[Gllug] Matrox G450?

[Richard Cohen]

On Wed, 1 Aug 2001, Rev Simon Rumble wrote:

> Has anyone got one of these cards?  I'm most interested in 2D video
> performance -- in particular what the speed of switching between X
> desktops is like as I do this stacks.  DVD decoding/TV out is a nice
> bonus.
>
> Does it support all the X extensions?  In particular RENDER
> (anti-alias text in KDE), GLX/DRI?

I've got a dual-head G400 - earlier member of the same family.  It's a
pretty nice card, and Matrox seem to be pretty nice people.

All the X stuff is supported - RENDER, GLX, dual-head (xinerama or
otherwise), and it's as quick as anything *I've* ever seen at 2D.  The 3D
isn't blazingly fast, but it's more than decent for the cost.  One hardware
limitation (which can be worked around, but it's pretty messy right now) is
that the second head is (at least on the G400) unaccelerated, which means
DVD and/or gaming on it is hard.

> I'm most impressed with the Matrox site saying they support Linux.
> Yes support!  Who woulda thunk it?

Matrox are actively developing their XFree86 4.x driver, and it's mainly
open source.  They have an optional binary-only module which can be linked
into the driver for second head TV-out support, digital flat panels support,
things like that - apparently they have licenses which mean they can't open
source it all.  You can, however, build a 100% open source library, and the
second-head DVD playing hack mentioned above doesn't need their driver
anyway...

They also have their powerdesk stuff.  It isn't really the kind of thing I
use, but seeing Matrox coming out with a GPLed, GTK+-based GUI for tweaking
their cards was *very* impressive.

I don't think they officially support Linux - I don't think you can call
their tech support with problems using their cards under XFree.  They do
have an active support forum in which some of their tech people try to help.
To be honest - I've never needed it :-)

I'm now on my third Matrox card - I tend to find a manufacturer I like and
stick with their stuff (like Logitech for mice), and I like Matrox.

Cheers
Richard


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