Matrox Millennium:
The Gorgeous G200

by Guy Lerner

10 August, 1998

I'd been faithful to my Millennium for as long as I can remember. As a journalist, designer and PC enthusiast, there was no other card that could match the quality, the features and the raw 2D power of Matrox's Millennium II.

But something happened during the short time I had the privilege of running a Matrox under the hood. The industry was changing. Windows did the Internet. Intel was forced into leapfrogging Moore's Law to stay ahead. Dimensions were counted in threes, not twos. It all meant that my venerable PC was showing its age, giving way to an era where performance means everything, sentiment nothing.

Still, I could not let go of Millennium.

Matrox reborn
Somewhere between market leader and market follower, Matrox was lost in the wilderness. That the company had no answer to the wave that's taken the PC from novice desktop to workstation contender was surprising. In retrospect, isolation was relative. 3D was hype, but it was hype that was turning the buyers' wheels. Voodoo was all the rage, and timid attempts to stem the flow with interim solutions (the m3D comes to mind) were arguably ineffective.

It was more a relief than a revelation when Matrox unveiled the next generation of product that made the 'hard times' vanish with a blink of an eye. Intel's Pentium II set the standard for PC computing, and with it, the AGP bus rolled over any hopes that PCI had harbored as the graphics interface of choice. AGP is smarter, sometimes controversially so with its hijack of slower system memory, but it made enough of an impression for the industry to drop its predecessor like a hot coal.

Matrox responded by offering the Millennium II as an AGP alternative, but the bus alone couldn't hide its shortcomings against the new breed of AGP heavyweights. Where professionals were satisfied with superior 2D acceleration, the masses were not. Theirs was a game of polygons and triangles, not pixels and colors. Bombs and bloodshed, not vectors and angles.

Still, I could not let go of Millennium.

No compromise
Perhaps it's ironic, or just pure good luck, that I didn't have to. Matrox cleverly resisted the temptation of joining the crowd with a watered-down compromise between work (2D) and play (3D). The pundits applauded the AGP 2D and PCI 3D partnership. They had to, there was no workaround. The kids wanted hack 'n slash, their folks had deadlines to meet. Spending megabucks on a 128-bit speedster only to find that it didn't do Quake was clumsy, frustrating.

In its own inimitable style, Matrox played its ace.

The G200 chipset is a 128-bit DualBus 2D/3D AGP hybrid. It adds a new niche to the market by blending the 'best of both worlds' philosophy using innovative techniques and previously untested technologies. It challenges the culture of add-on solutions head on, and if it succeeds, will seriously threaten the dominance of products designed exclusively for that purpose. Most importantly, it has given birth to a new breed of Millennium, and a family of G200 derivatives that promises to cater for every computing taste, from AutoCAD to Zork.

128-bit DualBus
The G200 uses a 128-bit DualBus architecture, effectively two 64-bit busses for sending and receiving data in the same clock cycle. Pumping 128 bits of one-way data through an AGP bus is like using a cruise ship to cross a fishpond. Or a four-lane highway carrying traffic in one direction (as opposed to the same highway using two lanes to carry traffic in both). For 2D applications, the architecture will give the G200 an edge over its competition, allowing it to display more bits of color using the same bandwidth at higher resolutions.

Vibrant Color Quality (VCQ)
A fancy name for 32-bit color support in 2D/3D applications. You may ask why 32-bit when 24-bit is already more than the naked eye can perceive? Simple, if you want the kitchen sink, you want 32-bit. You may as well ask why 3D when 2D is good enough, or why 1280 when 800 is just as good? Don't bother spending money on a Matrox if these are your bugbears. Matrox promises superior image quality, and VCQ delivers. Don't take my word for it, have a look for yourself.

Power 3D
As opposed to PowerVR (excuse the snipe). Matrox has learnt its lessons, and the G200 is proof that the company knows a thing or two about the 'other' dimension in graphics hardware. The chip's 3D credentials read like a gamer's wish-list, including alpha blending, specular highlighting, anti-aliasing, RGB Gourard shading, tri-linear filtering and fogging. It's fully Direct3D and OpenGL compliant, and even though it falls short of the 3D-only 3Dfx in the performance stakes, it offers supplements of its own that no amount of Voodoo magic can muster. Try flying Microsoft's simulator at 1028x1024 in 32-bit mode with a Voodoo and see how far you get.

Symmetric Rendering Architecture (SRA)
Another buzzword for the jargon books. SRA treats system memory in the same way as it does graphics memory, taking full advantage of the AGP spec to milk every last drop of available RAM for graphics intensive calculations. After all, Unreal wouldn't be all that unreal without a trillion and two textures, now would it?

Per pixel tri-linear filtering
Image enhancement is synonymous with just about everything Matrox has tried to do with the G200. Tri-linear filtering is an extension of the advanced texture filtering techniques that have been developed to increase image quality when scaling. Since images can't always be rendered at the highest possible resolution, they may need to be scaled (up or down) depending on the task, which may cause degradation, breaking or tearing. Tri-linear filtering addresses the problem by averaging the value of clustered pixels for maximum image clarity in 2D and 3D applications.

Video matters. Not that you'd be satisfied with DualBus 2D acceleration and workstation-class 3D performance, of course. In case you're also a multimedia aficionado, the G200 has built-in hardware support for video scaling and acceleration, and software support for advanced MPEG-2 DVD video using a Pentium-II MMX-enabled processor.

A class of its own
The Millennium G200 embraces the power of the G200 chipset with the very best in quality video components from Matrox. Cleverly, the company hasn't wavered from its tried and tested value-packed formula, packing over thrice the value of the card into the box. You'll be excused if you thought the Millennium G200 was merely an extension of its namesake, but that's only because Matrox has taken care to preserve the name brand that sets it apart on the store shelf. When you buy a Millennium, you know you've bought the best, be it value, performance or quality, and the G200 is no different.

Out of shrink-wrap, the card gives you the same feeling as stepping into a brand new car. The look's the same, but you know you've bought a monster under the hood. If the heat sink protecting the venerable G200 from overheating isn't intimidating enough, try the SO-DIMM (Small Outline - Dual Inline Memory Module) socket for that 'extra' eight megabytes of RAM, or the daughter card connectors for hardware DVD, TV-out or flat-panel monitor support (3rd Quarter 1998). You know the Rainbow Runner G-series (for TV/video input and video editing) is on its way as well, but for now, this baby's hot enough for you to handle.

I made a point of building a system around the Millennium, not wanting to waste any of its features, making the most of its awesome potential. All for good reason. From the minute the AGP bracket clicked into place (tip: if you don't hear a solid click and your system doesn't start, you know the card's not seated properly), any skepticism I had about the overdrawn feature list were instantly blown away. Plug and play was perfect, Windows 98 clear and sharp. My machine had twice the horsepower in every department, and it showed.

Matrox includes a 'professional' software bundle with the Millennium, including Netscape Communicator, Picture Publisher, Simply 3D and PointCast Client. I feel that if there's one weak point in the package, that would be it. The software has the feel of an afterthought on the company's part, and even though Matrox is probably obliged to include these titles under license, it could have made more of the card's value with a potent collection of utilities.

More concerning was the lack of a true Direct 3D wrapper, probably excluded because of the card's appeal to the 'serious' PC owner, but a glaring omission nonetheless. The 3D wrapper will be available along with the promised OpenGL ICD in a few weeks from this writing, so the wait won't be a long one for the card to come into its own. Needless to say, the unified drivers shipped with the card loaded flawlessly first time, making themselves at home in the Windows 98 environment without a hitch (tip: make sure you've downloaded the latest 4.11 driver set, as I hear there've been problems with the first release on some older machines).

Subjectively (which is the way I enjoy testing my cards), any guilt I may have had shelving my trusty PCI was soon put to rest by the G200. It was fast, certainly faster than the Millennium II in scrolling (Word), zooming (CorelDraw) and panning (both) at my standard resolution and color depth (1028 x 1024 @ 32-bit), although I'm sure my 300 MHz Klamath had something to do with this impression. Unfortunately, I can't give my stamp of approval on impression alone, so I put this racehorse through its paces (so to speak) for your benefit.

The proof of the pudding
Did I say this card was fast? Sorry, I was mistaken. It's blindingly fast. It goes against logic that hardware in this class can be bought for less than $150 (street price), even with a 'paltry' eight smackaroos (RAM) on board. The G200 shattered any benchmarks I had previously taken with the Millennium II (or any other card for that matter), but alas I can't use these comparisons here since the test platforms are not identical.

I used Matrox's benchmarks as a yardstick for my own, and the results I achieved (with a tweak or two to my hardware settings) were astounding:

With a Go Inside average of 10% below estimate (in all but the high-resolution high-end Winbench and 3D Winbench scores, which I bettered respectively), Matrox has pitched its claims within pixels of the bull's eye. The system configuration for the Matrox scores was a Pentium-II 400 using 64 MB of RAM and drivers version 4.10, in the order of 15%-25% faster than my own configuration of a BX-powered Pentium-II 300 using 64 MB of RAM and drivers version 4.11. This discrepancy may explain my lower scores, but given the value of the scores (200+ in the 2D and 800+ in the 3D), scaling up my configuration would suggest that I bettered Matrox's claims in every test.

This is not unusual. In testing the Millennium II, I managed to better the company's claims even then, which makes Matrox modest (or my system biased for better performance). Either way, in the ballpark we're playing, scores like these would indicate the card is far faster than more money can buy, for the time being anyway.

My conclusions? First of all, I don't need this kind of power. Let's be honest - how many times have you needed to rush 100 million polygons onto your screen in one second. Second - I'll take it. Sure, who needs it, but then who needs a Porsche when the speed limit's 90? Or a digital television when transmission is analogue? The best things in life (at least, in a PC junkie's life) are those that give us the most pleasure in numbers. The Matrox Millennium G200 is one of those things that we can live without, until we have it.

A card for all seasons
Take everything you thought you knew about video hardware, and dump it. The Millennium G200 redefines the very best in PC graphics, and leaves you spoilt for choice regardless of your needs. It does 2D, 3D, and video with equal agility, and won't leave you wanting for more. The numbers may confuse you, but be sure that the features you've read about in this review will be the benchmark for any product worth its salt from here on in.

Sadly, my Millennium II has been donated. Some lucky fella is smarting at the thought of having a Millennium under his bonnet. Believe me when I tell you, I know how it feels. The Millennium G200 earns a lip smacking, eye-popping, hold-on-to-the-seat-of-your-pants five out of five Go Inside Review Lights.

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Copyright © 1998 by Guy Lerner
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