#Millennium, good stuff?
13 messages in this thread
Has anyone out there tried the new Matrox Millennium card yet? I was
wondering how well it performs compared to the ATI Mach 64 (which I currently
use), especially in 3DS. Does anyone have any horror stories to tell? I will
be ordering another system this week and it will come with the Millennium
unless I request something else.
Thanks
Mitch
Mitch –
I'm in the same boat as you. I'm replacing my motherboard and need to get a
new PCI based graphics card. I'm impressed with the press I've read about the
Millemium 3D cards but I want to know if anyone has tried it with 3DS or not.
Alternatives are the Diamond Stealth 64 Video or the ATI Mach 64.
Larry
Hi
I bought the Millenium last week and have it now running under '95. More than
fast and impressive, the tools are great. For the 3DS exp. I had to use the
VESA drivers in the VIBLIST. This makes the card sleepy. I hope that either
Matrox of VIBRANT come up with a dedicated Millenium driver, that will blow out
every urge to buy another card. For DOS performance: the impression lite had
none at all, the Millenium is FAST!!! My recom is to buy the Millenium and wait
for the drivers.
Whatever you buy, have a nice day
BRGDS Tano
Tano –
Thanks for the info. I think I'll check back with Matrox on the driver
situation.
Larry
Hi Larry.
It's a waste of time to contact Matrox for info about 3DS. Matrox says that the
drivers shipped with the card are working fine but quite a few people,
including
myself can't get 3DS to render in 24-bit. So I suppose You will have to wait
for
the next Vibrant driver update.
Ulrich Schmidt
Ulrich –
I suppose it was too good to be true. Have you heard anything from Vibrant
regarding driver support for the Millenium? I'm not sure I can handle going
back to 256 colors!
Thanks for the info
Larry
Hi Larry.
I'm afraid not. BUT !!! I finally managed to render in 24-bit. There are some
disadvantages though. The material editor can only run in 8-bit, and the VESA
driver, used for the main screen, is a bit slow. So, if You can live with that
until
a new set of vibrant drivers comes up, i strongly recommend the Millennium.
More and more applications makes use of the 3D accellerator chips, so I think
it's
a good investment. In addition, it's the fastest DOS card I've ever seen !!!
By the way, it has been a long time since Vibrant added new cards to their list
(i'm not talking about the July bug fix) so a new version must come up pretty
soon.
Ulrich Schmidt
Well, I ordered the Millenium last Friday so I'm commited now. Hopefully it
won't be too long for Vibrant(are you listening?) to provide driver support.
Larry
Hi Larry
Good choice. If You have any problems with the 3DS setup, You're welcome
to contact me directly.
Regards Ulrich
Ulrich, how did you manage to get the Millenium to render in 24bit?
By the way, I spoke to Matrox (absolutely no response) and Vibrant (who said
they were waiting for AutoDesk to commission a Millenium driver) and then my
Digimation rep. who said he spoke to his contact at Vibrant who said there
would be a Millenium driver up within 2 weeks. I hope the Digimation rep. is
right!!
I suggested to the Vibrant people that they get going on the Millenium card
because it was looking to become popular and some big vendors (eg, Gateway were
shipping them standard on high-end Pentiums).
Regards,
John.
Hi John.
To render in 24bit, I did the following:
– Install the autocad driver for the millennium.
– Run the ACADRV.BAT located in your /MGA/ACADRV directory (setting up
the RCMGAX64.EXP).
– Delete 3DADI.CFG from your 3DS directory, if present.
– Run 3DS VIBCFG and choose RCPADI for the main display, VESA for
materials editor and RCPADI again for the render display.
– The driver-setup program now starts and asks
Does your computer have a vga/svga display ? "Y"
Will RDPADI render on a seperate screen ? "N"
The autocad configuration pops up. Here You have to choose a resolution.
Note that this resolution is both for the main-diaplay AND render-display,
so if You want to render in 24bit, your main-display will also be in 24bit
wich
will slow everything down.
Try to choose 800×600 24bpp 2d, smooth,
dynaview not active
resizeable graphics windows not active
command lines and font size, accept defaults.
32bit displaylist
exit and save.
– At last, confirm that RCPADI is not rendering on a seperate screen.
This should work.
I didn't manage to get the materials editor working in 24bit, so watch out. The
screen goes beserk on my machines.
I hope this will help You out, at least for the next 2 weeks (hello Vibrant).
Regards
Ulrich Schmidt
Yes, we're listening.
I'm not at liberty to speak about any agreements we have with our client
(Autodesk) but I must say the rumor of two weeks came as a surprise to me.
As much as we would like to add new board support to 3D Studio as quick as you
request it, we currently can't do that. We take our marching orders from
Autodesk.
We do care. But if we want to stay in business we need to be sure someone will
pay for the work we do. Thanks for your patience.
Linden Sims [Vibrant Graphics]
Hi Linden.
I appreciate your reply, and of course You have my full understanding.
I've no doubts that Autodesk will order a Millennium driver in the near
future. Maybe You've already received it !!!??? I hope so.
Regards
Ulrich Schmidt