March 16 - 23, 1999
Archive

• Wintune98 (Win9X/NT - version 1.0.35 - 1.73 MB)
• RawPower (Win9X - version 1.06 - 368 KB)

 

• TweakIt (Win9X - version 4.0.2 - 175 KB)
• Required Controls (1.96 MB)

 

The Rage Fury did particularly well in 32-bit color mode. For instance, when running Incoming at 800 by 600, the TNT dropped from 77.49fps in 16-bit color to 48.26fps in 32-bit color. The Rage Fury, on the other hand, dropped from 66.7fps to 61.5fps. Running 3DMark 99 at 1,024 by 768 showed similar results; the TNT dropped from 31.7fps to 23.7fps in the multitexture scene, while the Rage 128 dropped from 28.9fps down to 24.1fps.

 

Hercules' superior High-Performance/Wide-Bandwidth(TM) board design and powerful software support assures outstanding performance and stability. The Hercules Dynamite TNT/2(TM) sets a new ``triple 32'' standard for 3D performance and 3D quality by combining (1) 32-bit true color rendering, (2) 32-bit Z/Stencil buffer and (3) 32 MB on-board memory for an industry leading features set.

Hercules enhances the features set of the Hercules Dynamite TNT/2(TM) with (1) a hardware accelerated software DVD player for greater than 30f/s, (2) high quality TV-out, (3) direct Digital Flat Panel support, (4) advanced PowerDrive(TM) Win9x/Win NT drivers to deliver outstanding 2D/3D performance, (5) easy plug-and-play AUTORUN installation from CD-ROM, (6) Hercules Touch(TM) and Hercules Utilities(TM) desktop management utilities, and (7) Hercules Entertainment Center 2000(TM) multimedia utilities.

To further add value and flexibility, Hercules' award winning Hercules Touch(TM) desktop management utilities have been upgraded with Hercules' proprietary Hercules MoniTune(TM) utility for customized monitor definition to maximize refresh rates out of individual monitors.

 

The TwinPower Banshee is no exception to the Skywell name and features 16 MB of 125 MHz/8ns memory that looks just primed for overlocking. Using Powerstrip, I was able to jack the memory rate up to the same level (125 MHz) as the Monster Fusion, though the clock speed itself was a bit harder to overclock. This was probably due to the standard heat sink on the TwinPower, which can be easily removed from the Banshee chip and replaced with something a bit more substantial. This option may be moot point for most users, since the Banshee really doesn't exhibit a noticeable performance increase through overclocking, though gamers with high-end systems will get the most benefit.

 

Although the most stable RAM in the comparison goes to Enhanced Memory Systems for their ESDRAM, the lack of general availability of their ESDRAM modules (which are the closest things to above a PC133 specification) forfeits the victory to another tie between Mushkin and Memman with their Samsung (SEC) Originals modules.    It seems like once again, the PCB makes all the difference, where the SEC chips with the SEC PCB manages to come out on top in all cases over the SEC modules with the third party PCB. 

 

The monitor is small. Err, the monitor is large, however it doesn't take but 23" diagonally on your desktop. The P815-3's case is quite small, meaning that although it's a huge monitor, it won't take up a gigantic amount of space on your desk. The monitor sports a very good dot pitch of 0.25mm, which will provide you with a crisp and clear image. If you're a big CAD user or a high-resolution lover, this monitor will prove very useful at 1800x1440. The specifications are superb for $1200, much less than you would expect to pay for a monitor this well done.

 

So, amounting this monitor we can see it as a brilliant example of what’s going to be the Next Big Thing, with features and performance the easily make up for it’s price. So if you happen to sit on around 3.500 bucks, and need a new monitor, go for the Nokia 800Xi, you won’t be disappointed.

 

• ATi Rage 128 Driver (Win9X - version 4.11.6100 CD89)

 

After the install I was ready to take it for a test drive. The first test was Electronic Art’s The Need for Speed 3, which I am convinced at this point, doesn’t even exist without a force Feedback controller. The R4 literally made NFS3 come to life and made it a joy to play. Games like F1 Racing Sim and Presision CART Racing were enhanced with the ability to feel the instant my tires hit the edge of the track, allowing me to maximize my turn speeds. Poweslide had amazing feeling sliding action to where you could almost feel the sand slipping underneath your tires.

 

So we have a clear conclusion.  The surround mode on the Digital Sound System 80 is good for widening music sound fields and for playback of Dolby encoded tracks but for 3D gaming stick to a sound card.  In fact, with out a sound card you would also be giving up on input jacks for microphones and accessories as well as a joystick port.

 

We were able to check the NEON 250 to get some benchmarks and here they are the first benchmark results of a nearly final product with beta drivers (expect the final driver performance to be higher!)
System: P III 500MHz with 128MB & NEON 250 early drivers
Benchmark: Quake 3.20 with beta miniGL drivers
Mode: testdemo 1
1024x768x16:  61.8 fps
800x600x16:  95.5 fps
640x480x16: 118.2 fps

Mode: crusher demo
1024x768x16:  49.7 fps
800x600x16:  55.0 fps

Benchmark: 3D Mark 99 Max
800x600x16:  4202

 

Intel Celeron processors are now offered at 433, 400, 366, and 333 MHz speeds (all with 128 KB of integrated Level 2 cache on the processor core). In 1,000-unit quantities, the Intel Celeron processor at 433 MHz in Plastic Pin Grid Array (PPGA) packaging is $169, and the Single Edge Processor Package (SEPP) version is $177. These processors are available in systems from major PC manufacturers, as well as in boxed format from Intel product dealers and resellers.

 

Aztech latest sound board may have a say in the matter, sporting support for both EAX and A3D, DirectSound, and their own propreitary API. How is this done? With an outside source providing a objective 3D sound chipset, the QSound Thunderbird 128. On first glance of the specs, this chipset seems to hold it's own against Aureal's Vortex-2 and the Creative/Emu's EMU10K1. But executing specs into a viable product is where a company either makes a quality item or a cheap bargain basement warmer. Let's see how Singapore's Aztech has done with the Thunderbird 128 DSP at their disposal.

 

According to principal figures at nVidia who are in the know, engineering will become the key ingredient towards developing video accelerators that significantly exceed the current generation's performance levels. An example of this that was given to Sharky Extreme last week concerned multi-texturing, or the ability to make multiple passes over a pixel within a single clock cycle. Most of the current high-level video accelerator chipsets can perform just two passes per clock cycle. But what if the possibility for four or even eight passes per clock cycle was implemented?

Things like 2+ pass multi-texturing were hinted at by both 3dfx and nVidia personnel, along with other options like embedded DRAM and on-board geometry co-processing.

 

And so- back to the heavyweight title fight. A tough battle at first sight, perhaps, especially since the long-awaited Voodoo3 is a particularly intimidating opponent. But there’s really no question about the outcome- nVIDIA’s Riva TNT2 walks away with the championship title after a clean third-round knockout. This may come as a disappointment to some of the more hardcore Quake II fans. But look at it this way; since Quake III: Arena will use a 24-bit textures with texture sizes of 512x512 and since the Voodoo3 has a 16-bit Z buffer and handles only texture sizes of up to 256x256, even the most hardened Voodoo/Quake fan will have to admit that problems will arise in the long-term. Voodoo3 boards will be coming out from STB next month: the Voodoo3 2000 will be priced somewhere around $140, with the 3000 at around $170 and the 3500 at around $230.

 

On the technology side, Permedia 3's Triple-Blend Texture Core, a one up on single pass multi-texturing and a fancy way of saying that 3Dlab's new part can perform two texture reads and three texture blend operations per clock cycle, calls for 250 megatexels per second, 32-bit color, 2084x2084x32-bit texture support, perspective correct per-pixel tri-linear mip-mapping, full DirectX 6 feature set, multiple effects per clock cycle, 32-bit linear Z-buffer, 24-bit and 16-bit non-linear Z-buffer (a sweet trick for allocating more precision in determining the Z depth of closer objects), full blend modes and alpha tests, full-scene line and edge anti-aliasing, emboss (the software cheat) and DOT3 (the real thing) bump mapping and 3D textures. And that's just for starters.

 

In order to know more about the V3800 we need to know more about the TNT2. The RIVA TNT2 combines 3D and 2D performance with 32-bit true color rendering, 32-bit Z-buffer and a 32Mb frame buffer with Digital Flat Panel support as well as AGP 2X/4X support. The TNT2's TwiN Texel Architecture and per-pixel mip-mapping precision, offers consumers an unprecedented fill rate of up-to 350 million pixels-per-second, which is twice that of the nearest competitor. You can expect ASUS to produce a video card that will take advantage of all the above features. However, ASUS will not only be providing a video card. The ASUS AGP-V3800/TV will be designed with high quality compression technology and be bundled with Live3800, a videro capture software. The card will be able to capture motion video at 30 frames/sec in 352x240(NTSC) and 352x288(PAL) resolution as well as 15 frames/sec at 704x480 resolution. The ASUS AGP-V3800 is scheduled for mid to late April release.

 

This board is perfect for overclocking the K6(2). It has various available voltage settings from the standard K6 2.2V up through 3.3V in .1 increments. The bus speeds can be set up to 133 Mhz. with 95, 100, 105, 112, and 124 available in between. We were able to set our K6(2)-400 up to 475 MHz. at default voltage. We also were able to load Windows at 504 (4.5X112) but it locked after a few minutes of use. Something tells me better cooling would have stabilized the CPU. We felt this ability to overclock so well was a strong suit for the WinFast 5300MA

• Incoming Lux-et-Labour without/with "SLI" 1024x786: 39,97 / 64,42 fps (+60%)
• Quake II Timedemo1 1024x786 without/with"SLI": 27,5 / 36,5 fps (+33%)
• 3D Mark 99, 800x600 without/with"SLI": 2287 / 3135 3dmarks (+37%)

For those of your wanting to make a dual-Celeron system but are not confident enough of your soldering skills, your prayers have again been answered. This time by PowerLeap.

PowerLeap will be releasing very soon probably the best Slotket ever - the PowerLeap PL-PII. Their adapter will support dual CPU motherboards without modification to the adatper. It will also allow hardware control of the core voltage, clock multiplier, and external bus speed (66/100) - an overclocker's dream.

If you want a blindingly fast machine to run your business applications, you can't do better than a K6-III-450 system. For less than the cost of a Pentium III-450 PC, you'll get the performance of a Pentium III-500. Of course, if all you're running are business applications, you probably don't really need that much power to begin with, and a Celeron-400 or -433 will do just fine. And if you're addicted to computer gaming, or otherwise need fast and wonderful 3D graphics, you may want to shell out the big bucks for a Pentium III system.

 

What good is a 500MHz Pentium III without a great monitor? Well, not much, but if you can afford a Pentium III, you should have a great monitor to compliment it. I remember the first time I went from a generic 14" monitor, to a 17". I was completely blown away. It seemed like I got an entirely new computer.

 

• TNT Detonator Driver AGP (Win9X - version 1.20 - 1 MB)
• TNT Detonator Driver PCI (Win9X - version 1.20 - 1 MB)

 

Creative Labs Graphics Blaster Riva TNT Bios update:

• Upgrades the BIOS to the latest version (v2.0.4.6)
• Allows your system to boot up successfully even if your monitor is not connected to the Graphics Blaster RIVA TNT.

• Graphics Blaster Riva TNT BIOS update (Revision 1 - 406 KB)

Creative Labs 3D Blaster Banshee fixes/updates:

• Latest DirectX 6 compliant drivers (v1.09)
• Latest BIOS Update (v1.03.2d)
• GlideSwitcher Utility
• BlasterControl
• Supports multiple monitors under Win98
• Solves DVD problems at 640x480
• Solves display cropping problems
• Now sets refresh rate to maximum allowable

• Creative Labs 3D Blaster Banshee Driver (Win9X - Revision 4 - 2.8 MB)

Creative Labs 3D Blaster Voodoo2 fixes/updates:

• Glide 2x Ver 2.54
• Glide 3x Ver 3.01
• Win9x driver Ver 2.18
• Contains DirectX6 Enhancements (fully supports DirectX5 and DirectX6)
• Solves problems with G-Police
• Contains optimized drivers for Pentium chips
• Contains optimized drivers for AMD 3DNOW chips

• Creative Labs 3D Blaster Voodoo2 Driver (Win9X - 2.3 MB)

 

Although the steps can be a bit tricky, the end result is a fairly cost effective dual processor system.  The long-term stability tests AnandTech ran on the modified dual 450MHz Celeron system indicated that the solution, most likely due to its overclocked nature, was not suitable for do-or-die server situations, however it was reliable enough to handle the majority of the stability tests AnandTech tossed at it.

 

Although the "Arctic Cap" didn't overwhelm us with amazement in the actual heat measurements, it did reduce the CPU's temperature an additional three to five percent versus the non-Arctic Cap equipped Glacier 4500C. That slight improvement was enough to push the temperatures of the Glacier 4500C down to Whopper Sandwich levels, and hence steal the first place award from the Whopper's grasp.

 

• S3 Savage3D Reference Driver (Win9X - version 6.13.15 - 1.12 MB)

 

This is the question, isn't it? Now $400 is a lot of scratch for a case - or is it? How many cases do you buy? As overclockers, you know temperature is a biggy - if you like to experiment and want to wring the most out of your CPU, using the KryoTech as a starting point - not end point - could lead to some very interesting results. If you want absolute stability in mission critical applications with overclocked CPUs, this could be a good way to go.

 

First off, let's clarify things. The K7 is a true seventh-generation x86 processor in every sense of the word. AMD didn't just throw on some cache or add multimedia instructions when they designed the K7; they built it from the ground up. Intel's recent sixth-generation offerings (the Pentium II, Pentium II Xeon, Celeron, and Pentium III) are all based on the venerable Pentium Pro. Intel's next-generation chip (code-named Foster) appears to be even stronger than the K7. Boasting a new feature called a trace cache Foster will remove a step in the processing pipeline. In addition, Fosters' system bus boasts a throughput of 3.2 gigabytes/second, twice that of the K7's 1.6GB/sec. However, AMD's K7 is scheduled to ship in June of this year, while Foster won't see the light of day until 2000 or 2001. As a result, every power-hungry computer user has the K7 #1 on his wish list of goodies.

 

Regarding the future, Intel unveiled knowledge management features and indexing run on an 800 MHz chip. "This can very quickly go over a GB of information and pull it down to exactly what you want to look at in seconds," said Gelsinger. He claimed this was "the fastest machine ever demonstrated in Europe. The Formula One race car of processors," adding: "This gives you some idea of the headroom in the Intel processor family."

The K7 will support all different types of memory modules from 512K up to 8Mb of address space, as second level cache, said Bixler. He said that AMD was likely to develop Rambus chipsets for the platform.

He claimed that the K7, at release date, would match and surpass anything that Intel could produce on the 32-bit platform. He also said that higher frequency K6-IIIs would be rolled out during the year.

 

Hercules Computer Technology, Inc., today announced the Hercules Dynamite TNT/2TM, its highest performing AGP 2X/4X capable 32MB 2D/3D graphics and DVD accelerator based on NVIDIA Corporation's new RIVA TNT2TM graphics processor. Hercules' High-Performance/Wide-Bandwidth board design and powerful software support assures outstanding performance and stability. The Hercules Dynamite TNT/2TM sets a new "triple 32" standard for 3D performance and 3D quality by combining (1) 32-bit true color rendering, (2) 32-bit Z/Stencil buffer and (3) 32 MB on-board memory for an industry leading features set.

 

• Montego II Quadzilla Board and Packagaing Picture

 

• Diamond Viper V770 Preview
• ASUS V3800/TV Preview
• ELSA Erazor III Preview

 

The good news, however, is the article's report that the bus lock is still not implemented yet.  Even more interesting is the article's headline: Intel will release software that can determine a processor's factory MHz rating. Of course some of us have been saying from the beginning that this is the best way to do it. Forget all this locking business; let the legitimate overclockers do what they want, but have a mechanism whereby a customer can be told whether a system has been overclocked without their knowledge. Everybody wins. Isn't it just lovely? The one potential worry I have is the manner in which this warning implemented. I will be majorly pissed if my computer finds it necessary to tell me every five minutes that I am overclocked.

 

When the hub is first initialized, it uses something called Auto-Play and detects any transmissions coming from any of the joysticks (Analog or Digital). Just grab any of the controllers and the gameport will recognize the activity and initiate the port. After one second of inactivity, another controller can be activated. This allows you to simply pick up the nearest stick and start playing and also lets you use another controller if you feel the need to change.

 

That worked out pretty well, so we decided to increase the distance between the systems and add a wall in for good measure. It's understandable that going between floors may cause problems, but a single wall should be well within the capabilities of the HomeFree. The third network had the systems in adjacent rooms with a wall and about 25 feet in between. Transferring an 8.1MB file took 3 minutes and 25 seconds- that's about 40.5 k/sec and ~324kbps. Not too bad compared to the side-by-side tests.

 

The Rage 128 doesn't really need any third-party support, but since a handful of registered users have scored these boards, the PowerStrip beta here (650kb) includes Rage 128 support under 9x and NT. In addition to providing in-game gamma and the other usual PowerStrip controls, simply running this build with a Rage 128 will automatically "reveal" the additional OpenGL and D3D property sheets that are provided, but "hidden" by ATI in the interests of WHQL certification.

• Powerstrip (Win9X - 2.40.02 Beta - 651 KB)

Let's admit it, I'm not an audiophile, never has been, never will be. But I do like good sound and I know it when I hear it. A die-hard gamer can't live without a good 3D accelerator, just simply because it adds that extra dimension, speed and visual quality to a game. Well good sound is just as important. I mean, you have an extremely high-end computer with, say, a Voodoo2 SLI setup. Surely Quake2 will run as smooth as a baby's butt but without good sound, a whole aspect of the game is lost. The heavy thumps and deep bass sounds will be lost forever without the extra power that a subwoofer offers. Add the Quake2 Bass pack and the deep sounds of, say the Rocket Launcher, will be even deeper, and with a good 3-piece speaker system it'll make your nuts shake.

 

• Hardware Central's G400 Preview
• Avault's G400 Preview

 

As clockspeeds are approaching or even breaking through the 0.5 GHz barrier, one needs to be aware of the fact that for most applications, the mere execution of commands has become somewhat secondary. That is, the raw power of all high end CPUs counts primarily for the crunching of repetitive sequences of numbers without additional data that need to be included into the equations. While this is still an important factor for certain applications, the majority of tasks involves rapid exchanges of data with the system bus. The data exchange though is limited by the 32bit bandwidth of the current x86 processors, meaning that even a burst read can only transfer a limited amount of information to the actual processor core itself.

 

While Matrox haven't mentioned any specifics on the clock speed of the G400 estimates land at 150Mhz or better as it supposedly 3 times faster than the G200. Take the G200's fillrate of 100Mpps (it ran at 100Mhz) x 3 and you end up with a peek fillrate of 300Mpps, with two rendering pipelines you need a core clock of 150Mhz to achieve that hence the G400 will have to run at 150Mhz minimum. There is a possibility that several products based on the G400 will come with different clock speeds so just maybe there will be a G400 Pro at 175Mhz or a similar product, but of course we'll just have to wait and see.

 

Intel boasts that the new chip, which runs at 500 MHz and contains up to 2MB of performance-enhancing cache memory will put it in the same class as Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) chips, the powerful processors that run many high-end corporate servers and workstations. With this chip, Intel and the PC powers aim to take market share from companies that sell multiprocessor RISC and Unix operating system-based products, such as Sun Microsystems.

The 500-MHz Pentium III Xeon comes with 512KB, 1MB, or 2MB of cache memory and can be used in one-, two- or four-processor systems. Intel will then release a 550-MHz version of the chip containing 512KB of cache memory in April, while versions with 1MB and 2MB of cache memory that can be used in four- and eight-processor systems will follow in the third quarter. The chip will exceed 600 MHz before the end of the year, added Paul Otellini, general manager of the Intel Architecture Business Group.

 

• Matrox G200 OpenGL ICD (Win9X - Beta 2 - 1 MB)

 

Linksys' USB network adapter aims to please those who want to connect to their LAN without the hassle of opening their machines.  The device attaches to the USB port on your Windows 98 machine and provides a port for a standard RJ45 connection to a Hub or Switch.  Because it's USB, the device needs no external power and install in minutes, provided you have your Windows 98 CD handy.

 

The ERAZOR III features the latest bus technology, supporting legacy AGP 1X, 2X and the latest AGP 4X, a TwiN-Texel Rendering-Pipeline and full 128-bit memory interface. With up to 32MB of display memory for texturing and imaging, the ERAZOR III delivers 250 mega-pixels-per-second (MPPS) fill rate, and over 8 million polygons per second in 1600 x 1200 TrueColor at 85 KHz refresh rate. ERAZOR III is a powerful solution that provides users with the highest levels of 3D quality and performance for software and games.

 

System demands continue to increase with the expansion of the Internet, increasing use of high-speed 3D graphics processing and sophisticated software and operating systems. As a result, the large amounts of data to be processed require not only higher performance processors but also faster data transfer speeds. The 800MHz Rambus technology announced today addresses these needs by offering 1.6 gigabytes (GB) per second of peak bandwidth from a single device.

NEC expects to begin sampling the 128-Mb Direct Rambus device (uPD488448FB) in April 1999 at $85 (USD) per unit, with volume production beginning in July 1999. NEC will also be offering the MC-4R128CKE6, a 128-Mb RDRAM in a 184-pin Rambus in-line memory module (RIMM(TM)), in the same timeframe(1). NEC's 128-Mb Direct is the first NEC RDRAM to incorporate the company's proprietary packaging technology, a center bonded die dimension ball grid array (D(2) BGA) package.

 

SAN JOSE, Calif., Game Developers Conference, March 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Creative Labs, Inc. (Nasdaq: CREAF - news) the world's leading provider of multimedia products for the PC, today introduced EAX(TM) 3.0, a new version of its popular Environmental Audio(TM) Extensions (EAX) application programming interface (API) for developers. EAX 3.0 provides sound design tools that produce new levels of realism for morphing between environments, localized reflection clusters, individual reflections for distant echoes and improved distance cues utilizing Creative's novel statistical reverberation model. As such EAX 3.0 offers developers full control of environmental sound parameters that intensify the gaming and entertainment experience. The new sound design tools in EAX 3.0 build on Creative's Environmental Audio Extensions API that is being used by top developers worldwide to add environmental effects to 3D games.

 

As you can tell, the business application performance of the FastTrack system offers very little improvement over a single drive, however once the scene shifts into the high-end arena, where sequential reads/writes are key to improving performance, the FastTrack offers up to a 17% increase in performance over a single drive.

 

Unlike the STB Velocity 4400, however, the Elsa Erazor II overclocks significantly higher, due in part to the SGRAM included on the board. The slick little fan doesn't hurt much, nor does the non-standard design Elsa opted with, which actually helps keep the heat to a minimum. I ran the Erazor II all day at 130 MHz with the core at 100 MHz and had no problems whatsoever, and there were no visual artifacts to be seen. Unfortunately, the performance wasn't all that much higher than the Velocity 4400 at it's standard speed.

 

Maximum PC: TNT is stepping aside to make room for TNT2. What's changing?
Vivoli: TNT's .25-micron process allows us to run at much higher frequencies. TNT currently ships between 90MHz and 110MHz. TNT2 will have somewhere between a 25% and 50% faster clock frequency. Heck, it could even be twice as fast. We also made some driver enhancements. We have a driver release, called Detonator, that in and of itself gives TNT a boost. Combine that with TNT2 and you get a huge performance increase over the original TNT.

Maximum PC: We've heard that before. Can you give us a hard number?
Vivoli: To be conservative, I'd say 60%. We also increased the frame-buffer size from 16MB to 32MB, and we built in a digital flat panel interface. We made some enhancements here and there in the architecture that clock-for-clock make it 5% to 10% faster than a TNT.

 

RawPower 1.05 is online- hopefully the last build before 1.1. It now supports P6/P2/Celeron/Dixon framebuffer optimization. I'd be interested in some voodoo benchmarks...

Buffers below 4K (mostly command buffers) are not optimized since this seems to lead to problems at least on the PPro.

• Raw Power (Win9X - version 1.05 - 371 KB)

 

Where this board scores highly is in its reliability, stability and compatibility. Boards always are expected to perform beyond the call of duty in our tests, and this one passed with flying colours. What it lacks in facilities for the overclocker (I would like to see a jumper on the board for explicit 66/100Mhz operation in future revisions) it makes up for in reliability. As a product, it will more likely find itself in a server box rather than a hobbyist or tweakers rig. If you have some SCSI and you need 80megs of bandwidth then this board is worthy serious consideration.

 

In terms of performance, I think the G400 will be above the Savage4 but behind the TNT2. We were able to see some benchmarks of Quake 2 running with an alpha Direct3D wrapper. Here are the results :

1600x1200x16 bpp : 22 fps
1600x1200x32 bpp : 15 fps

I was (a bit) impressed by the results (especially the 16-bit one), not because it is particularly high, but because it was obtained using a simple wrapper. I hope G400 will deliver higher performance with a strong optimized ICD.

 

Matrox today announce their next generation chip the G400 boasting: 0.25-micron, five layer metal process technology, 256-bit DualBus architecture, true 128-bit external bus to video memory, full AGP 2X/4X device with Multi-threaded Bus Mastering, 8MB to 32MB frame buffer configurations supported, true Environment Mapped Bump Mapping, Vibrant Colour Quality2(VCQ²) Rendering, 32-bit internal precision specially enhanced for multi-texturing using 32-bit source textures, Matrox DualHead Display technology, 32-bit Z-buffer including 8-bit stencil buffer, Symmetric Rendering Architecture, DirectX 6, PC 98/99, Broadcast PC, DirectShow, OpenGL compatible, high speed integrated RAMDAC (up to 300MHz) with UltraSharp RAMDAC technology, display up to 2056 x 1536 @ 32bpp, industry leading 3D feature set and performance and bilinear, trilinear and anisotropic filtering.