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Matrox Graphics Getting Out of the 3D Gaming Market Totally?

Category: Video

by Anton Shilov

[ 09/25/2003 | 03:56 PM ]

MURC, probably the only web-site that helps users of graphics cards from Matrox Graphics to solve specific problems, said the only game developer contact at Matrox Graphics had been moved to serve CAD developers. They also claim the man named Omar had been responsible for Aptimizer (software that provides Surround Gaming and/or standard gaming optimizations for popular game titles on Matrox Graphics hardware) updates, which they would probably not see many more of in the future. Is Matrox Graphics finally getting out of the 3D gaming market?

In the course of four past years Matrox Graphics did not concentrate on high-end 3D and its last truly competitive graphics card – the legendary G400-series – came out in 1999. The Parhelia 512 could never compete with NVIDIA’s GeForce4 Ti4600, not talking about GeForce FX 5600 or RADEON 9600 or higher series, in terms of performance. One thing Matrox Graphics has always had – the premier quality of 2D image – became less important nowadays, as both ATI’s and NVIDIA’s solutions gained in quality, while TFT monitors, utilizing digital cables very indifferent to the quality of graphics cards, become increasingly popular. The only feature neither ATI nor NVIDIA still do not provide is Surround Gaming – ability to play games using three displays. Like every feature, Surround Gaming needed to be promoted in order to be implemented in future game titles, with the new appointment of the man who managed such promotion, game developers will hardly cope with Surround Gaming implementation in future.

Late last year Matrox Graphics had only 1% of the market. It is generally believed that this company’s clients are mostly professionals who would not change Matrox for anything in this world. Well, the same people dropped other well-known brands without hesitation, so, Matrox Graphics probably wants to calm down itself, not us!

Early this year the same MURC web-site reported from the words of a man who had worked for Matrox Graphics that the company did not invest anything in its future and did not want to spend additional funds on R&D. Moreover, it did not raise salaries and layoff the specialists. The management dropped the innovative projects, such as integrated chipsets and mobile graphics solutions. All in all, Matrox Graphics has been doing everything in order to get the company out of this business. It looks like the abolishment of Game Developer Relations position is just another confirmation to this. No more games on Matrox Graphics, in short.

PS. Just in case you do not know, Matrox Graphics’ web-site is here, MURC is located here.