Introduction
The last time we covered a Matrox product was this review of the G450. Looking at the G550, there’s a little bit of a sense of deja vu, or is it history at work. Here’s a bit more history that might interest you: for its fiscal 1997 results, Matrox announced sales of $690 million. Prior to this announcement, Matrox had reported $30 million in 1993, $75 million in 1994, $210 million in 1995 and sales for fiscal 1996 were said to surpass $500 million – a growth rate of over 200% each year.
The company didn’t go public, and remains privately held to this day so, it’s even more startling to think that at one point Matrox seemed to be sitting on top of the heap and destined for more. No outside investors, no $200 million check from Microsoft, no stock market to back it up. However, Matrox’ management didn’t capitalize on the opportunities they had, or even take the money and run in an IPO. Boy, is Matrox an enigma, or what.
So, to this day I think of Matrox as the plucky outsider, although I also think of it as an anachronism in a graphics market that is dominated by 3D benchmarks, sex appeal, and big is better philosophies. Into the 3D melee, Matrox launches its latest graphics chipset, the Millennium G550. You’ll probably never see a G550 on anything but a Matrox board, and the product’s most interesting features are part and parcel of a board and bundled software package so, it isn’t fair to judge the G550 as a standalone chipset. However, the G550 is pin compatible with the G450, and the biggest changes to the Matrox product line are going to come in the minor improvements the G550 delivers over its predecessor. This is a preview of what to expect when Matrox starts shipping G550 boards in earnest in August.
The G550 Positioning Conundrum
Matrox is faced with a very difficult proposition when it comes to positioning the G550. The main problem with the G550 is that it doesn’t go head-to-head with the competition from Nvidia and ATI in any category, unless you count dual-screen or 2D acceleration. Yet, it tries to force the issue on 3D by bundling software that is designed to, as the company’s marketing blurb says, “introduce cutting edge 3D to the home Internet and corporate desktop markets for the first time.” Cutting edge 3D technology in this case means venturing into the unknown territory of VOC, an uncharted segment of the market, as we will find out.
This is the only real criticism I have with the G550: while the emphasis on performance, and value in the graphics market is defined primarily by 3D functionality, Matrox has opted to focus on one 3D function of the G550, HeadCasting, and given it the starring role, despite not having a strong case for justifying this approach.
To quote the company’s own marketing blurb, “The Matrox G550 is the first graphics chip to use 3D technology to improve and enrich online communication, spurring a new form of online exchange called Visual Online Communication (VOC).”
The definitiion of VOC is given in three applications: corporate training, customer relationship management (CRM), and visual messaging. In each case, Matrox assumes that first, we live in a world that is primarily connected to the Internet by 56K modems, and secondly, there is a benefit to enhancing online communications using a 3D facial model with lip synching.
For PowerPoint, Matrox demonstrates the full benefit of a G550 board using the dual screen set-up with one screen showing the 3D facial model of the presenter talking through the slide show on the second screen. The image below shows this application in action.
Matrox’s G550 allows you to create and distribute PowerPoint presentations in conjunction with an animated, lip synched, 3D facial representation, even on low bandwidth connections, or just as a demonstration in dual screen mode. It’s a nice effect, but is it practical?
The G550 Positioning Conundrum, Continued
The PowerPoint demonstration is compelling for those of you who are presentation junkies. I can’t really say that it makes for a compelling purchase decision, but it might work at a conference, or in a meeting room. However, taking the same tack and applying it to instant messaging or customer support requires you to believe that the addition of a talking head is going to drive G550 adoption for graphics when the real problem is a communication one. In other words, seeing a talking head isn’t what’s holding back CRM or instant messaging. I’m not sure what is, if anything, but this isn’t it.
Matrox provided this chart based on survey information from Nua Internet Surveys. This is one of the arguments the company uses to emphasize the potential appeal of G550 because, it inherently works better for users with low bandwidth connections
This is definitely not a product that is going to satisfy hard core gamers, and it makes few new arguments for business users either. Had Matrox merely focused on improvements to the G450 and in having the fastest dual-screen, Windows accelerator, the G550 may have come across as a more interesting, better positioned product. As it stands right now, the 3D positioning is simply a distraction.
But, that shouldn’t stop people from considering it on its 2D merits.
It’s also worth noting that Matrox’ products continue to have a loyal user base in the corproate world. For example, Matrox’ multi-display technology has been around in the financial world, driving traders’ screens, for a number of years. The G550 doesn’t push the 3D envelope, but it can still be viewed as refreshing the aging Millennium product line, and there are a heck of a lot of those boards out there.
G550 Spec Sheet
The main features of the G550 are not remarkable; they’re solid, as you can see from the list below.
- 0.18-micron technology
- 64-bit Double Data Rate (DDR) external bus to frame buffer memory (SDRAM)
- Only goes up to 32MB frame buffer
- Support for AGP 1X, 2X and 4X
- Integrated TV encoder
- Dual integrated CRTC controllers
- Dual integrated RAMDACs – 360 MHz primary and 230 MHz secondary
There is the 64-bit DDR SDRAM 32MB frame buffer upper limit which helps to position the product at the lower end of the price spectrum. The G550’s DualHead feature is a pretty strong point in favor of Matrox, raising this product above the ordinary. You get one DVI-I output, and one HD-15 output on the bracket with adaptors to convert DTI to HD-15 to composite or S-video.
So, dual RAMDACs and dual displays seem to be the linchpin of the G550’s 2D feature set. The 360 MHz primary RAMDAC can output a maximum resolution of 2048×1536 at 32 bpp color depth on analog monitors or flat panels, and in dual screen mode you can pump out upto 1600×1280 pixels at 32 bpp on a secondary analog screen. That should be enough for most dual screen users. With digital flat panels you can get 1280×1024 at 32 bpp on both screens, and the G550 does support dual digital flat panels without any need for external gizmos. In addition, 2D performance, if consistent with past Matrox’ performance, should be high so, the G550 should be capable of pushing a lot of pixels around both displays.
G550 Spec Sheet, Continued
On 3D, the chief cause of concern may be that the G550 is not a DirectX 8.0 3D accelerator, which it ought to be if it were a truly competitive 3D graphics product. It has a pretty comprehensive tick box list of features, as you can see below, but don’t be confused by the references to DirectX 8.0 or Extended Vertex Shader, the vertex shading is limited to the acceleration of animated faces and lip synching. It’s almost as if Matrox’ designers had added some elements of DirectX 8.0 vertex shading into the pipeline just so that they could add these specific features, but without really wanting to take the 3D engine to the next generation. Well, this cop out is called HeadCasting.
On the bright side, Matrox expects that the addition of a second pixel pipeline should give it a 20% boost in 3D performance over the G450. This seems to be the strongest case for the 3D enhancements in the G550. As we will learn later, the new HeadCasting engine, is very specific to certain applications, and does not have any impact on general Direct3D and OpenGL performance.
- HeadCasting Engine for Visual Online Communication
- Dual pixel pipelines with dual texturing units per pixel pipeline
- Floating point 3D setup engine with dynamically re-allocatable resources
- DirectX Environment-Mapped Bump Mapping (EMBM)
- Vibrant Color Quality2 (VCQ2) rendering
- Alpha blending
- Z-buffer support: 16/24+8/32
- Full sub-pixel precision
- Specular highlighting (any color)
- Vertex and table fogging
- True color RGB, flat and Gouraud shading
- Environment Mapping
- Guard band clipping
- Single, double or triple buffering
- 3D image effects combined with no exclusion conditions
- Sort independent anti-aliasing
- Hardware dithering including dithering of LUT textures
HeadCasting – 3D From A Comms Angle
The HeadCasting engine is the only major 3D feature added since the G450. With the HeadCasting engine comes an additional T&L engine that is specifically optimized for Matrix Palette Skinning.
The singular benefit of this feature is Matrox’ emphasis on acceleration of animated photo-realistic faces with lip synching. As such, by drawing attention to this feature, Matrox leaves itself very open to criticism on 3D, whereas it is quite apparent that the G550 is not going to be a competitor to 3D accelerators from Nvidia, ATI, and STMicroelectronics.
Headcasting – Matrox bundles a series of applications that are optimized to use a fixed set of vertex functions on the G550 to deliver 3D facial animations with lip synching over low bandwidth connections
So, Matrox touts the addition of a T&L unit and the presence of an Extended Vertex Shader with 256 constant registers on the G550, but it is solely at the service of enabling the software Matrox will bundle with G550 boards in future:
- Digimask – You take a front view and side view digital picture of your own head, or scanned from photographs, and Digimask creates a 3D head and e-mails it back to you.
- Headfone – An instant messaging application from LIPSinc that replaces text with talking digital heads. Your talking head is synchronized to your speech.
- Matrox Virtual Presenter for PowerPoint – This is a proprietary Matrox application that allows you to author a PowerPoint presentation for distribution that includes a slide-synchronized audio track with your talking head. Matrox also includes a software DVD player, but only these three products are optimized for HeadCast.
HeadCasting – 3D From A Comms Angle, Continued
You too can be virtual courtesy of the bundled Digimask application with G550 boards. Matrox does make a case for providing bundled applications with each G550 board that add up to costing more than the retail price of the hardware, if bought as standalone applications. Then again, how many of the bundled applications would fine their way into Matrox’ users hands if Matrox hadn’t bundled them with the boards?
Sebastian Macdougall, Matrox’ spokesman, reiterated the company’s positioning of this feature as exclusive to its bundled applications, “The T&L unit is not used for gaming because games and benchmarks do not make heavy use of Matrix Palette Skinning, a feature that our hardware is specifically designed for and very efficient at. Our T&L unit is not optimized for T&L with regular gaming use. Therefore, Matrox will not be dedicating any resources in driver development, optimization, testing and support for hardware T&L as it does not benefit the end user. The focus of this card is to introduce never-before-seen application areas in 3D, at a low price-point such that many people can benefit from this application area and adapt to it.”
I am sure Matrox will market HeadCasting, and will be able to demonstrate it effectively. I am also willing to say that it seems inconceivable that Matrox can generate momentum for this technology when it requires the alignment of so many things:
- User demand/interest in VOC – very debatable
- User demand has to translate into communications channels being created that would specify the G550 at both ends – this applies to the Headfone application in the main
- CRM applications address as broad a user base as possible, and are designed to reduce costs – it would seem a stretch to expect companies to put animated heads on the Web to provide live support when most CRM applications try to avoid live services, and push the customer to automated Web activities
I personally did have a soft spot for the PowerPoint presentation. It has a certain cool factor, but you’re not going to create much of a graphics card business out of that one feature alone.
It’s best to concentrate on the strengths of the G550 then, its failings.
G550 – MS-Office Guy’s Last Hurrah?
Most average computer users, or most users, don’t even know what graphics chip, or board is in their system. And, despite all the marketing dollars that go into it, 3D acceleration is not the single most pressing graphics issue for the computer industry. So, as far as MS-Office guy is concerned, 3D games and OpenGL applications are not the issue. Therefore, I have no hesitation in saying that Matrox has a product in the G550 that is right up MS-Office guy’s street – it will just have a very hard time getting due respect on its merits if considered on the basis of its 3D abilities.
The really good news is that the retail version of the G550 will be available from Matrox’s online store for $125 ESP in August. That’s a heck of good price for a product that should have the best 2D performance, and deliver high-quality dual screen support. If you are going to deliver dual-screen support then, it has to be good, and Matrox does have the edge over its competitors in that department. Again, at $125, a dual-screen user is going to find this a value product.
The first G550 boards should be available in retail in August with an ESP of $125.
Mr. Macdougall of Matrox says, “Matrox is the only company that has found a work around which allows Windows 2000 to recognize our single chip device as a multi-display device and therefore offer true multi-display. The use of true multi-display ensures that you can set your resolutions and color depths independently especially if you have different sized monitors and that the OS behaves in a multi-display environment thereby ensuring that all the dialog boxes pop up in the right places and the maximize buttons work properly.”
G550 – MS-Office Guy’s Last Hurrah?, Continued
Matrox makes a lot of out of its true multi-display support for Windows 2000. I say quality is all important when it comes to any multi-display solution; Matrox’ pedigree in that area is pretty good.
3D performance should see a 20% improvement over G450, and frankly, for the casual gamer, that may be a non-issue. That’s a debatable point – sometimes people buy products as much for the promise of something as the delivery. One thing that Matrox does have going for it is that it is a stable supplier, has been around for some time, and like I said, has a large installed base. Corporate fans of Matrox may not be as concerned by the 3D implications.
On the other hand, the G550 seems a little forced as a product release. It’s more of a quick refresh of the G450, and may very well be a stopgap measure for Matrox. For a number of years, Matrox’ competitors have been talking about a Matrox 3D product that would put Matrox back in high-end contention, but that’s a longstanding rumor.
Certainly, what made Matrox its fortune was the fact that its Millennium boards ended up in the high-end and workstation PC lines of the tier one OEMs. In 1997, the year of Matrox’ $690 million sales, for every single OpenGL 3D accelerator board that was sold into the NT workstation market, you probably would have had 10 Matrox Millennium boards being sold through the same OEM. That’s Matrox’ market. That’s where Matrox excels.
The G550 isn’t the product to get Matrox back to those heady days, but it certainly is a high-end 2D product in an era when 2D doesn’t get enough respect. We’ll have to wait until we get a board to review to see exactly how acceptable the level of 3D performance is going to be, but in the meantime, judge the G550 on its own merits, and not the HeadCasting blurb, or its 3D.
