Anyone have experience with the Matrox G450?

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MYOB

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I'm considering buying this card, although I know very little about it really... I just like Matrox, and its cheap over here

Anyone here have one? I want to know how it performs in Windows and under XFree86... and also wheter it has VGA outputs or only DVI (my flat-panel is missing its DVI input)
 
I used one in a system I built for work. It has two analog connectors, no DVI. I hooked two Sony G520s to it for a 3200x1200 desktop. (I hate all the message windows insisting on popping up across the two screens though. It would be nice if they had a patch to make them pop up on one screen or the other.) Nice card for business but not much for 3D. Runs fine on Windows 2000.
 
Is it better or worse for 3D than my aging TNT2 Ultra, which I have to replace anyway (no overlay support under BeOS, which the G450 has)?
 
IT looks to be about 2/3 of the TNT2 ultra in games according to this review...

http://www.hardwarecentral.com/hardwarecentral/reviews/2368/8/

then again this review could be a couple years old and maybe they brought it up some with new drivers. I really wish hardware sites would date their reviews as you never know how recent they are.

Have you thought of something like a Geforce2 MX or ATI Radeon 7500? They seem to have support in BeOS and have improved 3D over the Matrox and in my opinion the Matrox 2D quality isn't really better, at least as far as I can see. There are twin head models (I remember seeing an eVGA MX with twin analog outs) avaiable for one or both and you can get a DVI adapter if one of the outputs is DVI. I got a GF2 MX 400 for my daughter for ~$40. It overclocked so well I had the clock sliders maxed out and no problems!

Here's some links to BeOS video Drivers for you to ponder.

http://classic.tucows.com/beos/driversvideo.html

http://www.bedrivers.com/
 
It makes little sense to buy such an old card, when you can buy a much better video card for under $40 USD now. Things may be different where you live, but over here the prices are cheap cheap cheap..
 
Cards are a lot more expensive here, and GF2 and older (Be-compatible) GF3's are unavaiable..

I will *NOT* touch an ATi, but are there any other cards that could be suitable, for under E100...
 
LOL, well said MYOB. Looks like we have a lot of the same views :grinthumb . I have nothing against ATi, I just don't want one anywhere near my system, or any future system for that matter.
 
I've got a G450 - don't use it for gaming though so I can't tell you anything about the 3D speed - sorry. It's got some awesome 2D though, as I'm sure you've been told a thousand times.

LNCPapa
 
I have G450 Dualhead too, and I think its 3D speed is good enough. I can play UT and Neverwinter Nights just fine at 1024x768 in Linux. Of course, it's not going 200 fps but I wouldn't see that anyhow ;)
TV-out works fine in Linux and BeOS too, Linux requires a bit of tweaking though. I recommend this card :)
 
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