Review of the Matrox G400 MAX

Features
By published

Where Are The Results?

A huge matrix of tests were ran, for your viewing pleasure, to give you an idea of how the G400 MAX performs. For DirectX performance, we have included 32 bitBit and 16Bit results using the Expendable Demo (Rage), and some additional 16Bit testing using Shogo/TOMSDEMO (Monolith) will provided tomorrow. As far as GL performance, we used Quake II v3.20 with Brett "3Fingers" Jacobs' CRUSHER.DM2 and S3's 32 bit large textured based MON2.DM2 demo. To put the G400 MAX performance in contrast, we have included the two top competitive video cards in the market (TNT2/Ultra, VD3 2000/3000/3500) with the latest drivers available. You may notice the competition has gained some performance here and there but we've only updated those scores just to give you an "up to date" view of where the G400 MAX lies today and not to talk about the 3dfx/NVIDIA driver improvements.

Test System Configurations

Windows 98 ( DirectX 6.1 eng)

Expendable Demo

  • triple buffering enabled
  • highest quality for all video settings
  • audio disabled (however a sound card must be present to run)
  • movies disabled
  • vsync sync to refresh disabled

Quake II version 3.20 (3DNow! V3.20 for AMD processors)

  • CD Audio disabled (+set cd_nocd 1)
  • Audio disabled (+set s_initsound 0)
  • Joystick disabled (+set in_initjoy 0)
  • vsync sync to refresh disabled

Intel PII/III/Celeron systems

  • Motherboard: SOYO SY-6BA+ (BIOS Rev. ba+_2CA1)
  • Memory: (1) 128 MB SDRAM Viking (CL2 PC100 DIMM)
  • Hard disk: Western Digital AC418000-00DW (18 AMAR 99)
  • Network card: Netgear FA310TX (rev. D1)
  • Platform specific drivers: None

AMD K6-2/3 systems

  • Motherboard: Asus P5A Rev. 1.04 (BIOS Rev. 1007)
  • Memory: (1) 128 MB SDRAM Viking (CL2 PC100 DIMM)
  • Hard disk: Western Digital AC418000-00DW (18 AMAR 99)
  • Network card: Netgear FA310TX (rev. D1)
  • Platform specific drivers: ALI 1.60 AGP driver

Video cards/drivers

  • Matrox G400 MAX

  • Driver version: 5.11.012
  • 3dfx Voodoo3 2000(143 MHz), 3000(166 MHz), 3500 reference board (183 MHz)

  • Driver version: 4.11.01.1133
  • Hercules Dynamite TNT2 Ultra

  • Driver version: 4.11.01.0188 (NVIDIA reference driver version 1.88)