If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#42
|
|||
|
|||
justin credible writes:
In article , . wsrcc.com says... I'd have loved to have gotten a P650, but Matrox hasn't released the programming info for the card. The card worthless for open source OS's. For a company on the skids, you'd think Matrox would be doing a bit more to develop new markets. They certainly are not on the skids..they have a very solid market base with developers and people who want and need high quality 2D with full multi-monitor support. http://www.hoovers.com/matrox-electr...actsheet.xhtml http://www.hoovers.com/matrox-electr...actsheet.xhtml Matrox Electronic Systems Ltd. 1055 St. Regis Blvd. Dorval, Quebec H9P 2T4, Canada Phone: 514-822-6000 Fax: 514-822-6292 http://www.matrox.com Basic Financial Information Company Type Private Fiscal Year-End March Financial Overview 2003 2002 2001 2000 Annual Sales ($ mil.) 89.4 106.2 147.1 500.0 (est.) Key Numbers Company Type Private Fiscal Year-End March 2003 Sales (mil.) $89.4 1-Year Sales Growth (15.8%) 2003 Employees 1,000 1-Year Employee Growth (31.0%) More Financials Key People Chairman Branko Matic Job Openings President Lorne Trottier Controller Brian Bertram Sliding from $500 million to $90 million in 3 years doesn't sound like a vibrant company with a growing market share to me. The 1/3 staff-reduction doesn't look so hot either. I don't know any open source developers that are working with the new Matrox cards since Matrox isn't releasing any programming information. Their choice of course, but it seems strange that they would want to pass up a large market like X11 users, which for the most part, are only interested in 2D performance. -wolfgang -- Wolfgang S. Rupprecht http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/ |
#43
|
|||
|
|||
On Sat, 08 May 2004 12:21:51 -0600, Rob Stow wrote:
I think I skipped over the Mystiques - I went straight from Millenium I and II to G400, G550, and now P650. IIRC, the Mystique was a low-end G200 series card ? The G200 had Millenium and Mystique models - the Mystique being slighter slower memory and RAMDAC or something like that. Earlier on the Mystique was a cheaper 'gaming' version of the Millenium II. Also had lower specced RAMDAC and memory I think. Cheers Anton |
#44
|
|||
|
|||
KR Williams writes: In article , . wsrcc.com says... The rubber-grommet disk mounts are also a nice touch for disks that have noisy arms. (The quiet disks with a ramped voltage to the disk arm are getting hard to find. It appears that some company managed to patent the idea of not whacking the arm solenoid with a square wave.) I didn't think any drives rapped the voice-coil with a square wave. I thought the waveforms were quite complex (initial whack, sustain, tail), with the energy driven in each phase depending on the distance of the move. At least that's sorta the results I got from looking at the performance characteristics of various drives five or six years ago (time flies). I was talking more tongue-in-cheek. I was trying to say was that the current ATA Seagate Barracudas whack the arm pretty hard and the disk voices it's objection rather loudly. The rubber disk mounting grommets on the Sonata's drive caddy definitely makes a difference in the amount of arm seeking noise that gets coupled to the case. (The 1-year old Barracudas still had an optional quiet seek mode where the firmware was quite a bit nicer to the arm, but alas, that mode no longer exists at least on Seagate's due to legal problems.) -wolfgang -- Wolfgang S. Rupprecht http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/ |
#45
|
|||
|
|||
|
#46
|
|||
|
|||
In article ,
. wsrcc.com says... KR Williams writes: In article , . wsrcc.com says... The rubber-grommet disk mounts are also a nice touch for disks that have noisy arms. (The quiet disks with a ramped voltage to the disk arm are getting hard to find. It appears that some company managed to patent the idea of not whacking the arm solenoid with a square wave.) I didn't think any drives rapped the voice-coil with a square wave. I thought the waveforms were quite complex (initial whack, sustain, tail), with the energy driven in each phase depending on the distance of the move. At least that's sorta the results I got from looking at the performance characteristics of various drives five or six years ago (time flies). I was talking more tongue-in-cheek. I was trying to say was that the current ATA Seagate Barracudas whack the arm pretty hard and the disk voices it's objection rather loudly. Ok, I took it literally. Thouhg to get performance out of the drive one has to rap the voice-coil rather hard (inertia and all that). The rubber disk mounting grommets on the Sonata's drive caddy definitely makes a difference in the amount of arm seeking noise that gets coupled to the case. (The 1-year old Barracudas still had an optional quiet seek mode where the firmware was quite a bit nicer to the arm, but alas, that mode no longer exists at least on Seagate's due to legal problems.) Really? Do you have a reference for this? I know many drives, from long ago, had performance options built-in, and could be selected it one had the right tools. SCSI drives often exposed these options to the user. -- Keith |
#47
|
|||
|
|||
In article ,
says... In article t, says... Well... Graphics cards look like a big bugaboo. Unless anyone can convince me otherwise, I think I'm going safe: Matrox G550. I'm really a 2D kinda guy anyway (and dual monitors are a must). For what the Matrox does it is the best and they seem to stay on the same track they layed several years ago only refining an already great product with top-notch support. I agree with the above (from my experience only), however if they're only doing $90M with a thousand employees ($90K each, according to my tired math), they are sucking wind. OTOH, I added my 1ppm to their revenue. ;-) -- Keith |
#48
|
|||
|
|||
In article t,
says... In article , . wsrcc.com says... KR Williams writes: Ok... How about the SX1040BII: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...iption=11-129- 120&depa=0 (sorry for the split) The Plus AMG cases seem to work fine in our office and I'm looking at that or the Lifestyle series Sonata for my home system. The Sonata didn't look all that interesting, though I'm willing to be convinced otherwise. I have both a 1040 and a Sonata sitting beside each other. The Sonata is *much* quieter. I wish I'd read this yesterday. ;-) BTW, I ordered everything (except memory, monitor, and OS) from newegg late Friday afternoon. The case (nothing else) was here today (Monday). Swoosh! UPS ground is faster than FedEx! ;-) -- Keith |
#49
|
|||
|
|||
KR Williams writes: Really? Do you have a reference for this? I know many drives, from long ago, had performance options built-in, and could be selected it one had the right tools. SCSI drives often exposed these options to the user. Here you go. http://www.convolve.com/pr2000-7-12a.html BILLER COMMUNICATIONS 310 West 94th Street New York, New York 10025 E-mail: *NEWS* NEWS* NEWS* NEWS* NEWS* NEWS* NEWS* NEWS* CONTACT: Aaron G. Biller 212-663-9319 COMPAQ AND SEAGATE SUED FOR $800 MILLION CHARGED WITH PATENT INFRINGEMENT, FRAUD, TORTIOUS INTERFERENCE AND BREACH OF CONTRACT NEW YORK CITY (July 13, 2000)--- Convolve Inc. announced that it and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as obligated through its license agreement with Convolve, filed a lawsuit today against Compaq Computer Corp. and Seagate Technology Inc. in the U.S. District Court Southern District of New York seeking "to prevent Compaq and Seagate from stealing Convolve's proprietary computer disk drive technology". Convolve is seeking at least $800 million in damages and seeks a permanent injunction barring Compaq and Seagate from manufacturing or selling disk drives or computers incorporating Seagate's "Sound Barrier Technology" (SBT) feature. Convolve is the exclusive licensee of patented motion control technology called Input Shaping®, originally developed at and licensed from MIT. This technology would permit the roughly 200 million disk drives sold this year in computers to operate more quickly and quietly than currently possible. Convolve's core vibration reduction technology is used by many large companies for making manufacturing machines more productive. Input Shaping® is currently used commercially by manufacturers of high precision machinery. The technology has also been demonstrated on NASA's Space Shuttle robot arm training facility, has flown in space on a payload aboard a NASA Space Shuttle, and is used on the controls of a nuclear materials handling crane at Argonne National Laboratories. Input Shaping® technology is a method for commanding equipment to move as quickly as possible without excitation of vibrations. In a disk drive application, Input Shaping® control of the read/write arm permits the fastest and quietest performance by reducing the vibrations that are generated at the end of the "seek" or the movement of the arm between tracks on the disk. Information can't be written or read by the computer until the arm settles (stops vibrating). These same vibrations are also responsible for much of the noise generated by computers. According to the complaint, "For more than a year, beginning in October 1998, Convolve held discussions with and gave demonstrations for engineers and executives of both Compaq and Seagate for the purpose of licensing their technologies to these two companies." Both Compaq and Seagate had signed non-disclosure agreements (NDA) not to use this proprietary technology to develop competing products. In addition, Convolve also has developed and has both domestic and foreign patents pending for an innovative computer control panel feature called "Quick and Quiet(tm)" which allows the user of the disk drive to select between faster or quieter computer performance. The Quick and Quiet(tm) technology is also the subject of the complaint against Compaq and Seagate. The action filed in Federal court alleges that the computer giant and its disk drive supplier misappropriated Convolve's technology. In 1989, Neil Singer, PhD, and Ken Pasch, PhD along with MIT professor Warren Seering invented the technology under a government grant to perfect a vibration control technology in computer controlled machines. The results of this research have been applied in a number of applications from large gantry cranes to microscopic MEMS based devices. In 1989, Dr. Singer formed Convolve, a privately-held company based in New York City. For more information on Convolve visit www.convolve.com. ======== http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=e....uni-berlin.de From: To: Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 02:52:09 -0600 Hello: Seagate has decided that we will no longer support AAM. Seagate is in the process of removing all product information pertaining to the support of AAM. Our drives are extremely quiet while operating at the highest performance levels, so we believe the ability to switch between Modes is unnecessary, though supported by ATA specifications. We are also involved in patent litigation with Convolve and MIT. Although we believe the lawsuit is without merit, Convolve alleges that one of its patents, US Patent No. 6,314,473, covers AAM technology. We understand that Convolve told the T-13 standards committee that it would license its patents on a reasonable, non-discriminatory basis. If you want a utility that will switch AAM modes you must procure it from a third party. Seagate cannot make any recommendations as to what third party utility you choose to use, nor do we in any way support the utilities. However you can perform an Internet search for Automatic Acoustic Management and select from the available 3rd party If you have further questions, please contact us. Regards, Jeremy W. Seagate Technical Support -- Wolfgang S. Rupprecht http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/ |
#50
|
|||
|
|||
On Mon, 10 May 2004 22:17:22 -0400, KR Williams wrote:
In article , says... On Sat, 08 May 2004 12:21:51 -0600, Rob Stow wrote: The G200 had Millenium and Mystique models - the Mystique being slighter slower memory and RAMDAC or something like that. Earlier on the Mystique was a cheaper 'gaming' version of the Millenium II. Also had lower specced RAMDAC and memory I think. That makes some sense, but I thought the G200 was a follow-on to the Millenium. I remember wanting to buy one when they came out, but the Mystiqus were doing an adequate job. The G200 was a follow-up to the Millennium, more or less. But like with the original Mystique, which was a cheapened version of the old Millennium II, there was also a G200 Mystique. Pretty much the same idea. I actually had one of those G200 Mystique cards a while back. Not a bad card, though nothing particularly great. Bought it to replace an old Millennium. While the G200 Mystique added a bit of 3D capabilities, it certainly didn't impress me much. 2D image quality was good, though I was using a cheap 15" monitor back in those days, so I didn't benefit from it. I later replaced it with a TNT m64 (el-cheapo version of the original nVidia TNT chipset), and the 2D was slightly worse, even on my 15" monitor, but performance (2D and 3D) was MUCH better. I then bought a GeForce2 MX card, and that brought the 2D image quality up to a very acceptable level on my monitor (decent quality 17" at that point in time) and better 3D performance. Now I've got an nForce motherboard with integrated graphics, which is basically identical to the GeForce2 MX (so much so that I just yanked the old card and gave it to a friend). One thing of note: while the chipset does play a role in 2D image quality, there are a lot of other features that come into play here. It's very possible to get an nVidia video card with good 2D image quality and another card from a different company but using the exact same nVidia chipset but having poor 2D image quality. ------------- Tony Hill hilla underscore 20 at yahoo dot ca |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Postal Lottery: Turn $6 into $60,000 in 90 days, GUARANTEED | Louis | Ati Videocards | 0 | September 29th 03 11:37 PM |
Postal Lottery: Turn $6 into $60,000 in 90 days, GUARANTEED | @drian | General | 1 | September 29th 03 11:16 PM |
Turn $6 into $50,000 or more!! Here's how..... | Brad C. | Matrox Videocards | 0 | August 31st 03 06:19 PM |
Turn $6 into $50,000 or more!! Here's how... | Brad C. | Nvidia Videocards | 1 | August 30th 03 01:11 PM |
Turn $6 into $50,000 or more!! Here's how... | Brad C. | General | 0 | August 30th 03 02:27 AM |