Last update: 1999-03-13

My Matrox story

Autumn 1998
My adventure with Matrox started in April 1997. I bought Sony Multiscan 15sfII monitor for my home computer (I spend at least 8 hours a day at the screen, so I do care about image quality), and I was looking for a card which could display full color images in 1024x768. My two primary interests are computer architecture and computer graphics fundamentals (not necassarily crazy 3D games), so basically what I need is a good display for color images, software development and everyday office work.
After reviewing several dozens of cheap graphics cards (I am happy to work as a consultant to local PC integrator), I ended up with the conclusion that there were no cheap boards that could display 0.75 Mpixels in full color. The card needed for this must have at least 4MB of fast (=SDRAM/SGRAM) memory on board. My card of choice was Matrox Mystique (170 MHz). It was actually the most expensive electronic part I ever bought for my computer, as it costed about $150 at that time, which is quite a big amount of money in my country.
There was also another important reason for getting Matrox card: when you spend the whole day at the computer, display flicker becomes critical factor. In early 97 there were no 15" monitors capable of 85Hz refresh at 1024x768, and although 15sfII supports Hfreq up to 65kHz, which translates toVfreq of 82 Hz at this resolution, the standard frequency supported by all the other cards is 75Hz.
Matrox Powerdesk driver allows the user to arbitrarily change the monitor timings, so I could tune the card to 82 Hz.
I was impressed with the capabilities provided by Powerdesk, and by the quality of image, uncomparable to any other cards I could test at that time. Today I still use the good old Matrox Mystique 170 4MB at home, in hope that some day I will change it for a new model.

In Winter/Spring '98 I had to buy a new monitor for my work at the University. I decided to go for Iiyama VisionMaster Pro 17" (looks like I must have Trinitrons everywhere). My target was to get 1152x864 at 85 Hz for everyday work. Because I couldn't wait for G200, I bought 8 MB Productiva G100, and I am still very happy with it.

The horror started when I had a chance to borrow G200 SD from the company I work for and test it at home. While upgrading the BIOS, PROGBIOS hang, and the card stopped working. My colleagues promised to decapitate me in case I don't return the card in working condition. It was in September'98, the cards were very expensive in Poland, and the warranty routine would take several months. I decided to recover the BIOS. I couldn't find any information on BIOS recovery. Of course I tried booting the machine with ISA VGA card, But then PROGBIOS refused to program the BIOS, because the BIOS was bad. It was something simlar to a car mechanic saying "Sorry, I cannot help you, we repair only perfectly working cars, not the ones which have broken parts." I got mad. Local Matrox distributor could not help. I put the message on MURC forum, and having no answer in my email for two days, I decided to recover the BIOS by myself. With 12 year programming, hardware design and hacking experience it wasn't impossible, althought it didn't look easy. I spent 10 days reading the docs and disassembling the BIOS and PROGBIOS. After 10 days, I run the PROGBIOS under the debugger and forced it to program my G200. Then I went to MURC forum to advertise my success, and found out that about a week earlier someone posted a note which contained short description of BIOS recovery, just right for my case. (Hint: when someone asks for info, always reply by direct e-mail!!!) Getting mad for the second time, I decided to publish most of information and experiences I acquired on my website, to help the others.

I observed that BIOS programming failures on G200 are very frequent, and a lot more likely than on older cards. Today the site is active, and almost every day I receive some messages from the people who successfully recovered the BIOSes on Matrox cards.

While I think that both Matrox hardware and software have exceptional quality and capabilities, and I recommend Matrox products to everyone around me, I feel that the community of Matrox users is left alone by Matrox. We got the exceptional product, but we must support ourselves, which I am trying to do.
Certainly, I hope that some day I will get my own G200 (currently I must save money for other things). Dear Matrox, how about sparing me one in exchange for several dozens of cards which didn't have to be repaired by your service people?...

February 1999
I received my Mystique G200 from Matrox. Thanks to Karina and Haig who took care to send me the card.

GM