MGA Millennium: A visual treat that plays 3D too<\/p>\n
By Zatni Arbi<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): No matter how gorgeous your display monitor may
\nbe, you wouldn't be able to enjoy its fullest beauty unless you
\nalso have a very good graphics board on your computer to go with
\nit. A graphics board -- also called a graphics card -- is a
\ndevice that prepares digital video signals, produced by the
\ncomputer, for the display and sends them to the attached monitor.
\nIt sits in a slot on your motherboard, and it connects to your
\nmonitor via a video cable. Some motherboard models may have this
\ngraphics card already embedded in them.<\/p>\n
Today, we normally talk about a SuperVGA card instead of just
\nthe plain-vanilla VGA that IBM introduced more than 10 years ago.
\nSuperVGA means, among other things, higher resolution levels (800
\nby 600 and up) with more colors and higher refresh rates
\ncapabilities.<\/p>\n
I have frequently emphasized in this column the need to have a
\nhigh refresh rate, so, suffice to say that the higher the rate is
\nthe more stable the display will be because the less the flicker
\nyou will have.<\/p>\n
Most of today's graphics boards come with their own graphics
\nprocessor chip. Some familiar names in graphics processors are
\nTseng Lab., Trident, Cirrus Logic, S3, and Diamond. These
\nprocessors are employed in the graphics cards to free the CPU
\nfrom the display-related tasks, thereby improving the performance
\nof your system as a whole.<\/p>\n
The cards also perform various functions that aim at
\naccelerating the display. Thus, the name graphics card is usually
\ninterchangeable with Windows accelerator card.<\/p>\n
When scouring the market for a graphics board with the best
\nvalue, remember the following few parameters that you have to
\nexamine: First, the card should have at least 1 MB of RAM on
\nboard. This will give you a 256 color depth at 1024 by 768
\nresolution, which is definitely adequate for most computer jobs.<\/p>\n
Second, the refresh rate should be in excess of 70 Hz.<\/p>\n
Third, you should find a PCI version if your computer has PCI
\nslots on it. Nowadays, you wouldn't easily find a new graphics
\ncard that is not PCI. But if they do offer you one anyway you
\nshould be wary because chances are that it is an old card.<\/p>\n
Fourth, it should also have a feature connector in case you
\ndecide to add an MPEG playback card later on.<\/p>\n
Some more expensive cards use Video RAM chips, or VRAM, and
\nsome other slightly less expensive ones use EDO RAM for fast
\nperformance. Just a few of them use a special type of RAM called
\nWindows RAM. The one I will review shortly uses this type of
\nmemory.<\/p>\n
On the higher end, you have the choice among graphics cards
\nfrom Diamond, Number Nine, ATI, STB, and many others. Courtesy of
\nPT Siemens Nixdorf Indonesia, I was able to test drive MGA
\nMillennium, one of these expensive cards, on my newly upgraded
\nAMD 5x86 machine that runs Windows 95.<\/p>\n
Siemens Nixdorf uses this card, that is made by Matrox
\nGraphics, on some of their high-end PCs. In fact, if you happened
\nto read my review of Siemens Nixdorf's Pentium Pro system, you'd
\nrecall that powerful workstation also had a MGA Millennium on it.<\/p>\n
Features<\/p>\n
MGA Millennium has been around for almost a year now. It has
\nwon quite a few awards and is still receiving some. The card that
\nI tested came with 2 MB of WRAM. If you have the need, the budget
\nor simply the impulse to have the utmost, you can upgrade it and
\nadd another 6 MB of WRAM to it.<\/p>\n
With a whopping 8 MB of WRAM on board, you can actually do a
\nlot of things, including real-time 3D animation at a resolution
\nof 1600 by 1280 resolution and 16 bit color depth. It also came
\nwith a Windows 95 driver and PowerDesk utility.<\/p>\n
The bundled CD ROM contains a potentially addictive -- and
\ntherefore potentially devastating -- game, NASCAR Racing from
\nPapyrus. I ventured to play it for a little while, and it
\nreminded me of my old-time favorite game Test Drive from
\nAccolade. Honestly speaking, I still cringe each time I think of
\nhow many hours I had wasted on the five sports cars that are
\nfeatured in Test Drive, and it helped me avoid loading this one
\nafterwards.<\/p>\n
On the more serious side, the CD-ROM also contains a useful
\nsoftware. Included is Asymetrix's 3D F\/X, a 3D animation creator
\nand image rendering from a company that has a strong reputation
\nin the animation and authoring world. Keep in mind that this
\ngraphics card also caters to the needs of those who work with 3D
\nprograms, i.e., the need for a 3D accelerator. That's also the
\nreason why 8 MB of RAM may be required.<\/p>\n
As you would expect from a high-end graphics accelerator card,
\nMillennium also comes with a color calibrating utility. Finally,
\nif you like playing MPEG files, you'll be able to do it with the
\nhelp of the included SoftPEG Media Player. Take a look at the
\naccompanying picture, and you'll find a karaoke window at bottom
\ncenter.<\/p>\n
The software-based MPEG player will hardly give you the
\npleasure of watching live video or singing karaoke, as the frame
\nrate is pretty low and resolution is very poor. You will still
\nneed RealMagic Pro if you want to see quality MPEG playback (I
\nwill review this MPEG hardware some time soon).<\/p>\n
Practical<\/p>\n
Like most other SuperVGA cards on the market today, Millennium
\nallows us to have a desktop larger than what we can see on the
\nmonitor. Take a look at the Display Properties window in the
\npicture, and you'll have an idea of what it means: You can have a
\nworking area that is larger than what your monitor can display.<\/p>\n
For instance, you can have a 1600 by 1200 desktop area but
\nyour monitor only displays a 1200 by 1024 area at any given time.
\nYou can pan around the desktop area with the monitor functioning
\nas your looking glass.<\/p>\n
To make it easier to navigate inside the desktop, Matrox
\nsupplies us with a Quick Access utility. It allows us to change
\ncurrent resolution to any of the four preset modes, zoom in and
\nout, lock the pan viewer, or center the currently active
\napplication. I like the zoom-in and out feature very much,
\nespecially when working with graphics. Changing the display mode
\nwill still involve rebooting the computer, unfortunately,
\nalthough the next generation of Windows will enable us to do it
\non the fly.<\/p>\n
With 2 MB of RAM, I was able to get a resolution as high as
\n1600 by 1200 with 256 colors. This level of color depth is
\nadequate for most of the jobs that I do. I could have had an even
\nhigher color depth, i.e., 32 bit, but the maximum resolution
\nwould drop to 800 by 600.<\/p>\n
MGA Millennium can also be used side-by-side with another VGA
\ncard or another Millennium, so you can have two high-quality
\ndisplays simultaneously. That's a feature that professional
\npresenters would definitely love.<\/p>\n
Final word<\/p>\n
It's hard to find fault with a graphics card of this caliber,
\nespecially when it is used to display the pretty face of Windows
\n95. The card is fast and easy to install. Moreover, it offers all
\nthe necessary features and then some. Unfortunately, it's not
\ncheap.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, the price of Taiwan-made SuperVGA cards, which
\nbelong to the more affordable but still reliable category, have
\ndropped significantly. In fact, quite recently I was offered one
\nwith 1 MB of EDO RAM for less than Rp 100,000 (US$43). With such
\na down-to-earth price, there's no longer a reason for you to keep
\ncrimping on the graphics card, because it won't add much to the
\nprice of your new Pentium anyway.<\/p>\n
However, if you have the money to spend, MGA Millennium is
\ndefinitely on the list of alternatives that you should look at.<\/p>",
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