, you have no change to make to your program in order fot it to be accelerated my T&L. And if you're using OpenGL, you'll have a very hard time making your program not benifit from T&L.

  • It still blows me away that people think dual monitor configurations are a novel idea. Put in a second video card or get a card with built in dual monitor support and simply plug in a second monitor.

    Oh wait. I forgot. 99.999% of the people on /. staunchly refuse to use Mac's so they would never know just how simple it is to accomplish this task and that Mac users have had this luxury for well over a decade.


    ---------------------------

  • Thanks for posting this. I am ticked for the exact same reason. My experience:

    I bought the Marvel G450 in March after readin many positive comments off of usenet about the card. I wanted to use it under Win2K since it is the best platform for video capture. However, I had numerous driver problems/conflicts and had to eventually drop to WinME. I lost the ability to have larger than 4GB files (something that Win2K would have given me). I didn't mind much since Matrox said they were working on it. Then a few months later they announced they were dropping MJPEG support from Win2K (as you mentioned). I can still do video capture, but have to limit high quality capture to only a few minute segments.

  • That's pure logic, my friend - If W2k is the best platform for video capture, of course you want to use that platform when capturing video!

    Maybe it's not the best platform - but that has nothing to do with logic.

  • Image sharpness usually has more to do with the scan frequency than the card itself. Odds are, the Matrox has a smarter driver that sets the scan rate better.

    IOW, it's probably a difference in software, not hardware.

  • Matrox has also been very busy with the Matrox RTMac [matrox.com] product for the Macintosh. It's seriously neat, allowing for great video editing since it lets you work with three layers of video and graphics in real time and create broadcast-quality effects instantly without waiting for any rendering... Transitions, fades, wipes, composites, titling... Seriously sweet.
  • That'll teach me not to check the link before clicking on it!
  • Frankly, I think that the G550's head-casting system is not nearly as important an improvement as their solution to the dual-display problems that were plaguing G400's and G450's. The problem has been that Windows NT and subsequent evolutions (namely, 2000) would not allow for true independent dual displays on a single card without multiple video card processors. I don't know how they got around Microsoft's software limitations with the new G550, but they should be lauded for their achievements. As far as I know, Matrox is the only single-processor card manufacturer that has been able to solve this problem.

    On the other hand, headcasting technology seems to be a pretty bad diversionary tactic to the onslaught of far superiour 3D boards (namely nVidia). "Oh yeah, we do 3D, too. But it's business 3D." Sure, whatever guys.

    It is rather impressive to think that they've done all this without IPO millions (as they're still a privately owned company).

  • That's not true! (Score:3)

    by Newtonian_p ( 412461 ) on Friday July 20, 2001 @02:48PM (#71769) Homepage
    First of all, Matrox have made Linux drivers available: http://www.matrox.com/mga/support/drivers/latest/h ome.cfm

    And second of all, Matrox support the Direct Rendering Open Source project which makes an open source DRI drivers for XFree 4 for Matrox cards (and others):
    http://dri.sourceforge.net/

  • I bought a Matrox 450 a while back and played around with it's dual monitor support. I personally think that's one of the coolest things you can have in a desktop environment, you can maximize your main application on your primary monitor and use your secondary for a variety of other tasks. People are forever turning up their resolution to barely tolerable levels just to get that additional screen real estate but you still don't gain that much. Having two monitors not only doubles the available screen space, but it does so in useable ways.

    I suspect a lot of people would be up for this configuration if they only knew about it and had a chance to try it out. Matrox's 3D support is questionable but their dual monitor stuff works pretty well, this is what they should be marketing on. I think it could be a decent hit in the business community, it's all about marketing.

  • Oh wait. I forgot. 99.999% of the people on /. staunchly refuse to use Mac's so they would never know just how simple it is to accomplish this task and that Mac users have had this luxury for well over a decade.

    I've never seen a Mac used in this configuration. Of course, some Unix derivatives had multiple monitor support for just as long and I never saw them used in that way either. I just think it's a cool idea and don't understand why it isn't used more - by users of any platform. Especially with LCD displays starting to take off, they don't take up much room and it's cheaper to buy 2 15"ers than an 18". If not Matrox, somebody should capitalize on this idea, I think it's time has come.

  • Matrox have made a good decision if they're leaving the 3D graphics market. Their cards were often released at just the wrong time, and would be made obsolete when the likes of nVidia or 3DFX released a new card. Most matrox cards, while offering fabulous 2D performance that you would expect from a company that's been making broadcast-quality graphics hardware for years (despite the infamous matrox little green line syndrome, which I think has been wiped out now), have lagged behind in the 3D market and their cards always seemed to be running to catch up with the bigger players. Their use of PowerVR, for example, was a huge mistake and that was one of their first credible 3D accelerators.

    Long live their development of fabulous GFX hardware, though.

  • Two weeks ago I had a chance to work with a graphics workstation that was using two Cinema displays dual headed onto two G550 video boards at Pacific Data Images. PDI is probably best known for the work they did on Antz.

    If the emphasis isn't on 3D performance, I certainly couldn't tell. The 3D performace was very crisp, certainly much improved over the G450. The project underway had Far Too Many Objects(tm), but the animation engineer had no problem winding through the scene and performing the character animation with no visible delay at all.

    If you are into benchmarks, and /must/ get every erg out of your video card, the G550 may dissapoint. However, under just about any other circumstance this new MGA card is nothing short of blazing.

    For those who have not seen it yet :

    System Logic G550 Preview [systemlogic.net]

  • Related news (Score:3)

    by Tallier ( 469593 ) on Friday July 20, 2001 @11:05AM (#71774)
    SystemLogic has their preview of the G550 posted at http://www.systemlogic.net/articles/01/6/g550previ ew [systemlogic.net]

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