Overclock that G400 and turn off all those crappy defaults like vsync!

Matrox released a long time ago a little utility to help debug the G400. It was designed for programmers to get in touch with the max capabilities of the G400 MAX. Well, it didn't take long until this overclocker came out to the public and seriously, this is the best Matrox overclocker out there. I'd think that Matrox would know how to play with their card properly, don't you? Even if you don't want to push that G400 core to the max, you can still use this program to turn off useless default settings like vsync. You can get the file at: ftp://ftp.matrox.com/pub/mga/devrel/g400/matrox_tweak_utility.exe.

I'm trying to record movies with me Matrox Marvel but Win9x sucks like me. Can I help myself?

Of course, in more than 2 ways! But the easiest thinmg.. uh, thing to do is to go into your System Control Panel and under the Performace/File System/Troubleshooting tab, check off that write-behind caching nuisance of an option to disable write-caching. This is equivalent to that always annoying write-behind cache thingy in Smartdrv for all us Dos junkies. When the Marvel records a movie, because the film is streaming, there is never a need to have a write cache to store what will be written later. All that caching can use up your RAM and your gullibility and sooner or later, you may experience crashes. So eat that breakfast before it eats you.

Okay, I can't seem to get some Direct3d games working. Is it because I have no motherboard?

I don't think so. Leave the crazy talk to me. I don't have a G400, but my G200 on my sister's computer didn't take kindly to Direct3d strangers (I taught it well...). Sick that Microsoft, sick! NHL2000 didn't like any of the driver sets that I tried, and my only solution was to go to the DirectX DXDiag thingy and turn off AGP paging. Now, this can't be good for business considering my G200 is stuck with 8MB of RAM, but NHL2000 never locked up again and now I'm just being a happy slapnut, slicing away at all my Canadian friends on ice. But NBA2000 still didn't seem to like my computer willy (huh?) so I went to the basic Matrox control panel found in the Win9x Display Settings. I turned off Hardware rendering of advanced polygons. Not only did this slow performance, but the game still refused to play nice. So I turned that back on and tried turning off both the caching option and that Hardware mouse, uh, pointy pointer thingy. Still a no go. I never liked Houston because they still have a problem. I have no clue why that just blurted out of my, uh, keyboard, but it just did. And finally, against my better judgment, I turned off bus mastering and prayed to the computer geek gods that the game would still crash... damn those colourblind whores, the game didn't freeze. But it ran so goddam slow you can call it freezing. So now my brother plays the game non-stop, with the G200 running at different speeds as his little motherboard and system clock. Oh, what a tangled web we weave, not that I'm smart enough to know how to buy my own clothes. I don't know how that blurted out either. But it just did.

The G450 is Licking my Pants and Gnawing at that Flesh... How can I Get it To Bite Harder And Faster?

Let me guess - for your eyes only? Well, maybe it's none of my business, but... Anyone who has reduced themselves to buying one of those G450s for its DualHead feature (which ATI and nVidia are happily ripping off right now...), you'll find that it's core clock speed is actually lower than its G400 counterpart thingy. It starts out with a 135MHz core with 180/360 or something DDR memory speed. And I've always been a fan of RDRAM - DDR DRAM just lied to much in my opinion, just like nVidia does everyday. DDR DRAM may have some great, theoretical speeds, but it's real life performance on anything less than a Thunderbird is far less than inspiring or something. But oh well, AOL, you can't blame the company for that. As long as it sells to us computer freaks, I'll put the blame on guys like me. Anyhew, I saw a post over at Matrousers that says Powerstrip can safely overclock the G450 to 200/400 MHZ memory, and thus have a 150MHz core clock. Not bad, considering every game ran as stable as it did before (as long if you don't care about the occasional artifact or two on screen). So I sadly have to admit DDR is pretty good for overclocking, evn on nVidia cards... as long as you've got 2 fans, a Kyrotech air conditioner, and a water cooling system on hand just in case... Sex may sell to TV fans, but burning hot, sweaty, overdriven computers that are given feminine names seem to sell big time to us geeks...