The card that KILLED... Matrox

Hello and Welcome (Atlast) to another Budget Builds Video where today we'll be taking a look at the Matrox G550, a card many hailed as the card that helped decide the fate for Matrox, that fate of course having to leave the consumer market due to how poor of a reputation it gave them.
As a once prominent GPU maker join me as we explore what went wrong, and just how bad this card was, does it deserve the blame?
So join us as we take a look at the card that indirectly decided the fate for Matrox.
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[@Pintosonic]

As a former employee of the Matrox graphic group, I can tell you that what really Killed Matrox in the 3D graphics cards market, is that they lost about 70% of the team that worked on the G200, G250, G400 and G450 to Nvidia and ATI due to a grossly low salary scale. People could expect a 50% to 100% salary increase by switching to these two companies. At some point the problem was so bad that Matrox was suing employees that would resign to go work for these companies. In response to that Nvidia hired a law firm in Montreal to defend the former Matrox employees that they hired. So in the end the G550 was developed by a really small team because Matrox had to adjust their salary scale to kinda match the market but the damage was done at this point.

[@FeelingShred]

thanks for sharing and have the balls to not keep this under the rug

[@AvroBellow]

Every time I come home, I always see Matrox on the north side of the 40 as I come in and I wonder what could have been. I even went and got some pictures taken of me standing in front of a couple of the buildings. Companies like ATi and Matrox make me realise just how good we Canadians are at tech. We even created the first PC sound card, the AdLib. It was only an 8-bit mono card so it got crushed by the 16-bit SoundBlaster but it owned the world market for a year or two.

[@jurisjancevskis9076]

Sad

[@MatteoTomatto]

@@AvroBellow Don't forget about the Gravis Ultrasound (also makers of the GamePad, the first non-joystick pc game controller on the market.)

[@thepoliticalstartrek]

I do think the company has evolved. I have several servers where the IMM/IMIM is ran by Matrox chips. It kind of neat to watch these companies evolve or devolve. I remember when at the time some Matrox cards support 4 to 8 monitors. When it was hard to find one that supported 2.

[@MicheleBoland]

So I was part of the Microsoft DX team trying to work with Matrox to support DX 8. Awesome company that in the end decided multi monitor was a better focus for them and not gaming 3d. I personally loved the company and had a Matrox card in my own personal PC back then. I even made a presentations of their hardware tessellation at trade shows the last year I was on the DX team. A fantastic company that sadly was never able to find a place in the 3D gaming world.

[@smopuim]

im glad they went down, they should have listened to their users and we would playing fortnite on their cards right now

[@galier2]

I had a Millenium II. Awesome card that was ahead of the competition on resolution and colour depth.

[@queenbiscuit311]

SmopuiM that was never their focus, they put workstation over gaming. They never planned to release a gaming card but people wanted it so they refused to listen to the company that said it was never happening. So the company isn’t to blame its the consumers for expecting something they KNEW they were never getting but refused to believe

[@AboveEmAllProduction]

@@smopuim fortnite represents the absolute pinnacle of the cancer that is our current modern society. it is the single worst thing to happen to gaming in the history of gaming. but, more importantly, it showcases the absolute bowels of humanity and the depths of the human soul, and it has corrupted an entire generation. i cant wait when im old, and my caretakers around me will be doing fortnite dances when reminiscing about a time gone, while i slowly put a gun to my head while reminiscing about Metroid, and Zelda

[@KyBr2000]

@@AboveEmAllProduction Ahh, everything leading up to the PS2/N64/GC era, when consoles were consoles and games were games.

[@marshallleevalentine]

TL: DR: "This isn't a gaming card." "GAMING CARD?!?" "nooo~~" "GAMING CARD!!"

[@shanestanley1844]

lol gtx 710

[@WooShell]

To put it short, people expected gaming capabilities from a card labelled as "DirectX 8 compatible", because what else was DirectX used back then.. but Matrox insisted on targeting the business market without actually telling anyone their intentions (or listening to the market). Another nail in Matrox' coffin was the advent of DVI.. because one of their main selling points for business and CAD applications was the far superior VGA signal quality their cards produced - which got all but irrelevant when end-to-end digital transmission became mainstream.

[@michaelmiller3012]

Back in the day, a Matrox G200 or G400 card coupled to a 3DFX Voodoo or Voodoo 2 was the way to go. The output quality of the Matrox cards at that time can not be understated, and combined with the 3DFX card for 3D, you got pretty much the best of everything.

[@si4632]

I bet it couldnt decode dvds as well as those ati rage twos

[@OpenGL4ever]

At the time the Matrox G400 was released, the Voodoo 3 was already available and the Voodoo 3 had excellent output quality, so there was really no point to get a Matrox card. And if you mix a Matrox G200 with a Voodoo 2 you will loose output quality because of the pass through cable.

[@michaelmiller3012]

@@OpenGL4everAnecdotal, I know, but I never noticed any video quality degradations using Voodoo 1 or 2 cards. What I DID experience, however, was a monitor we called "the fishbowl monitor" that was only tolerable to look at when it was connected to a Matrox G-Series card.

[@cestlavieeee]

i’m an intern at matrox and the inside of the company looks like i time traveled to the 2000s

[@terminusaquo1980]

I think it was people's misconceptions that killed Matrox not necessarily the G550 itself as Matrox repeatedly stated that it wasn't a gaming card. Matrox cards were business cards first and foremost and very few consumers actually bought them anyway which is why Matrox themselves weren't that concerned about adding gaming features to their cards.

[@BudgetBuildsOfficial]

That is ofcourse till Nvidia/ATI closed in on the proffesional market, and Matrox had to compete.

[@johnnyappleseed4794]

Budget-Builds Official And when they got into the picture, Matrox didn't have a chance.

[@BudgetBuildsOfficial]

Well they might have.... If the G550 didn't destroy any hope in hell of having any credibility.

[@johnnyappleseed4794]

Budget-Builds Official Still wouldn't be enough.

[@BudgetBuildsOfficial]

Johnny Appleseed: Maybe it's time I get myself Matrox Parlenia

[@HeyImGaminOverHere]

Oh God when you get outperformed 5 fold by a freaking SIS 315... That my friends is quitting time!

[@ShortHandedNow]

I tend to think the blame lies with a lot of the PC gaming magazines of the time... PC Gamer in particular. Had one in a workstation back in the day... The thing was a pleasure to use in what was its purpose... DUAL screen workflow.

[@ian_b]

Same here, I bought one for my Athlon system which I used for 2D graphics and general computing and it was a lovely display and with dual monitors.

[@toddstidham8374]

Ah, I fondly remember my Matrox Mystique and the hours of time spent playing the included Mechwarrior 2: Mystique edition game. I remember being blown away by the graphics back then.

[@CougarCat21]

I had the same card and game too!!! That was fun playing that game..

[@bwzes03]

Also, in the business line, there where Matrox chips based boards capable of driving 4, 5 and even 6 screens from one card. These were used by banks on dealer pc's to display real-time stock updates, graphs, and excel sheets.

[@philscomputerlab]

Great video! The G400 MAX is my favourite Matrox card, Expendable with Bump Mapping looks pretty nice. The drivers are indeed hit and miss, it took them ages to get OpenGL compatibility as well.

[@BudgetBuildsOfficial]

PhilsComputerLab: Definitely agree with you on that. This card wasn't bad to use, but speaking to people of the time that bought one.... Well they got caught up in a fake sense of hype, and were dissapointed by the performance (or therefore lack of) for what they paid. Glad you enjoyed the video.

[@UKVampy]

Awesome Phil, but LOL at the "Bum" mapping.

[@philscomputerlab]

UKVamp Undead LOL Fixed!

[@BudgetBuildsOfficial]

Ege Ve Tayfası HD: Yep.... They have a website.

[@BudgetBuildsOfficial]

Yeah.... They operate in the professional market still.

[@SeanGhanbari]

It's less known to consumer market that G450 and G550 were the core of "broadcasting system in a box" that powered hundreds of small Cable Broadcasting businesses in the world. Both of those cards offered a SDK similar to Digisuit LE and LX series. We sold hundreds of CG+Video Server units using these cards plus G-lock cable

[@lessevilgoog]

I really have to disagree with your conclusions. You seem to imply that consumers, fans of the G400 and G200 were confused and thought the G550 was a gaming card and lashed out when it wasn't. I don't believe that was the case, though the press may have latched on to it as a story. But my friends and I were those consumers. Some of us hoped, despite reports and press because we loved the G200 and G400. But honestly, we knew this wasn't a good gaming card,. That wasn't particularly the problem. The problem was, they had basically announced that they were abandoning us. They weren't interested in supporting consumers. They had no plans for a gaming card to follow. They *wanted* to be a niche company making cards for a small business oriented segment. The G550 didn't decide their fate, it made their intentions clear.

[@kyleanderson1613]

You hurt my soul when you scrubbed that heatsink with a brass brush lol

[@vadim6385]

Matrox are still pretty much alive, they have just withdrawn from consumer market, and focused their efforts on business products. For example, I have a Dell R630 server from 2016 with Matrox graphics card.

[@stevec00ps]

Few things - you still see G-series cards in embedded video cards in servers for example. Matrox is not dead - they just no longer wanted to (were able to) compete in the consumer market - they make some lovely video equipment still (not to mention specialist kit like medical stuff). The G400 MAX was their best card - I loved that one - market leader briefly too :) I used to beta test for Matrox and we weren't favourable with the G550 - especially the headcasting ffs! what a joke. The Parhelia was just too little too late, but was a nice card.

[@stephencox4224]

Correct my Gen 8 HP Microserver runs inbuilt matrox gp with a C602 Chipset

[@ethanator4051]

matrox didn't die, they just left the consumer market. they still produce industrial video hardware

[@DragonProtector]

really?

[@jozsefizsak]

Your endlessly reiterated assertion that Matrox is dead in spite of your visiting their site for drivers does not cast your judgement in a favourable light. I do have to commend you for mentioning their 2D image quality. The clarity they achieved on those old CRTs was quite addictive..

[@seeindarkness]

What about the Matrox Parhelia ? It was very expensive and was touted as a gaming card and was supposed to go against the Radeon 9700 PRO, but it was not near as powerful and Matrox pretty much had spent all that money but could recoup any costs.

[@BudgetBuildsOfficial]

I mention this in the video?

[@seeindarkness]

Yes you did, This is just my opinion, the Parhelia was the on of the biggest mistakes for Matrox.

[@WiiNV]

seeindarkness Totally agree! 😱🔫 They both weren't great as Scott Wasson, now working @ AMD concluded techreport.com/review/2519/a-look-ahead-at-matrox-g550-heady-stuff/3 techreport.com/review/3623/preview-matrox-parhelia-512-graphics-processor/10

[@frantici]

Yes, this is the card that made Matrox to stop focusing on consumer cards. I was unfortunate to actually buy this piece of crap, and I ended up returning it due to poor drivers and bad performance vs price. I loved the 2d quality and output to TV was excellent, no other card I know of did this with such high quality in those days.

[@nicholsliwilson]

I actually have fond memories of my G550 *as a workstation card* because in addition to good multi monitor support and colour reproduction for it’s price it was silent, allowing me to build a near silent workstation. It was in no way a gaming card but I never expected it to be and didn’t buy it as such, in spite of my love for the old G400 MAX, so for me the G550 did exactly what I expected of it at a reasonable price. And hay, it ran Space Cadet Pinball & Solitaire fine. LOL! ;P

[@altebander2767]

Actually the G200 (or G220?) is still widely used as this was the last Matrox card with decent driver support as the later ones used binary only drivers. So if you buy a server from, for example Supermicro, chances are it has an older Matrox inside.

[@d0ugk]

Matrox were always very strong productivity cards, with some light gaming support. I ran a G400MAX for several years in the late 90s/early 2ks. They were great for that kind of use. I remember using machines with early Nvidia cards and how shit they were in 2d. Both in drawing 2d graphics in The windows UI things like scrolling windows/documents or dragging windows around the screen that would stutter on other cards was smooth as silk on the matrox cards. Then there was the legendary analog VGA video out, where as a lot of the competitions analog out was a smeary or ghosty mess, not that a lot of people could notice it unless you were driving something like a Sony Trinitron CRT with the card. Going even further back the ultimate setup was paring something like a matrox millennium card with a voodoo card. Maxtox for the excellent 2d acceleration and analog VGA signal quality and the voodoo for gaming. As some have already said Matrox is still alive an well today having completely left the consumer market and focusing on things like high end medical imaging and other professional display applications. Matrox was also very well known for their support of other operating systems like Linux back in the day where as the rest of the competition made the minimalist effort to support, if they did anything at all. They are probably the oldest existing graphics card maker still in business. If you look at their website today they are celebrating their 40th anniversary

[@LastOneLeft99]

in 1996 I was a kid and my family got our first PC. It had no 3d card at all so I picked up a Matrox Mystique. I had no idea how trash it was. It ran almost nothing. I learned my lesson and researched the shit out of everything else I bought after that.

[@Jasa12265]

Matrox is still around and makes good video capture and output cards. Our work has them in our Xpression CG machines and they work quite fine and are sometimes considered industry standard in the broadcasting industry.

[@pianokeyjoe]

Funny thing, I always thought of MATROX as a great and very compatible WORKSTATION VGA card. I never knew Matrox even tried to sell to the consumer market. Dualhead was a feature that I only came to afford only when I started finding Matrox G450 cards at the recycling center I worked in and then suddenly ATI and NVIDIA dualhead cards came flooding into the center! I always thought these cards worked for autocad and cad 3D apps for Unix and Windows of the time and well...now! I am not a gamer so I do not know what it is like to have a gaming PC but as a musician I can attest to the woes of sub par sound cards. As a home designer, I can agree, a 3D rendering workstation card that does not cost me a year's wages is best for me so the MATROX cards did fit the bill. One of the main things to think about when looking for a PC hardware part for your "purpose" is to find parts that fit YOUR PURPOSE. Mine is 3d rendering for home design and Music production with midi,real time audio and software synths. This Card is great for the graphics for both, but only on an OS that also fits the bill for my SSD main drive based install too, so only Windows 2K and XP nlited for me! In Windows 7 tiny and embedded(HP thinclient version), You can gitter done but far from usable for GAMING. The right parts for the right job. Matrox tried to be like everybody else too late.

[@eddcordero4327]

Just adding my 2p - bump map bitmapping is/was :O Matrox was never a gaming card, if anyone is wondering why this card was so peak; its the quality of the image and this image quality is the most important factor for anyone using their machine for DTP, graphics or anything to do with fine imaging.

[@ask4kobebeef]

The Matrox Millenium was the ultimate 2d professional graphics card in my book. I can;t understand why Matrox even tried to enter the consumer 2d market as it was owned by S3 and Tseng Labs and they had their own little niche. When 3dfx and Nvidia popped up for the 3d accelerated market Matrox should have just soldiered on and stuck to what they did best. But I guess in the end Nvidia and Ati consolidated the market a great deal from great 3d acceleration to multi monitor support to stereoscopic vision to bitstream audio output to physics acceleration to sli/crossfire - saving us from having to buy multiple specialised cards.

[@sealance]

Parhelia was a nice card though

[@RK-zf1jm]

of god s3 my first gaming card was the s3 savage came with a demo disc of g police i played that crap out ot that

[@SummonerArthur]

Now I really want a S3 video...

[@FarrFromPerfect]

My millenium was an expensive mistake. It ran corel great.....but was crazy expensive. Like 1/3 the price of the pc. But Mechwarrior II on high res with 800x600.....power

[@mjouwbuis]

Actually, they soldiered on and kept doing what they did best. They must have taken your advice ;)

[@thedogiestgamerz1069]

love how the g550 card from the early 2000s was bandwidth limited because it had a 64bit bandwidth and nvidia released a gt 1030 with the same bandwidth

[@f.a.i9638]

Hey I know this is late and stuff. BUT I want to say I thank you. I finally my 1st pc. You were one of the YTers that have encouraged me to build one. It's also a used pc build. Really I can't express my gratitude.

[@BudgetBuildsOfficial]

F.A.I: Glad to know it helped man, and I hope you're enjoying that PC.

[@F2FTech]

Really enjoyed the video. Well researched and presented. I will say Matrox is alive and well, and in fact, they’re hiring 😉

[@BudgetBuildsOfficial]

F2F Tech: It'd be interesting to see another consumer release from them. Thanks man

[@mattsmechanicalssi5833]

You're right!

[@MJ-uk6lu]

I see some matrox cards being sold new for huge prices, as much as thousands of euros. I honestly don't know why they are priced like that and who buys them.

[@DanielCardei]

maybe the Matrox Mxo2 that you can convert all kind of computers on a king multiscreen desktop

[@MJ-uk6lu]

Looked at exact model Matrox C900. Costs 2000 euros. Has 9 miniHDMI connectors. That's insane, but at the same time el cheapo Radoens can drive something like 6 monitors and you can crossfire them for more output for much less money. Matrox doesn't make much sense. Another model for 2k euro is Matrox M9188. I really need explanation why they are so expensive and at what they can be used. Likely it's something like new AGP GT6600 I saw in store still being sold. I kinda wanted it, but price was over 60 euros and it was totally not worth it.

[@freediverhd]

Back in 1998, I was 16 and I used software mode of unreal, at about 25fps, and I loved it. 48fps sounds like a dream.

[@WOTRetro]

I dont know someone who told that the G550 was for gaming. In my eyes the Parhelia was the Card Gamers are looking for, but were disappointed about the performance. But i am from Germany.. might be seen different in the rest of the world.

[@scottrich976]

That is exactly right. The hype was bigger than the card.

[@belstar1128]

Oh i miss the days when you had so much choice unlike now when its only nvidea and amd.

[@bwzes03]

betarage ... ah yes, the good old days. Trident, Tseng Labs, Cirrus Logic, OAK Technologies, Orchid, S3 Technologies, Ati, ALi (Acer Labs Inc). Matrox, Number Nine, Rendition, Weitek, OPTi, Chips & Technologies and some others that I forgot. All VGA chipset manufacturers, where only Ati in the AMD form is still making consumer graphics chips.

[@hakont.4960]

Technically you can choose between three different GPU manufacturers, as Intel makes low performance GPU's that are sufficient for regular desktop use and older and/or simpler games.

[@hoppstech]

It's a shame that they went out of business. Imagine having more than two options for graphics cards for a new system. Great video man, congratulations on 100k

[@BudgetBuildsOfficial]

HoppsTech: Cheers man, gotta say they really did shoot themselves in the foot more than once though.

[@CantankerousDave]

They had terrific video capture hardware back in the early aughts. Unfortunately, they had a huge "SQUIRREL!" problem, where they would immediately drop support and move on to their next project. That cost them a lot of users. "We're sorry that we won't be developing new drivers for that $5K system you just bought. Our solution is to buy this $10K one if you want to use the latest version of Premiere."

Ege Ve Tayfası HD They still sell gpus as i can see. But they are weak lol

[@brantsemallory726]

dekkoo84 Weak you think... Try editing video on one of their cards today. it will run rings round the competition.

[@klontjespap]

even back in 1999, it was mainly the DTP / vector graphics guys that got a matrox for their 2d quality... usually on a motorola mac. never seen many a gamer opt for it :D

[@razmann4k]

Brilliant video, once again! HAPPY 100K SUBS MAN!

[@DanielCardei]

I`m so happy you reach 100k! can`t wait for your tweet about the button :D

[@Clazzette]

TFC and the Oddworld series were one of my most favorite games during my childhood, and you actually used them to test out the card! I am happy :D

[@rcajavus8141]

Matrox was a work card, compare its bus speed to its competition, i had 64k colour back in Widows 95 and 75Mhz refresh rate, something professionals would dream of. And there is so much to graphics besides 3d acceleration. Matrox gained reputation as "gaming cards" back when there were no "gaming" cards as most you could buy was S3Virge and crap like that. I had Cirrus Logic with 4 mb ram (2 I inserted myself into chip cradle) and even that was better than S3 and its variants. Matrox had super fast interior, so it was basicaly a great software rendering card, and as first 3d was actually software rendered, Matrox was first that gave us 3d games with fluent 3d. You are mentioning "40 fps" and I would like to adress you to PCGamer of that time or PCWorld to compare what others had. Back in 1999. if you had 25 fps. you had EXCELLENT 3d GRAPHICS CARD, everything beyond 25 was not even considered but a demonstration of power. Matrox was never a gaming company, but they figured market needs their cards, and they decided to make g200 and by the time it was out for sales, the rest of the production also started making cards, only those were real 3dfx cards and g200 just missed its mark by 6 months or so.

[@rcajavus8141]

and another thing, all Flight Simulators worked excellent on Matrox - what did not work with matrox, 3dStudio, one of best 3d modeling tools for beginners :D Also I played Flight Unlimited in awesome resolution for that time, i think 1024x728, and Descent was completely fluent and I remember none of my friends could even have 4-5 fps in that game.

[@MrCaerbannog]

In retrospect they'd probably have been better off calling this card the G460 or something similar. That being said, the G550 really just sped up the inevitable, as even if people had been more hyped up for the Parhelia, that hype would have completely died when the Radeon 9700 Pro showed up just a few months later.

[@RitzyBusiness]

Matrox cards were absolutely fantastic at what they did, I had a Voodoo 2 using a Matrox card for its output and 2d functionality. It is super unfortunate they don't exist anymore in the consumer market, I feel they would of dominated the productivity market giving Nvidia Quadro (and now AMD VEGA) a run for their money. It was their niche~ and they were damn good at it.

[@tHeWasTeDYouTh]

video starts and Fable music starts to play.............nostalgia makes my heart ache such a great game, thanks

[@DigiFootageFX]

The birdfeeder shots had me laughing. I was waiting for a robin to unleash some droppings on it, perhaps appropriately.

[@UKVampy]

Wow a real throwback to the beginings of 3d vga cards. The Matrox brand was def known for business more than gaming though. I do remember the Compaq Pentium 60 desktop my friend had with this matrox card in it though, the - Matrox Millennium PCI Graphics Card w/2MB 60 MHz WRAM QVision 2000 QVision 1280/p. This PC was cutting edge back in the day with the brand new Pentium Cpu in it. Another fact filled information fest from Budget as usual, Keep up the good work.

[@GeorgeWilkins]

Well done on 100,000 subscribers. You deserve that play button.

[@BudgetBuildsOfficial]

Cheers man

[@markodavidovic9638]

Congrants on 100k!!!

[@lilsammywasapunkrock]

I had a matrix mystique card in the Windows 98 days. That card killed all my freinds in old games like mech warrior 2. I also remeber getting a dvd decoder card and hooking up to a gigantic computer monitor and watching dvds in over 1920 resolutions. It would go higher, but then you couldn't really see the mouse cursor. I think it maxed out around 2580? Be almost 20 years. But I loved that setup.

[@MelodicMane]

I'm so happy I found this channel, it really helps me put the modern market into perspective. Fantastic video as always!

[@Aranimda]

Still hyped for the Millennium G800

[@aaronperl]

Thanks for making this video. I've been wondering what happened to Matrox, as I fondly remember my Millennium, Millennium II, and G450 cards. When it came time to build a more modern system, I looked around for Matrox but couldn't find any trace of them. Looks like I got out just before they went down.

[@Cluuey]

I watched this as I remember Matrox. I used a G400 for a while, it's probably in a box around here somewhere. I was expecting "The card that KILLED... Matrox" to be about the Tseng Labs ET6000, the first 128bit bus video card (I think). As a result it was as fast as the 64bit Matrox (was it the millennium?) but about a quarter of the price. I remember a mate, with someone else buying his gear, getting the Matrox because, "It's the best, look at the price tag," having to 'downgrade' to the ET6000 when he got the headgear to play MW2 with. I can't remember what it was called, it was very cool for the time but looking back it already a bit dated then. It was an ISA card which plugged into the VESA connector on the ET600 - other cards too, but not the Matrox. Not long after that the Voodoo 2's, with or without SLI, were commonly paired with the ET6000. Things moved really fast back then.

[@slaaayx]

Oh my god, congrats on hitting 100.000 Subscribers! Can't believe I am here since you had just some subscribers. I really love it to see you growing so fast on KZbin. I think your reach is totally deserved. I wish you a lot more of support and just everything man... Your channel is one of my favourites. Thank you for all! Slayx

[@BudgetBuildsOfficial]

Cheers man, appreciate that you're still sticking around to watch the videos. Plenty more on the way.

[@beezle1976]

Great cards. Never intended to be gaming cards. Great cards for CAD though. None of which are my case usage. Theyre great cards for if you're interested in alternative computing (non windows, non mac osx, non linux, etc.). Matrox offer nice open documentation for their hardware, making them nice choices for people who are into things other than this sort of mainstream computing. They werent the last gpu from Matrox though, there was a few completely different gpus released by them, aimed more at gaming. P690 and parhelia are the 2 that come to mind. Actually pretty decent cards competitive to what was out at the time. Also the first gpu to offer 10bits per rgb gun. Not sure if you're aware, but the card you're using their is a bit of a budget version with lower than usual image quality. Doesnt even have a dms-59 connector. Very high speed ramdacs on those cards (which is one of the touted strengths of matrox cards, it's just that most people only follow how things influence gaming, which is silly on this card). Being disappointed about gaming performance on a g550 makes about as much sense as being disappointed at how quickly cheese will melt aluminium,..... theyre simply not designed for the job.

[@thomascallaghan6444]

Stellar quality as per usual 😄

[@kathrynradonich3982]

I have and run a Matrox Mystique G200 in my AMD 486-DX4 100Mhz build. I do have a G450 laying around somewhere and I loved that card. Worked perfectly for the kind of games I played at the time that it came out (I was only 10 at the time 🤷🏻‍♀️). Was a nice video about a company I have fond memories of. Keep up the work and you’ve got a new sub from me.

[@spidermcgavenport]

8-bit Paletted Texture support is lacking on many graphics cards I bet the Matrox still supports it. While the newer card won't. Reason I mention this is Final Fantasy VII & VIII.

[@EVRLYNMedia]

i thought the title meant that the graphics card actually killed people

[@BudgetBuildsOfficial]

Given how long this video took to make....Yes

[@EVRLYNMedia]

lmao wow

[@ordinosaurs]

I don't really understand the hate for the Mystique. When it was first released, it competed with the likes of S3 Virge and Trident, and spanked them. If you needed better 2D acceleration, there was the Millenium option - at a price. And for 3D, the Mystique could be matched to a 3dfx. This was very common until the release of the Nvidia GeForce 2, but it took 4 years for Nvidia to achieve that. From 96 to 2000, Matrox had the best 2D image quality, and the Mystique was not that much below the Millenium. What finally did my Mystique in was windows 2k, which supported the 220 model but not the original 170. Otherwise I would have used it some more years for business app, because this card produced the deepest blacks paired to a Trinitron at the time.

[@nickwallette6201]

I don't understand where he gets that either. I had a Mystique, and it was a great card at the time and for the price. Used it for years. You could even expand it with video in/out. For $99? Pfff. Doesn't sound like a mistake to me. It even came with a 3D-enhanced version of Mech Warrior 2!

[@arphaksad01]

@@nickwallette6201 Yup, played Matrox enhanced Mechwarrior 2. That was fun

[@fermitupoupon1754]

For me personally the biggest bummer about the Mystique was the price tag. Which at the time was basically choosing between a second VooDoo2 to put in SLI or trade in the S3 Trio for a Mystique. As a gamer at the time I could never justify that kind of expense on a 2D card, especially given that most of my library at the time were 3Dfx Glide games.

[@Olivyay]

You're rewriting history. I owned a Mystique and while it "spanked the S3 and Trident", it had bad 3D quality with no bilinear filtering, mipmapping, or fog rendering. Mystique was *not* matched to 3Dfx in either performance or features (Matrox even released a discrete 3D-only m3D card to compete better with it), and NVIDIA bested it starting with the very first Riva 128.

[@ordinosaurs]

@@Olivyay : Revisiting the comments one year later : "matched" as in "connected to". I meant you needed a 3dfx to handle the 3d with the Mystique taking care of the 2d and the final output.

[@JuryDutySummons]

Matrox still exists. They make those video cards that power big-multi-monitor setups. Not for consumers though, but if you need to power 9 displays at once off of one computer, they have a card for you.

[@klyted2454]

Their is a Matrox corporate office 11 minutes from my house.

[@theadambar]

I had Matrox G100, G200, G400 and G450 back in the day. It was a long time ago, but the G100 was in a workstation that I got as a gift, which actually defined my career and life. At that point, G100 was a decent gaming card. I was never much of a gamer, but back then it could run anything on the market with 3D acceleration. I soon got interested in CAD and DTP, and that's where this card outperformed anything else my friends and colleagues had and for a fraction of a price. After that, I kept buying Matrox, but each version was a little bit weaker than the competition. Even 2D started to lag by the time G450 came. I never got the G550. And the reason was that it was too expensive for me. Still, for many years after, as I was switching between Nvidia and ATI, I kept thinking that the AA, image and colors were always nicer on Matrox.

[@Kyntteri]

I had a Matrox G400 during the early 2000's. I was able to run Half-Life and Photoshop with it so I could endure my life through those dark times.

[@SYCHR0N]

... Except for the fact, that Matrox is not dead at all ... They are still among the leading companies in the multi monitor market. You mentioned it in the video: These cards were perfect for 2D acceleration and image quality. Especially NVIDIA drove their analog outputs near the low end of the specified range, causing smear disguised as "anti aliasing" ;-) In the computer back then I had an early NVIDIA drive my main screen, and a G450 driving second and third screen in a recording studio setup. Guess what ... I had to move the mixer windows to the Matrox screens. Having all the peak meters on the main screen causes noise, for the nvidia could not handle 2d acceleration, and their analog output made the smaller texts barely readable. So yeah ... business card. That's what Matrox did well all the time. Their gaming cards were a venture, but they never left the business market.

[@Its_A_Meag]

Absolutely loved this video, very informative and well made, perfectly shows the history of the card and it’s benefits / disadvantages. Keep up the good work!

[@billthecat2410]

I owned one of those. Now I'm a bit in a fog about those days but here is my take on it. Window's at that time were not really set up for games as well as DOS was a real dog.. Most early games used OpenGl to get good performance out of that era of games. I had that Matrox card because it was a good 2D card. I also had the 3DFX daughter card that I used for current games. It had great OpenGl support and performance. It took Microsoft a long time to catch up with OpenGL. as far as I remember. I know games like wolfenstine used it as well as the first I-War game was total OpenGL. Good Old 3DFX was hot at that time until Nvidia bankrupted them. That was a real crime but oh well..

[@davidtumolo5423]

Congratulations on 100k subs man! Keep up the good work!

[@enilenis]

Mystique G200 was my first accelerated card. Thanks to it I got into video editing early. Graphics and performance wise it was on par with competition - ATI Rage and TNT2, but after that, ATI and Nvidia quickly surpassed Matrox, in terms of both, performance and shader development. When the question came whether to upgrade to the later gen Matrox, I chose in favor of GeForce3 and didn't regret it.

[@Apeman_king_of_apes]

The Matrox 550.... I wasn't around when it existed, but I have some computers that did, and one had one of these... And nice choice of Zelda music

[@PSYCLOWN185]

I confused why in the video and comments people are saying they went out of business. They still exist but they only make business focused graphics cards anymore. And they also use AMD architecture and no longer develop their own.

[@virtualwastrel]

Hell yeah, fable soundtrack use again!

[@NotAnAlienlol]

I thought so

[@D-Rguitar]

You always get me with the Fable OST, makes me feel good feels every time.

[@bobgrimes8618]

I always used Matrox cards because of their excellent OS/2 drivers and support.

[@BudgetBuildsOfficial]

I can confirm that it does support it well

[@kjeldlarsen912]

I remember the tomb raider 1 patch for the matrix mystique 4mb...just wooow what a different very smooth graphic

[@ubwr5322]

Congrats on 100k my man

[@BudgetBuildsOfficial]

Ubwr cheers man

[@daveomania_]

Mate, if you could get your hands on the HIS HD4670 IceQ 1GB AGP card and do some kind of review on it, that would be sweet. Back in 2009-2010 I was stuck in university with no budget and ended up playing heaps of new titles with friends on my AMD Opteron 270 , 4GB DDR and this card. I remember being so shocked that a 1GB 4670 existed with AGP. Keep up with the cool videos, mate! Cheers!

[@MOSMASTERING]

I was a young teen and asked for a Matrox Millenium II for Christmas.. I was so excited when I opened my present, only to discover it did absolutely nothing to accelerate games whatsoever. It was actually a combined Birthday/Christmas present as the thing cost about £200 I think. Which was a huge amount at the time. I eventually ended up with a system with two Voodoo 2 cards in SLI which was totally mindbending having never seen 3D like it before. The company pretty much died off shortly after real 3D cards that started coming out. Also, 2D became cheap, likely just on one chip by then and combined cards didn't need pass-through for 2D. But I'll never forget the disappointment of that card.

[@sergiofagundes1972]

Those cards are really made to work with their matrox capture card like rt2000 and rt2500 to "real time" rendering with adobe premiere. And they are very good for this. The problem was ppl insisting on game user for these cards.

[@daishi5571]

1999-2000 I was working for Deutsche Bank in London, and all the PC's on the trading floor ran with Matrox. Many with 8 screens (multiple cards) and no issues, which no other card we tried could do.

[@mitsostechtips9047]

I watch 4 Pc based channels: 1: Budget Builds Official 2: Linus Tech Tips 3: Tech YES City 4: Random Gaming Hd These are the Top 4 channels that I like

[@muzgnasicianie]

Mitsos Tech Tips check ExplainingComputers

[@FullyBuffered]

Great video, very interesting stuff. Though now I keep staring at the Piers Brosnan cup coaster haha

[@dj68k]

After all the outdoor visuals, no closing "It's for the birds" joke?

[@CarthagoMike]

so basicly it wasn't really the card that killed it, but the consumers for whom the card was never meant to be to begin with.

[@lukefreeman828]

Great video! Love the music too... it just works

[@tunkunrunk]

I still have my two Matrox graphic cards in good condition, the DUAL HEAD G450, and the MATROX G55+MDHA 32DB. I plan to use it to display directions, information, and advertisement to visitors in my future small shopping malls and amusement parks. I need to find good motherboards with AGP connector, supporting at least 3GB of ram, and a dual-core processor or a 3GHZ single-core processor

[@WXSTANG]

I owned a G450 and loved it. I looked forward to the Parhelia but it did fall short. You are however wrong that the Parhelia was a revamed G400, it was not. The Parhelia sported 10 BIT color depth Core Clock (MHz) : 220 Core Bus : 512bit Effective Memory Clock (MHz) : 550 Memory Bus Width : 256bit Memory Bandwidth (MB/s) : 17600 Pixel Pipelines : 4 Texture Units : 16 Vertex Shaders : 4 (2.0) Pixel Fillrate (MPixel/s):880 Texel Fillrate (MTexel/s):3520 G450 comparison Core : 256bit Effective Memory Clock (MHz) : 302 Memory Bus Width : 64bit Memory Bandwidth (MB/s):2416 Pixel Pipelines:2 Texture Units:2 Pixel Fillrate (MPixel/s):248 Texel Fillrate (MTexel/s):248 Which was lightyears ahead of the G450, but just didn't live up to the hype and just couldn't perform like what they were expecting.

[@TechoGames]

Don't care if im first second or three just want to say Mr Budget Builds makes some of finest content on KZbin

[@quickfragger2055]

I initially bought a G400 but it burned out within the warranty time limit, so I was sent a new card, namely the G550. I can't exactly remember how well games ran, but I do remember making tons of levels in Half-Life and CS on it. The system I ran it with, is a Pentum III 1300MHz and some kind of relevant RAM. Think I had 256MB or something. Running 2 screens was actually nearly unheard of on the amateur scene. Very useful in programming. I think the g550 was nearly the same in performance as the G400 but if I remember correctly, the G550 could run OpenGL games, like Quake 3 Arena, something the G400 could not. I think I had a voodoo card linked up to the G400, something I didn't need with the G550.

[@slim420-e8v]

What makes this even more interesting is that AMD and Nvidia CEOs are niece and uncle.

SliM420 GaMing adidas and puma ceos are brothers

[@justiny.1773]

SliM420 GaMing there rigged

[@speedrunhunter3832]

Congrats on your 100K subscribers! 😀

[@CaptainDangeax]

I still own 2 old rigs for retro gaming. One is a Pentium4 (socket 423) with 512MB rambus and a Geforce4 Ti 4200. The other one is a pentium III-800 EB with 128 MB of ram and a great 3DFX Voodoo3-2000. I had a Mystique when it went out and I instantly regreted not keeping my money for a 3dfx. The only 3d game I had at that time was Hellbender. I also had a G400 for a specific purpose : the card was plugged to my CRT TV set using the Scart connector, with a tweaked timing and a home-made VGA-->SCART cable. Mplayer/linux was able to output to the Matrox frame buffer and I had very nice video then. Of course, HDMI and 1080p are now standard, but 16 years ago, it was an achievement. Anyway, I think the real failure for Matrox was the Permedia brand, completely outrun by NVidia and ATI. The VGA output quality is not everything.

[@BancigodD9]

I loved my G400. My mate loved his Mystic card. Later I absolutely loved the G450. This was so easy in use and has been the video card I enjoyed the most. But when I switched to the G550, it was a nightmare. We couldn't get my TV working as second screen. My mate and I looked for weeks what may have been the issue. In the end, rather by accident, did I stumble upon what was the issue. The card didn't supported svhs cables that were longer than 1m50. Which was too short for where my computer and TV were positioned in my room.

[@levisharman4055]

Congrats on 100k!!!

[@Hessi]

The G400 was already capable of bump mapping. At LAN parties, the Nvidia users always looked quite fascinated at 3DMark 2001, where the leather jacket looked so cool on my computer.

[@kellerweskier7214]

that nostalgia at 13:30! my god. i love you.

[@spicymemes9160]

Congrats on 100K

[@rphallam]

You must remember "the bitterness of poor quality remains long after sweetness of low price is forgotten"

[@bwzes03]

It is actually a Triple Head card, by using the supplied VGA splitter cable, that plugs into the DVI-I interface. This allows 3 analog VGA connections on one card.

[@Popk1ller]

Matrox Mystique + 3dfx Accellerator was the combo, great screen quality in 2D and great for gaming. They wanted to come back to consumer gaming market with the Parhelia (first card with full AGP 8x support - along with the GF4800Ti) shortly before the Radeon 9700 came up onto market (and blew all away but thats worth for another story ^^). Great was the surround gaming feature to add 3 (or more??) monitors to display a game - cool for flight sims and similar.

[@TheExileFox]

Matrox didn't die for real as they had newer devices on the market not that long ago. Though the newer products are office/professional stuff. Such as Dualhead2go which can be found with displayport! This is why they didn't die back then.

[@garrettk.2257]

Congrats on 100k