Pretty soon we will be able to purchase graphics cards based on the newest chip series G400 from Matrox. G400 is famous for a number of progressive and interesting solutions, which were put into practice by means of this chip. Besides, 3D graphics world keeps on surprising us with important and even sensational events that's why we decided to offer you an interview with Juan Guardado - the leading 3D Architecture Analysis Engineer in Matrox Graphics Inc.

Q: Hello, Juan. Thank you very much for agreeing to answer some questions. We didn't expect such a brilliant opportunity to talk to you today, so we haven't prepared anything in advance. We hope you wouldn't mind if the questions follow in a slightly illogical succession, would you? :)

A: No problem. Go ahead, I'll try.

Q: Could you tell us a bit about your position in Matrox?

A: I'm a 3D Analysis Engineer, and I deal with 3D graphics and our chip architecture. I deal with game developers and companies such as Microsoft to effectively recognize the importance of certain features that should be present in our future technologies. And in my free time I give interviews to guys from a Russian hardware site :-)

Q: The first question, which occupies everyone's minds, is about the G400 supply, namely about the presence of OpenGL ICD in the G400 package. This matter is being rumored all over, and sometimes the forecasts are not that optimistic. And what's going on in reality?

A: At present there is just a beta-version of the drivers available. However, we expect the completed drivers version to be ready when they start mass sales of G400 based cards.

Q: Some sources say that there are allegedly only two guys in Matrox, who work on OpenGL drivers. Is that true?

A: Yes, in some ways it was. There really used to be two developers, but now there are many more working on the drivers, so everything is going to be just perfect.

Q: Will Matrox offer any new low-cost solution to replace its G100? If it will, then when?

A: G100 will eventually be phased out, and a more cost-effective G200 will be introduced to replace it in the market. It seems to be a nice change.

Q: What can you say regarding the recent plans of nVidia and 3dfx to use a geometric coprocessor in their next generation accelerators? Is Matrox going to undertake anything in this respect?

A: We are also working in this direction. And when the right time comes we'll introduce them into the market.

Q: Can we expect it this year?

A: No. For sure not this year. It is most likely to happen sometime next year.

Q: Will it be an integrated solution or an external coprocessor?

A: Unfortunately, I can't tell you much about it yet.

Q: Are you planning to sell your G400 chips to any other graphics accelerator manufacturers?

A: No, we're not. We haven't even discussed it.

Q: And what about integrating G400 into mainboards?

A: We will likely not sell G400 to any mainboard manufacturers such as Asus, SiS, or QDI. However, such large PC companies as HP, Sony, Siemens, etc. will be interested in using our solutions for their PCs.

Q: Nowadays a lot of new solutions, such as mainboard chipsets with integrated graphics, appear in the market one by one. What does Matrox think about it?

A: It is not high time yet we told you anything particular. You'd better keep on following the events, and one day you will get a pleasant surprise! :-)

Q: How can you comment on the yesterday's announcement about S3 buying Diamond?

A: Well, everybody expected it to finally happen. We all knew that S3 longed for buying a manufacturer like Diamond that's why I personally was not surprised at all. In fact, this merging trend is quite evident almost everywhere - it's the sign of the time - and it's not that bad, actually.

Q: Is Matrox also going to buy anyone or to merge with anyone?

A: Of course, it isn't! At least for now.

Q: What is your attitude towards the use of Embedded DRAM? Is Matrox working in this direction?

A: I consider Embedded DRAM to be a really cool idea with a very promising future. As for Matrox, we are not dealing with this technology yet.

Q: Chris Dunphy from Rendition prophesizes that such companies as Matrox will disappear from the PC market one day. And one of the reasons he provides is that Rendition will use Embedded DRAM and its competitors won't. What do you think about it?

A: Well, anything may happen. No one is secure from failures. Rendition has an advantage because they are owned by Micron, one of the leading memory manufacturers, which will enable them to embed DRAM earlier and in a more effective way than other graphics chips. Other companies may still go in that direction, but we'll learn from whatever mistakes Rendition makes. :-)

Q: How would you evaluate such unordinary architecture as PowerVR from VideoLogic? Are you planning to use any innovations like this?

A: Undoubtedly, tile-architecture is worth our attention. There are a lot of interesting solutions. However, Matrox currently has no desire to give up the traditional architecture.

Q: Will G400 drivers support Chrome technology from Microsoft?

A: Yes, they will. As soon as Chrome appears on the market.

Q: Can we expect Matrox to somehow improve the 2D-core in its chips? And if we can, then what kind of improvements will be made?

A: Actually, no principal improvements can be introduced, and hence the main stress will be made on improving the image quality by increasing the memory and core clock frequency and as a result on further increasing the 2D performance.

Q: According to some rumors, G400 3D core inherited several errors from G200. Is it right?

A: Maybe. :-)

Q: One of the most interesting functions supported by G400 chip is, undoubtedly, hardware environment mapped bump mapping. Let's talk about it a bit more. Why did this function appear in G400? What is required to support it?

A: First of all, environment mapped bump mapping support is carried out in DirectX6, and G400 can boast a hardware realization. In other words, there is a certain interface, which can help to create applications, and there is hardware support represented by the G400, which can work with these applications correctly. At the same time, all 3D scenes gain more realism without any additional utilization of the CPU in terms of the scene geometry calculations. Due to Direct3D support through the interface, the use of bump mapping in applications turns out to be a pretty simple thing to do. Besides, the G400 can emulate bumpy Phong Shading, which provides highly realistic and clear-cut images if there are any surfaces with reflections. You can also add here the whole lot of various special effects, and you will understand that it turns out to be one of the most distinguishing features of the G400.

Q: What special effects do you mean?

A: Such as these ones, for instance:

• Waves on Water Surface
• Thermal (such as evaporation over the hot asphalt road)
• Air turbulence
• Melting and Morphing (remember the liquid Terminator? Well, these are exactly the effects applied there)
• Underwater
• Predator (remember the movie with the same name and again with A.Schwarzenegger starring. This is the same effect used for the beast's camouflage)

And, probably a couple of other effects, however, a bit less interesting.

Q: PowerVR 250 chip supports dot product bump mapping. How can we compare this technology with environmental map bump mapping by G400?

A: I think that our technology is much more powerful. For example, you can't create a wavy underwater effect by means of dot product bump mapping.

Q: You have mentioned that bumpy Phong Shading will be emulated. How will it tell on the overall performance?

A: Of course, there will be a certain performance drop, though quite minimal.

Q: What other applications, except those we already know, will support environmental mapped bump mapping?

A: In addition to a pretty long list posted on Matrox web-site, I can mention a few more games:

• Dungeon Keeper II and Populous sequel from EA/Bullfrog
• Battlezone II from Activision/Pandemic
• Incoming Forces and Dark Reign II from Rage
• Black & White from EA/Lionhead
• Typhoon and Air Rage from Infogrammes/DID
• Ka-52 Team Alligator and Jump Runner from Kuji/Simis

Q: Is it possible to create animated bump surfaces?

A: Yes, it is. It can be done through the CPU, the so-called procedural effect, but with no additional geometric calculations required.

Q: And what about presenting shining textures?

A: We utilize a luminance channel for this purpose. In fact, there is an embedded gloss map used for that purpose in the bump map specification. However, this yields a lower precision representation of the bumpy surface.

Q: We have already heard a lot about the next generation chipsets from 3dfx and nVidia. And what about Matrox? What is it going to surprise its customers with in the near future?

A: It's the task of marketing to make a fuss about different plans. The only thing I can say in this respect is that while working on our next generation chip we will continue to focus on the image quality and rendering speed. So, these are going to be the parameters intended to deliver the quality our customers expect in the future.

Thank you very much, Juan.