ET article confirms ATi/Nvidia cheats

[Joe DeFuria]

Only the post filter made it look somewhat better, however, internally it was still just as 16 bit as ever before, resulting in banding and ugly colors as soon as transparency was used.

Let me get this straight...it "looked" better, but was "internally" just as 16 bit? What does that mean?

Have you ever actually used the V3 or V5 in 22 bit mode?

Yes, there would be more banding than 32 bit. Already noted. Point is there was considerably LESS banding (or worse, infamous 16 bit dither patterns) than straight 16 bit mode.

In short: Voodoo3's 22 bit quality was better than anyone else's 16 bit quality.

At the same time, you got close to pure 16 bit performance.

I haven't ever noticed that it was less "compatible".

Well, then you were in the minority. IIRC by the time Matrox got their GL drivers up to reasonable performance and compatibility, at least 6 months had passed from the G400 introduction. The GL drivers we bug-ridden, and had major performance issues.

And even when the GL drivers were at least "acceptable", Voodoo3 16/22 bit performance was as good or better than G400 MAX 32 bit performance. And for a lower price.

Again, it's all about trade-offs. I'm not knoocking the G400 or your purchase. If money was no object and 32 bit color was a priority, and you could live with odd driver issues, or they didn't impact the games you played, you made a good choice. Buying Buying a G400 would eventually get you Voodoo3 22 bit performance PLUS 32 bit quality. But you had to wait several months to get there, and had to pay more money for it.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

And that's the last I'm going to say on that....if you really wan't to discuss this tired topic more, please start another thread. I think we'd all prefer this one to stay more on track with the thread topic!

 

[martrox]

I am just glad that ET has amended this...... We know know at least the truth that, beyond the single shader optimization, ATI has done nothing else...... This cannot even be placed in the same class as nVidia......