How bad is the matrox g450 for 3d gaming?

[loosbrew]

i mean i dont game all that much. mostly just starcraft, but i wanna be able to play any game without any hassles. i have a banshee card now and i find that many of todays games wont play like AM alice because of opengl issues and whatnot. so i was curious, the g450 is a good price 120 on pricewatch...is it good enough for someone who just surfs and does photoshop and few games?

tia

loosbrew

 

[Dark4ng3l]

I highly doubt giants would run on a g450. Alice would probably run but not very fast.

 

[Electric Amish]

My G400 plays game just fine, although I haven't tried Alice.

It plays UT, Q3, Rogue Spear, CS, Half-Life all just fine. Nice and smooth and beautiful. I play them all at 1024x768x32bit as well.

They The Matrox Users Forums for info on specific games.....

amish

 

[loosbrew]

so id probly be better off with say an asus v6800? hows the v6600, i read all of these reviews on all of them and im just not sure which is good enough but not overkill.

tia

loosbrew

 

[Raspewtin]

Amish you must have a pretty fast computer to offset the slow G400. I have a G400 and would not trade it for anything, but it's nearly completely worthless for 3d games. My computer is a P2-400, 128Mb PC100 SDRAM.

 

[bacillus]

Raspewtin, that cpu is the bottleneck in your system for games.
the G400 becomes the bottleneck with cpu 800-850MHz.

 

[urameatball]

I'm using the G400 32MB dualhead right now and it works decently for resolutions at 800x600 or less, but anything that's 3D intensive like Quake/UT can't run too well at anything higher than the mentioned resolution. I know the G450 performs relatively the same as my card except for a few enhancements and a 360RAMDAC so if you're planning on playing 3D graphic intensive games, better go for an Asus V7100 and you'll be much happier. But nothing beats the image quality of a genuine matrox combined with dualhead capabilities! All that's good for is officework though.

 

[Raspewtin]

bacillus, thanks for the info. I can squeeze out more playable performance with my ATI Rage Fury, but I think the new gen of games will be too over the top for it even to be acceptable. At least I won't try to get a new card on this system (thanks to your advice). I'm saving up for a 266 FSB DDR SDRAM Thunderbird.

 

[Electric Amish]

I'm running an Athlon classic 700mhz @ 900mhz.

urameatball- ur wrong. I play UT at 1024x768x32bit on my system and it's just smooth as can be with me serving on the LAN. I also play Rogue Spear at 1280x1024x32bit. I don't play Q3 very often, but I also play it at 1024x768....

Raspewtin- Bacillus is right. Your processor is the bottleneck.

amish

 

[Noriaki]

I use a Voodoo3-2000 with a TBird 800 I get over 60FPS in Quake3 at 800x600 High Quality, the G450 is at least as fast as my V3.

A G450 is in about the same speed class as a V3/G400/TNT2, assuming the G450 has the same Turbo GL drivers the G400 has the G450 would come between a TNT2 and TNT2 Ultra for speed.

For starcraft my 4MB ATi RageIIc was over kill

Edit: Don't bother with the v6600 and v6800 they are the older GeForce256, if you think the G450 is too slow look for a GeForce2MX a bit slower than the GTS but you should be able to get one for about $100 and it will give you all the features of the GTS with about 60fps in 10x7x32. That would be the Asus V7100 series if you like the Asus.

 

[TravisBickle]

I was considering a g450 myself but the benches are a bit scary. I assume you are talking about the DDR version which is almost g400 speed- and even that is a trifle humiliating for today's games. a tnt2 ultra significantly overtakes the g450 for speed. the g450 is the g400 built down to a price but concentrating on the productivity side of dual head stuff.
I figure you can get a tvout mx for 120, that's what I would go for

 

[loosbrew]

thanx everyone, much appreciated

loosbrew

 

[monotone]

<< I use a Voodoo3-2000 with a TBird 800 I get over 60FPS in Quake3 at 800x600 High Quality >>



The Voodoo3 can't run Quake3 at High Quality (no 32-bit color)

 

[NOX]

Well, I never used the G450 for gaming, so I wouldn?t know. But I have used the G400 MAX for all of my current games, like UT, Q3, Q3TA, Rune and Giants. UT runs smooth as silk at 1024x768 32bit, Q3 also runs smooth at 1024x768 32bit. Giants on the other hand runs a bit slower, but more then playable. Rune runs great at 1024x768 also.

It you want a Good gaming card and great 2d, get the Radeon. I find that the G400 MAX gives me great 2d, for Photoshop, MS Word, surfing the net etc...and also allows me to have fun when I want to play games.

 

[urameatball]

well, I guess my processor might be lagging a bit.

 

[GadgetGuy]

With my PIII 600E, I played all games at 1280x1024 and usually 32bit color, using a Diamond Viper V770 Ultra (TNT2 Ultra) and games ran fine, including quake3, with all detail up.

 

[zippy]

TravisBickle, the G400 MAX is a tad slower than the TNT2 Ultra in OpenGL games and faster in D3D games.

I too run my G400 MAX at 1024x768 or better in games! If I need 80+fps in UT when I'm playing against my friend (who plays it a lot more than I do! I need to be at the same speed as he is with his AIW Radeon, 1GHz Tbird, 256MB PC133) then I drop to 800x600x16.

A major part to the G400 series is that they are very CPU dependant- if you are running a fast processor, then it is your friend, if you are running a Celeron 300A@450 it will still perform well, but it's not going to beat a TNT2U any more.

loosbrew, I would recommend a G450 for you since you are doing Photoshop work and moderate gaming.

I've had mine for...15 months? Yeah, since Oct. '99 and I am not replacing it any time soon!

 

[RogerCK]

I run an Athlon 700, with 384MB and a G400MAX. It works just fine. The G450 is a bit slower however. If you don't do much gaming, its not that much of an issue. I love my G400MAX, and while I play the latest games (I run a review website), I have not yet decided to upgrade to a GeForce GTS since it is still serving me well. I love DualHead!