My flatmate owned a Voodoo2, was impressive though the market soon caught up and and when the following year I did get myself a 3500, after a month I sold it and got a Matrox G400Max as it did the 3D level I needed (more so the less demanding games of the time). But more so, the colour gamut was so much sharper and stood out on a CRT of the time.
I was curious so I had a dig on the specs to relive the decision of the time and can see the Matrox did 32bit colour whilst the 3500 was 24bit. Not seen any comparisons in performance but I certainly had no complaints and was happier with the G400Max on many levels (2nd monitor - no problem).
[EDIT ADD] This looks worth a watch for nostalgia circa 1999 graphics cards and compares the G400MAX, 3DFX 3500 and the TNT2 Ultra https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4LvoGQ2lgI
24bit and 32bit both have 8bit per RGB color channel, the extra 8 bit are either alpha (for textures) or padding (for performance). All other things being equal, colors should look the same on both.
Yes, but keep in mind that monitors of the time were analog devices. Matrox was well known for higher quality at the time. It was visible even just with black text on a white background. Basically their implementation of moving from pixels to the analog signal was better. Less artifacts, less shadows, better colors, better frame to frame stability, etc.
If I remember correctly Matrox cards had the best video output quality through D-Sub at that time, which might be what your post's parent might have referred to.
Yes, I was trying to quantify it from experience over just saying it was the best. They sure was and some would say, still has an edge, though some still prefer CRT's as well.
I graduated from high school in 1999 and worked at a big box computer store during the spring and summer. I remember when the demo machines with the Voodoo3 3500 and TNT2 Ultras hitting the floor and all of us employees crowding around before the store opened to watch the demos, and endless hours spent arguing about which was better.
I saved up money to build my first computer that summer and chose a Creative 3D Blaster TNT2 Ultra, paired with an Abit BX6 motherboard, a Pentium 3 450 CPU, 256MB of RAM, a white box Sound Blaster Live, a 3Com Etherlink XL, a US Robotics 56K modem, generic 40x CDROM drive plus a CDRW drive, and I want to say an 8GB Western Digital hard drive, connected to a 19" monitor that was so big I had to pull my desk away from the wall to fit my Model M keyboard. It was pretty much perfect, except for the fact that technology was improving so quickly then that I started feeling the need to upgrade it in 6 months.
That fall I went to college and hooked it up to the university's broadband connection. I probably got my money's worth in all the hours I spent on that machine. It definitely gave me a sense of wonder and power to have something top of the line. I spent countless hours playing Half Life multiplayer, Team Fortress, and then Counter-Strike beta. I don't know if I'd do it again, but I had a great time back then.
Such nostalgia! As my first job out of college, I worked at Matrox at the time helping to write the 3D OpenGL drivers. I pretty much joined the company because I wanted to make Quake run faster. We played Quake just about every night there in order to "beta test". Good times!
I was curious so I had a dig on the specs to relive the decision of the time and can see the Matrox did 32bit colour whilst the 3500 was 24bit. Not seen any comparisons in performance but I certainly had no complaints and was happier with the G400Max on many levels (2nd monitor - no problem).
[EDIT ADD] This looks worth a watch for nostalgia circa 1999 graphics cards and compares the G400MAX, 3DFX 3500 and the TNT2 Ultra https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4LvoGQ2lgI