X-bit labs

Matrox Millennium G400 MAX Review

Category: Video

by FastSite

[ 10/18/1999 | 12:00 AM ]

This is the top graphics card of the G400 family. For our tests we used new drivers ver.5.30 and TurboGL mini-driver.

Table of contents:

Not so long ago we spoke about Matrox millenium G400 16MB graphics card. But the timekeeps passing, the manufacturers and developers can't remain aside with their hands inpockets. Some of them try to draw the users' attention announcing new products, and theother ones work on overclocking of the already existing devices. For instance, 3dfx offersa faster Voodoo3 3500 TV, nVidia - TNT2-A, and Matrox - Millennium G400 MAX. Though theseproducts seem to have come out somewhat later than they should have done it especially takinginto account the awaited launching of S3 Savage2000 and nVidia GeForce256 there are still a fewsignificant marketing and technological reasons, which influenced the situation. First, thecompanies could probably face some difficulties in chips manufacturing process and it appearedonly now that they managed to arrange the manufacturing of faster microchips. And maybe thissituation is a newly developed marketing strategy. The latter seems very probable due to thefact that neither 3dfx, nor Matrox plan to launch any new products this year. But despite that,the companies still have to sell something during this period of time. The prices on the previousmodels (3dfx Voodoo3 2000, 3000, Matrox Millennium G400) have already got somewhat lower thatis why they can rely only on expensive 3dfx Voodoo3 3500 TV and Matrox Millennium G400 MAX inorder to make profit. Seems a very clever move, don't you think so? Especially if we rememberthat Christmas time is a period of growing demand.

But let's return to Matrox Millennium G400 MAX. After Matrox Millennium G400 16MB wemanaged to get hold of a similar card with 32MB memory and without DualHead. However, itdidn't show any remarkable results and the only difference was the possibility to use theresolution of 1024x768x32 in OpenGL. We didn't consider this 32MB version worth our particularattention. But now when we got Matrox Millenium G400 MAX we will undoubtedly make use of theresults achieved by that Matrox Millennium G400 32MB, which will be taken for a starting pointof our comparison.

Before we take this graphics card we would like to remind you of the main difference betweenMatrox Millennium G400 MAX and Matrox Millennium G400. It is the core and memory working frequency.The usual Matrox G400 works at 125/166MHz (the first value is the core frequency and the secondone - the memory frequency) and Matrox G400 MAX - at 150/200MHz. The table below presents themain specs of the Matrox G400 family:

And now let's sit down to real work. Matrox Millennium G400 MAX graphics card has 32MBSGRAM 5ns memory, AGP-constructive meeting the requirements of AGP 1.0 and AGP 2.0 specsand DualHead system, which allows displaying the image either on one/two monitors or on theTV screen.

As you can see on the pictures, the chipset is covered by the active cooler with a perfectfan equipped with a ball bearing (the same one was used on Hercules Dynamite TNT2 Ultra). Themicrochip responsible for the videosignal division into two streams is provided with a smallheatsink. The card is also equipped with special connectors intended for a daughter card MatroxRainbow Runner Studio "G".

In the meanwhile we feel like saying a few words, which may sound familiar to you, aboutthe peculiarities of Matrox G400 graphics cards family. First of all, it is 256-bit DualBusarchitecture. G400 is based on 128-bit G200 Dual Bus with the doubled graphics engine bandwidth.This allows Matrox to announce the coming of the first gaming graphics accelerator with 256-bitbus intended for a considerably wide application.

This architecture is none other than a combination of two similarly directed 128-bit buses,which work simultaneously. Within each time step the data is transferred from the input bufferinto the core via 128-bit internal input bus, and within the same time step the data is transferredfrom the graphics engine via the analogous output bus into the output buffer. Data compressingsystem controls both data buffers in order to guarantee continuous data transfer through internalbuses. However, you should bear in mind that the potential of this dual bus is restricted by thebandwidth of the external 128-bit memory bus. In the previous article devoted to Matrox G400 wewrote that the memory working frequency didn't depend on the chipset working frequency that iswhy the faster memory you use, the greater performance gain you get especially in 32bit color.However, judging by our personal experience, we can say that Matrox synchronized the chip andmemory frequencies therefore the chip can still be overclocked to a certain restricted level,not more, even if we use the fastest memory we can ever find.

And one more thing we would like to point out. It deals with the official announcements fromMatrox, which began mentioning such notion as multitexturing and declared the support of thistexturing technology. Before we could guess about multitexturing support only due to the term"3D rendering array processor".

We continue. Matrox G400 offers us a unique and progressive technology - Environment mappedBump mapping. We all know quite well that most today's 3D-games cannot boast high realism interms of environment representation. All surfaces in these games are flat and it is only dueto our rich imagination, which manages to transform the textures images into something moreclose to reality, that we perceive the environment around us as bumped (take for instance,the walls). You have probably noticed that the action of almost all 3D-shooters usually takesplace either in a city or in some rooms and halls. As for the natural caves, they appear quiterarely or are absent at all. (The only exception here is the famous Unreal, where very professionallycreated textures and more or less broken mountains make a very realistic impression.) The thing isthat we can't model any low rough vaults without the Bump mapping methods. Besides, anotherMatrox's favorite example of the unbelievable realistic effect provided by Environment mappedBump mapping is the water surface in an open-air reservoir, where we can see real ripple andeven waves. Unfortunately, there are not so many games yet that use this incredible effect. One of them isRage Expendable. Although there are much more options for efficient use of Environment mappedBump mapping, because our real world is simply teeming with rough surfaces. Of course, yournatural impatience is quite understandable: why don't all the game developers pounce on thistechnology and bury us, users, under the whole bunch of highly photorealistic games? Well, theanswer is not so romantic. Remember the case with S3TC texture compression technology: whilethis or that cool thing is supported by a very limited number of some selected chipsets, no onewill spend time and money on new games not supported by all (or at least by the majority) availablegraphics accelerators. If there appeared at least another couple of chipsets supportingEnvironment mapped Bump mapping then we could hope to witness a bump mapping games boom.And in the meantime, unfortunately, we have to admit that no chipsets were announced tosupport Environment mapped Bump mapping although this technology is already introduced inDirectX 7.0.

Here is a couple of screenshots taken from Rage Expendable, which will help you to make outthe value of the new Environment mapped Bump mapping technology:

Environment mapped Bump mapping enabled

Environment mapped Bump mapping disabled

And now a screenshot from G400 TechDemo. Take a closer look at the ripple:

Beautiful, eh? Yeah, cool! So, what is this Environment mapped Bump mapping? This is a hardwareacceleration of bump mapping, which is carried out with the help of environmental maps.Environment Mapped Bump Mapping is a combination of three different texture maps for eachpixel: a bump map, an environment map and a base texture. The bump map is a map of heightsmade as a half-tone black and white bit-image. The info about different heights istransformed into a map containing all the heave values for each texel coordinate ofthe bumped texture. These values are read by the first texture processing block andare then used by the bump-map processing block in order to move all the coordinatesof the environment map. Then according to the moved coordinates of the environment mapthe texels are chosen and transferred into the second texture processing block. The environmentmap texels with deviating coordinates are saved in the pixel cache. This is the end of the firstpass.

During the second pass the first texture block chooses a texel from the environment map andthe second one - a corresponding texel from the basic texture. They are superposed and as a resultwe get a bump texel.

And now again a bit more about the main constructive peculiarities of Matrox Millennium G400MAX. The most conspicuous thing about it seem to be two video output connectors. The functionsof the first one are nothing special: it serves to connect the main monitor, while the secondconnector is a really interesting thing. There are two different ways to use this monitor connectorreflected in the drivers.

The first option is to utilize it as a TV-out. The card is accompanied by a VGA-to-TV-outconverter, which can be connected to the second VGA-port with its one end, while the secondend has an S-Video and a Composite connector for a TV-set or video-player. In this case the imagedisplayed on the TV-screen is of really high quality, and the picture displayed on the monitor alsoremains stable and doesn't suffer at all as it often happens to a great number of other cardswith TV-out.

And the second variant appears the most interesting: your system can simply acquire a secondmonitor! It may serve for two different purposes:

• The second monitor makes a copy of the first one (in other words, everything displayed onthe second monitor is an absolute duplicate of the picture on the first one).
• The second monitor provides additional space for your desktop. We will reveal a few moredetails about this option below.

Having selected the Windows desktop extension mode we get the following drivers propertiespage:

As you see, we are offered to choose one of the two monitors and change particularly itssettings for resolution, refresh rate, etc. In other words it means that Matrox MillenniumG400 MAX has two separate CRTC (Cathode Ray Tube Controller) modules, which allow utilizingtwo monitors simultaneously and absolutely independently from each other. Thus, Matrox MillenniumG400 MAX supports monitors with absolutely different technical characteristics (with the onlyexception of LCD ones, which require a special module). Having changed all the necessary monitorssettings (in our case the resolution was set to 1024x768 on both of them) we get a desktop andapplication window (we stretched it to both monitors) of a very unusual size:

And this is how it looks on two monitors:

To finish with the graphics card's peculiarities a few words about the package. The card issupplied in a colorful box together with a CD-ROM with the required software (including Expendable,which supports Environmental mapped Bump mapping), user's manual and a TV-out converter.

High time for tests. The testing computer we used had the following configuration:

• Intel Pentium III - 500MHz CPU;
• ASUS P3B-F (i440BX) mainboard;
• 128MB PC-100 system memory;
• Quantum FB CR 6.4GB HDD;
• ViewSonic P810 (21") monitor;
• MS Windows 98.

The installation of Matrox Millenium G400 MAX graphics card ran well. We used the last releaseddrivers version 5.30 with the included TurboGL driver. When run with this driver the performancegain in OpenGL appeared quite significant. That's why we tried both: with TurboGL mini-driver andwithout it.

To our great disappointment the drivers have almost no 3D-settings that is why we had toinstall G400 Tweak v.004.

   

This program allows regulating Vsync (monitor refresh rate synchronization with RAMDAC),setting 32bit Z-buffer, enabling Environment mapped Bump mapping, etc. In our case Vsync wasdisabled.

Well, we have come close enough to the benchmarks results. As usual, first we take 2D graphics.The benchmark used was Winbench99 run at the resolution set to 1600x1200 in 32-bit color depth:

If you compare the performance of our hero with that of the previously tested MatroxMillennium G400 16MB, you will notice practically no difference. Today Matrox graphicscards are still the best in 2D among all other gaming (and even professional) graphicscards. And the quality of 2D-graphics is just impeccable. Though the resolution is 1600x1200all objects are very clear cut. So, the conclusion is more than evident: Matrox Millennium G400MAX is an indisputable leader in 2D-graphics! Any specialist working with the high-quality graphicsand finest lines will undoubtedly remain very much satisfied with this card.

And what do we have here with 3D? You all hope that the incredible success in 2D is anunshakable evidence of powerful 3D, don't you? Well, let's try to find out if MatroxMillennium G400 MAX is up to our expectations.

For a more complex idea of the graphics card's performance in 3D we applied anumber of programs:

• FutureMark 3D Mark 99 MAX. It is a synthetic benchmark for versatile study of thecard's performance in Direct3D (Direct X 6.1);
• Monolith Shogo. This is a 3D shooter-game, which allows estimating the card's performancein Direct3D in multitexturing regime (we applied Revshogo demo);
• Rage Expendable. This gaming benchmark allows evaluating the card's performance in Direct3Dand wonderfully demonstrates Matrox's Environment mapped Bump mapping.
• id Software Quake2. This is a famous 3D-shooter, which serves to watch the card's performancein OpenGL (we applied massive1.dm2 demo).
• id Software Quake3 Test 1.08. This is a test demo of a 3D-shooter, which serves to watch thecard's performance in OpenGL in different modes: Normal, High Quality, Fast and Fastest(we applied q3demo1.dm3 demo).

The tests were carried out in two systems based on Intel Pentium III and AMD K6-2 processors.However, we believe that there is no sense in testing graphics cards of the last generation inK6-2 system, because the CPU proves too weak almost in all regimes and as a result we take notthe graphics card's performance but that of the CPU. Later on we will no longer use this platformas our testing tool. And those of you who belong to true AMD fans should better wait a bit and payspecial attention to Athlon processors, which will undoubtedly show the today's graphics cardswhat they are capable of.

We will compare Matrox Millennium G400 MAX with Matrox Millennium G400 32MB, 3dfx Voodoo33500TV and Creative 3D Blaster Riva TNT2 Ultra based on NVIDIA Riva TNT2 Ultra chip. All thesegraphics cards (except Matrox Millennium G400) belong to almost the same price category (3dfxVoodoo3 3500TV costs a bit more due to the additional TV-functions it has). By the way, MatroxMillennium G400 MAX, which works at 150/200MHz as default frequencies proves pretty stable atthe frequencies overclocked to 170/225MHz (just to remind you: the core and memory frequenciesare connected with each other that's why you simply can't change them separately).

This was Direct3D. As is known, Matrox graphics cards and namely their performance in OpenGLhave always fallen into users' disrepute, especially bearing in mind that almost a year hasalready passed since the launching of Matrox Millennium G200 and till the release of the finalICD OpenGL version for this card. However, we have to admit that Matrox started improving itsOpenGL drivers much faster that it used to before. At present the unique Matrox TirboGL mini-driverintended for the games of the same class as Quake2 and Quake3 is already available. Here are a fewexamples of how it works in these games:

So, what can be concluded judging by the following results? First, in 3D Mark99 MAX our graphicscard Matrox Millennium G400 MAX performed close to the level of NVIDIA Riva TNT2 Ultra havingleft 3dfx Voodoo3 3500TV far behind. At 1600x1200 in 16-bit color depth the results seemed tous somewhat strange, however, we have to admit that even the test itself behaves not quiteadequately and if repeated the test can show a 50-70% error that is why we provide theseresults just for you to have an idea of what there can actually be. But in 32-bit colorthe same test was an absolute success and our graphics card proved just perfect!

In Shogo Matrox Millennium G400 MAX surpassed 3dfx voodoo3 3500TV and remained on the samelevel with NVIDIA Riva TNT2 Ultra.

But in Expendable the picture quickly changed. At higher resolutions (over 1024x768)Matrox Millennium G400 MAX performed much better than NVIDIA Riva TNT2 Ultra, however, stilllost a few points in the competition with 3dfx Voodoo3 3500TV (probably because of a more 3dfxcards friendly multitexturing regime). The way the card's performance depends on the processorfrequency gives us every evidence that those who have not very powerful CPUs should better refrainfrom buying such a cool graphics card. If the performance does not exceed 34, and in some caseseven 28fps, you may surely decide on a cheaper graphics card, which will nevertheless providealmost the same performance rates. With the enabled Environment mapped Bump mapping theperformance drops not too tragically for us to give up this beauty, but still rathertangibly.

And now let's consider the situation in OpenGL. As you can see from the results obtained,only TurboGL driver allows Matrox Millennium G400 MAX to reach up to the level of NVIDIA RiveTNT2 Ultra and 3dfx Voodoo3 3500TV. It looks as if Matrox's OpenGL still has room foroptimization. Besides, we would like to also draw your attention to the fact that TurboGLdriver provides better results at a number of selected resolutions, first of all at 800x600and 1024x768 where the performance gain appears close to its maximum.

All in all Matrox Millennium G400 MAX proved up to the mark: if you have a fast CPU youwon't be disappointed with this graphics card.

Touching upon the image quality we can briefly say that we didn't notice anything worthour reproach: everything struck as clear and beautiful. If you are looking for more detailscheck our Matrox Millennium G400 Review.

And in conclusion a few words about DVD-playback. Matrox Millennium G400 MAX graphics cardis accompanied by Matrox DVD-Player, which reduces the CPU utilization during MPEG2-decodingdown to 55% and of course it cannot leave us indifferent. The image quality is excellent,videostream flows smoothly, but still, the CPU is only 53-55% utilized instead of the usual85-100%. In other words, it means that the graphics card really takes a number of decodingfunctions and carries them out instead of the CPU.

Let's sum up. Matrox Millennium G400 MAX graphics card costs about the same as NVIDIA RivaTNT2 Ultra based graphics cards and lower as 3dfx Voodoo3 3500TV (note that Voodoo3 has twiceas little memory compare to Matrox). It performs hardly worse than the mentioned graphics cardsand moreover boasts certain important advantages. First, it is a perfect 2D, which will suit evenspecialists, second, it's two video signal output ports which can be connected to a monitor or toan ordinary TV-set. Besides, we shouldn't forget about beautiful image quality in 3D and Environmentmapped Bump mapping technology. We consider this graphics card a great match for powerful CPUs orlarge monitors (or even a pair of large monitors where you could extend your desktop to).