Matrox Mystique
Encyclopedia
The Mystique and Mystique 220 are 2D, 3D, and video accelerator cards for personal computers designed by Matrox
, using the VGA connector
. The original Mystique was released in 1996, with the slightly upgraded Mystique 220 coming in 1997.
accelerators, and the company's Millennium card, released in 1995, excelled at MS-DOS
performance as well. With regard to 3D acceleration
, Matrox stepped forward in 1994 with their Impression Plus. However, that card only could accelerate a very limited feature set, and was primarily targeted at CAD applications. The Impression could not perform hardware texture mapping
, for example, requiring Gouraud shading
or lower-quality techniques. Very few games took advantage of the 3D capabilities of Impression Plus, with the only known games being the three titles that were bundled with the card in its '3D Superpack' CD bundle: 3D fighting game
, Sento by 47 Tek; 3D space combat game, IceHawk by Amorphous Designs, and Specter MGA (aka Specter VR) by Velocity.
The newer Millennium card also contained 3D capabilities similar to the Impression Plus, and was nearly as limited. Without support for texturing, the cards were very limited in visual enhancement capability. Millennium received slightly more game support, but primarily only in bundled titles such as NASCAR Racing
that only received slight performance improvements with little quality gain. The answer to these limitations, and Matrox's first attempt at targeting the consumer gaming PC market, would be the Matrox Mystique. Based heavily on the Millennium but with various additions and some cost-cutting measures, Mystique would offer gamers more of what they wanted for new 3D game titles.
The Mystique was a 64-bit
2D GUI
and video accelerator (MGA1064SG) with 3D acceleration support. Mystique has "Matrox Simple Interface
" (MSI) rendering API. It was one of many early products by add-in graphics board vendors that attempted to achieve good combined 2D & 3D performance for consumer-level personal computers. The board used a 64-bit SGRAM
memory interface (Synchronous Graphics RAM) instead of the more expensive WRAM
(Window RAM) aboard the Matrox Millennium. SGRAM offered performance approaching WRAM, but it was cheaper. Mystique came in configurations ranging from 2 MB
SGRAM up to 8 MB. Mystique also had various ports on the card for memory expansion and additional hardware peripherals. The 8 MB configuration used the memory expansion module. Add-on cards from Matrox included the Rainbow Runner Video, a board offering MPEG-1
and AVI
video playback with video inputs and outputs. The other add-on was called Rainbow Runner TV, an ISA
-based TV tuner card
for watching TV on PC.
Mystique's 2D performance was very close to that of the much more expensive Millennium card, especially at XGA 1024x768 resolution and lower, where the SGRAM bandwidth was not a performance hindrance. The Mystique used an internal 170 MHz RAMDAC
, reduced from the external 220 MHz RAMDAC onboard Millennium, making it the first Matrox video processor using an internal RAMDAC. The frequency reduction affected the maximum refresh rate
the card could run at high resolutions, crippling the Mystique for users of displays running UXGA 1600x1200, for example. Its 2D performance was measured as excellent, beating its peers such as the S3 ViRGE
-based and the ATI Mach64
-based video cards.
Mystique was Matrox's most feature-rich 3D accelerator in 1997, but still lacked key features including bilinear filtering
, fogging
, mipmap
ping, and true transparency
support. Instead, the Mystique uses nearest-neighbor interpolation, causing heavy pixelization in textures, and stippled textures
for transparency. Without mipmapping support, textures in the distance appear to "swim", waving around and appearing "noisy", because the texture detail wasn't being properly managed and this caused texture aliasing
. The company's reasoning for not including the higher-quality features was that performance was more important than visual quality. At the time, semiconductor fabrication
processes and 3D hardware architecture design expertise was limited. Including bilinear filtering would have incurred a significant cost in the chip's transistor budget for more computational resources and potentially reduce graphics core clock speed and performance due to a larger chip design. There was also the manufacturing cost consideration that comes with a larger processor size. Matrox's words were not without weight because the Mystique did handily outperform the other 2D/3D boards at the time, such as S3 ViRGE and early ATI Rage
products, although its visual quality was lower than those accelerators.
In general, compared to its peers, the Matrox Mystique was a competent board with its own set of advantages and disadvantages as was typical in this era of early 3D accelerators. It performed well for an early 2D/3D combo card, but it had questionable 3D visual quality. Its 2D support rivaled the best cards available for performance and quality, however. It was not uncommon to pair up the Mystique or another Matrox card with a 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics 3D-only board because the Voodoo cards were the fastest and most well-supported 3D accelerators at the time. Detractors, however, referred to the card as the "Matrox Mystake".
Driver support for the Mystique was robust at launch. The card directly supported all of Microsoft's operating systems including MS-DOS, Windows 3.1x
, Windows 95
, and Windows NT
. Mystique also supported IBM's OS/2
operating system. The retail version of Mystique included 3 3D game titles, including: MechWarrior 2 Mystique edition, Destruction Derby 2
, and Scorched Planet.
Matrox released a newer version of the Mystique in 1997. The name gives the only significant change, that being the RAMDAC running at 220 MHz . This made the Mystique equivalent to the original Millennium for high-resolution 2D resolution support. The chip on the board was called MGA1164SG instead of MGA1064SG (original Mystique) as well. Otherwise, the card was identical in feature-set to the original Mystique and offered almost identical performance.
A special business-oriented version of Mystique 220, called Mystique 220 Business, was launched as well. This card came with a different software bundle targeting business users and excluding the games. The actual hardware was identical.
.
Matrox
Matrox is a producer of video card components and equipment for personal computers. Based in Dorval, Quebec, Canada it was founded by Lorne Trottier and Branko Matić....
, using the VGA connector
VGA connector
A Video Graphics Array connector is a three-row 15-pin DE-15 connector. The 15-pin VGA connector is found on many video cards, computer monitors, and some high definition television sets...
. The original Mystique was released in 1996, with the slightly upgraded Mystique 220 coming in 1997.
History
Matrox had been known for years as a significant player in the high-end 2D graphics accelerator market. Cards they produced were excellent WindowsMicrosoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
accelerators, and the company's Millennium card, released in 1995, excelled at MS-DOS
MS-DOS
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
performance as well. With regard to 3D acceleration
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
, Matrox stepped forward in 1994 with their Impression Plus. However, that card only could accelerate a very limited feature set, and was primarily targeted at CAD applications. The Impression could not perform hardware texture mapping
Texture mapping
Texture mapping is a method for adding detail, surface texture , or color to a computer-generated graphic or 3D model. Its application to 3D graphics was pioneered by Dr Edwin Catmull in his Ph.D. thesis of 1974.-Texture mapping:...
, for example, requiring Gouraud shading
Gouraud shading
Gouraud shading, named after Henri Gouraud, is an interpolation method used in computer graphics to produce continuous shading of surfaces represented by polygon meshes...
or lower-quality techniques. Very few games took advantage of the 3D capabilities of Impression Plus, with the only known games being the three titles that were bundled with the card in its '3D Superpack' CD bundle: 3D fighting game
Fighting game
Fighting game is a video game genre where the player controls an on-screen character and engages in close combat with an opponent. These characters tend to be of equal power and fight matches consisting of several rounds, which take place in an arena. Players must master techniques such as...
, Sento by 47 Tek; 3D space combat game, IceHawk by Amorphous Designs, and Specter MGA (aka Specter VR) by Velocity.
The newer Millennium card also contained 3D capabilities similar to the Impression Plus, and was nearly as limited. Without support for texturing, the cards were very limited in visual enhancement capability. Millennium received slightly more game support, but primarily only in bundled titles such as NASCAR Racing
NASCAR Racing
The NASCAR Racing series of video games, developed by Papyrus, started in 1994 and ended with the release of NASCAR Racing 2003 Season in 2003. Later NASCAR games were released by Electronic Arts who, through their EA Sports brand, took over the official NASCAR license...
that only received slight performance improvements with little quality gain. The answer to these limitations, and Matrox's first attempt at targeting the consumer gaming PC market, would be the Matrox Mystique. Based heavily on the Millennium but with various additions and some cost-cutting measures, Mystique would offer gamers more of what they wanted for new 3D game titles.
Overview
64-bit
64-bit is a word size that defines certain classes of computer architecture, buses, memory and CPUs, and by extension the software that runs on them. 64-bit CPUs have existed in supercomputers since the 1970s and in RISC-based workstations and servers since the early 1990s...
2D GUI
Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
and video accelerator (MGA1064SG) with 3D acceleration support. Mystique has "Matrox Simple Interface
Matrox Simple Interface
Matrox Simple Interface is the name of a proprietary DOS and Windows 95 application programming interface for Matrox Mystique graphics cards made by Matrox. MSI API supported a maximum of 640x480x16 resolution with z-buffer and no bilinear filtering. It used color look up tables to save memory...
" (MSI) rendering API. It was one of many early products by add-in graphics board vendors that attempted to achieve good combined 2D & 3D performance for consumer-level personal computers. The board used a 64-bit SGRAM
Dynamic random access memory
Dynamic random-access memory is a type of random-access memory that stores each bit of data in a separate capacitor within an integrated circuit. The capacitor can be either charged or discharged; these two states are taken to represent the two values of a bit, conventionally called 0 and 1...
memory interface (Synchronous Graphics RAM) instead of the more expensive WRAM
Dynamic random access memory
Dynamic random-access memory is a type of random-access memory that stores each bit of data in a separate capacitor within an integrated circuit. The capacitor can be either charged or discharged; these two states are taken to represent the two values of a bit, conventionally called 0 and 1...
(Window RAM) aboard the Matrox Millennium. SGRAM offered performance approaching WRAM, but it was cheaper. Mystique came in configurations ranging from 2 MB
Megabyte
The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000...
SGRAM up to 8 MB. Mystique also had various ports on the card for memory expansion and additional hardware peripherals. The 8 MB configuration used the memory expansion module. Add-on cards from Matrox included the Rainbow Runner Video, a board offering MPEG-1
MPEG-1
MPEG-1 is a standard for lossy compression of video and audio. It is designed to compress VHS-quality raw digital video and CD audio down to 1.5 Mbit/s without excessive quality loss, making video CDs, digital cable/satellite TV and digital audio broadcasting possible.Today, MPEG-1 has become...
and AVI
Audio Video Interleave
Audio Video Interleave , known by its acronym AVI, is a multimedia container format introduced by Microsoft in November 1992 as part of its Video for Windows technology. AVI files can contain both audio and video data in a file container that allows synchronous audio-with-video playback...
video playback with video inputs and outputs. The other add-on was called Rainbow Runner TV, an ISA
Industry Standard Architecture
Industry Standard Architecture is a computer bus standard for IBM PC compatible computers introduced with the IBM Personal Computer to support its Intel 8088 microprocessor's 8-bit external data bus and extended to 16 bits for the IBM Personal Computer/AT's Intel 80286 processor...
-based TV tuner card
TV tuner card
A TV tuner card is a kind of television tuner that allows television signals to be received by a computer. Most TV tuners also function as video capture cards, allowing them to record television programs onto a hard disk much like the Tivo digital video recorder does.-Variants: The interfaces for...
for watching TV on PC.
Mystique's 2D performance was very close to that of the much more expensive Millennium card, especially at XGA 1024x768 resolution and lower, where the SGRAM bandwidth was not a performance hindrance. The Mystique used an internal 170 MHz RAMDAC
RAMDAC
Random Access Memory Digital-to-Analog Converter is a combination of three fast DACs with a small SRAM used in computer graphics display adapters to store the color palette and to generate the analog signals to drive a color monitor...
, reduced from the external 220 MHz RAMDAC onboard Millennium, making it the first Matrox video processor using an internal RAMDAC. The frequency reduction affected the maximum refresh rate
Refresh rate
The refresh rate is the number of times in a second that a display hardware draws the data...
the card could run at high resolutions, crippling the Mystique for users of displays running UXGA 1600x1200, for example. Its 2D performance was measured as excellent, beating its peers such as the S3 ViRGE
S3 ViRGE
The S3 Virtual Reality Graphics Engine graphics chipset was one of the first 2D/3D accelerators designed for the mass market.-Introduction:...
-based and the ATI Mach64
ATI Technologies
ATI Technologies Inc. was a semiconductor technology corporation based in Markham, Ontario, Canada, that specialized in the development of graphics processing units and chipsets. Founded in 1985 as Array Technologies Inc., the company was listed publicly in 1993 and was acquired by Advanced Micro...
-based video cards.
Mystique was Matrox's most feature-rich 3D accelerator in 1997, but still lacked key features including bilinear filtering
Bilinear filtering
Bilinear filtering is a texture filtering method used to smooth textures when displayed larger or smaller than they actually are.Most of the time, when drawing a textured shape on the screen, the texture is not displayed exactly as it is stored, without any distortion...
, fogging
Distance fog
Distance fog is a technique used in 3D computer graphics to enhance the perception of distance by simulating fog.Because many of the shapes in graphical environments are relatively simple, and complex shadows are difficult to render, many graphics engines employ a "fog" gradient so objects further...
, mipmap
Mipmap
In 3D computer graphics texture filtering, MIP maps are pre-calculated, optimized collections of images that accompany a main texture, intended to increase rendering speed and reduce aliasing artifacts. They are widely used in 3D computer games, flight simulators and other 3D imaging systems. The...
ping, and true transparency
Transparency (graphic)
Transparency is possible in a number of graphics file formats. The term transparency is used in various ways by different people, but at its simplest there is "full transparency" i.e. something that is completely invisible. Of course, only part of a graphic should be fully transparent, or there...
support. Instead, the Mystique uses nearest-neighbor interpolation, causing heavy pixelization in textures, and stippled textures
Stippling
Stippling is the creation of a pattern simulating varying degrees of solidity or shading by using small dots. Such a pattern may occur in nature and these effects are frequently emulated by artists.-Art:...
for transparency. Without mipmapping support, textures in the distance appear to "swim", waving around and appearing "noisy", because the texture detail wasn't being properly managed and this caused texture aliasing
Aliasing
In signal processing and related disciplines, aliasing refers to an effect that causes different signals to become indistinguishable when sampled...
. The company's reasoning for not including the higher-quality features was that performance was more important than visual quality. At the time, semiconductor fabrication
Semiconductor fabrication
Semiconductor device fabrication is the process used to create the integrated circuits that are present in everyday electrical and electronic devices. It is a multiple-step sequence of photolithographic and chemical processing steps during which electronic circuits are gradually created on a wafer...
processes and 3D hardware architecture design expertise was limited. Including bilinear filtering would have incurred a significant cost in the chip's transistor budget for more computational resources and potentially reduce graphics core clock speed and performance due to a larger chip design. There was also the manufacturing cost consideration that comes with a larger processor size. Matrox's words were not without weight because the Mystique did handily outperform the other 2D/3D boards at the time, such as S3 ViRGE and early ATI Rage
ATI Rage
The ATI Rage is a series of graphics chipsets offering GUI 2D acceleration, video acceleration, and 3D acceleration. It is the successor to the Mach series of 2D accelerators.-3D RAGE :...
products, although its visual quality was lower than those accelerators.
In general, compared to its peers, the Matrox Mystique was a competent board with its own set of advantages and disadvantages as was typical in this era of early 3D accelerators. It performed well for an early 2D/3D combo card, but it had questionable 3D visual quality. Its 2D support rivaled the best cards available for performance and quality, however. It was not uncommon to pair up the Mystique or another Matrox card with a 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics 3D-only board because the Voodoo cards were the fastest and most well-supported 3D accelerators at the time. Detractors, however, referred to the card as the "Matrox Mystake".
Driver support for the Mystique was robust at launch. The card directly supported all of Microsoft's operating systems including MS-DOS, Windows 3.1x
Windows 3.1x
Windows 3.1x is a series of 16-bit operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers. The series began with Windows 3.1, which was first sold during March 1992 as a successor to Windows 3.0...
, Windows 95
Windows 95
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products...
, and Windows NT
Windows NT
Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix. It was intended to complement...
. Mystique also supported IBM's OS/2
OS/2
OS/2 is a computer operating system, initially created by Microsoft and IBM, then later developed by IBM exclusively. The name stands for "Operating System/2," because it was introduced as part of the same generation change release as IBM's "Personal System/2 " line of second-generation personal...
operating system. The retail version of Mystique included 3 3D game titles, including: MechWarrior 2 Mystique edition, Destruction Derby 2
Destruction Derby 2
Destruction Derby 2 is a video game released in October 1996 for the PlayStation and Microsoft Windows, developed by Reflections Interactive. A version for the Sega Saturn was also planned and developed by Probe Entertainment, but was never released....
, and Scorched Planet.
Mystique 220
A special business-oriented version of Mystique 220, called Mystique 220 Business, was launched as well. This card came with a different software bundle targeting business users and excluding the games. The actual hardware was identical.
Legacy
The memory and internal RAMDAC programming interface lived on in MGA-G100 and later processors, until the introduction of Matrox ParheliaMatrox Parhelia
Matrox Parhelia-512 is a GPU with full support for DirectX 8.1 and incorporating several DirectX 9.0 features. It was best known for its ability to drive three monitors and its Coral Reef tech demo.-Background:...
.
Competing 2D/3D chipsets
- ATIATI TechnologiesATI Technologies Inc. was a semiconductor technology corporation based in Markham, Ontario, Canada, that specialized in the development of graphics processing units and chipsets. Founded in 1985 as Array Technologies Inc., the company was listed publicly in 1993 and was acquired by Advanced Micro...
RageATI RageThe ATI Rage is a series of graphics chipsets offering GUI 2D acceleration, video acceleration, and 3D acceleration. It is the successor to the Mach series of 2D accelerators.-3D RAGE :... - Rendition Vérité V1000Rendition (company)Rendition was a maker of 3D graphics chipsets in the mid- to late-90's. They were known for products such as the Vérité 1000 and Vérité 2x00 and for being one of the first 3D chipset makers to directly work with Quake developer John Carmack to make a hardware-accelerated version of the game ....
- S3S3 GraphicsS3 Graphics, Ltd is an American company specializing in graphics chipsets. Although they do not have the large market share that they once had, they still produce graphics accelerators for home computers under the "S3 Chrome" brand name.-History:...
ViRGES3 ViRGEThe S3 Virtual Reality Graphics Engine graphics chipset was one of the first 2D/3D accelerators designed for the mass market.-Introduction:... - NVIDIANVIDIANvidia is an American global technology company based in Santa Clara, California. Nvidia is best known for its graphics processors . Nvidia and chief rival AMD Graphics Techonologies have dominated the high performance GPU market, pushing other manufacturers to smaller, niche roles...
NV1NV1Nvidia NV1, manufactured by SGS-THOMSON Microelectronics under the model name STG2000, was a multimedia PCI card released in 1995 and sold to retail as the Diamond Edge 3D. It featured a complete 2D/3D graphics core based upon quadratic texture mapping, VRAM or FPM DRAM memory, an integrated...