Matrox G400 MAX Update by Leonard "Viking1" Hjalmarson
	Overclocking After reading that some users were overclocking their G400 MAX, I downloaded the latest version of Powerstrip to try it for myself. Powerstrip is a useful utility, especially for setting commonly used display modes. But the performance features are our interest here. I first tried the upper end, and changed the memory clock slider from 201 HMz to 226 MHz. The graphics clock slider simulataneously moved to 170 MHz from 150 MHz. Unfortunately, however, while the graphics chip seems able to handle the speed (it runs quite cool at 150 MHz), the memory is not stable at 226 MHz. My board immediately began to give me some shimmering and glitching on my desktop. I reduced to 220, but there was no change. Finally, I clocked down to about 215 for memory and 160 MHz for the graphics clock, and the board seemed stable at these speeds. Testing in WW2 Fighters and Falcon4 gave no discernible increase in frame rate at these speeds. Click to continue		WW2 Fighters WW2 Fighters in 32 Bit Color I switched to the 32 bit Z buffer and changed my desktop to 32 bit color to test frame rate in F4 and WW2 Fighters. Incredibly, I lost no more than 1 fps at 1024x768 in WW2 Fighters. Falcon4 game me the same frame rate as 16 bit color running the 2d cockpit, and a slightly lower figure with the 3d cockpit (perhaps a 5% loss; difficult to measure because the frame rate counter works differently.) An impressive performance. While the terrain and objects in WW2 Fighters don't look greatly different in 32 bit mode, the alpha blending (clouds and fog) effects are much nicer. As developers begin to take advantage of these powerful new boards, we will see improvement in effects from fire to explosions to cloud layers and transparency. Go to Back to G400 MAX review.
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