----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Rode" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2001 10:24 AM
Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] PC Components & Nvidia Video


> First let me qualify this by saying I am a big fan of Matrox products. I
> have owned other cards including Nvidia but for reliability and problem
> free operation it is hard to beat Matrox.

speak with experience I have had with Matrox at work, Matrox s~cks. it is
un-reliable, poorer (if not poorest) driver support, problems after problems
(hardly pass our 3D test which is a standard part of our quality test).
However, I do agree with you that as long as 3D (any 3D) is not involved,
Matrox is fine.

> Nobody provides support and divers as well as Matrox does.

I agree, not many places have such bad support.

> http://www.matrox.com/mga/support/drivers/latest/home.cfm A couple of
> months ago they posted new drivers for the G200 which has been out of
> production for two years. These drivers were for ALL operating systems
> including Linux.When is the last time you have seen  ATI or Nvidia post
new
> drivers for a wide range of  operating systems, for a two year old legacy
> product?

nVidia driver supports almost all nVidia chips (in a single driver set), how
about that. you can also download latest beta driver from many places (10.80
is great), whenever there is a problem, nVidia will release a fix in next
driver really soon (might be in beta release, but at least it does the job).
I have to say that nVidia has the best driver support.

>
> > on another....DVD performance is great.

ATi has the best DVD performance, nobody beats that.

>
>   But don't take my word for take a look at the List archives.....how many
> complaints or problems do you find about Matrox cards...Nada! However
there
> is one post after another from subscribers trying to get cutting edge
> Nvidia cards working correctly. My display doesn't look right, my computer
> locks up, the game won't play etc etc etc.

A lot of problems with nVidia card are not nVidia issue. a lot of them are
manufacturer fault (for not following nVidia reference design and don't have
good driver support for their own design). at work, we hardly have driver
problem with Hercules brand nVidia card (they all work with reference
driver), but few other brand we've used do have driver problems (that's one
of reasons we now mainly carry Hercules card). at least, I know that almost
all nVidia card driver problems (not include Geforce3 driver, it's not
released yet, I'm pretty sure the current driver problems will be solved
when it release) I've seen myself (if you want to know the number, I can
only say a great deal of) are manufacturer fault.

Jun Qian

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