First available: Late September 1996 Format: Win95 PC Minimum System Requirements: Pentium 90MHz Processor, 12mb RAM, 256 color SVGA, PCI video, 58mb of uncompressed hard disk drive space, 2x CD-ROM, mouse, Win95, & a Matrox Mystique graphics card. 3D API: MSI (Matrox Simple Interface) Basic Interface for MGA-1064SG/1164SG chipsets
Video cards the Mystique edition was bundled with: 1) Matrox
Mystique Labeled as: "Enhanced for Matrox Mystique" Full Installation Size: 151 mb Resolutions: 640x400. No option for resolution change on the "Combat Variables" menu in the shell nor on the "Main Options" screen in the sim under "Graphics (and nothing in documentation or text files about this).When I looked at the Mystique screenshots, they look somewhat squished down vertically, so I did some tests. My monitor says MW2 is running at the rather strange resolution of 720x400, screens taken with printscreen give you a 640x400 image and they only look right if you manually stretch them to 640x480. Still, from everything I have read, it runs in 640x400. In-Game Graphics Options: 1. Monitor Brightness 2. Textured Sky: Turns on/off the texture mapped graphics of the sky. 3. Textured Ground: Turns option toggles on/off the texture mapped ground. Performance/Appearance: Having finally seen this first hand, I have mixed feelings about it. It does run very smoothly even on older P133-200 systems and it has some interesting visual differences from the other versions (i.e. Instant Action, Planet Goat Path's mesa desert is dark and eerie), but on the other hand, some worlds are just too dark, the sky is almost always heavily pixelated, as are the surfaces of many other objects. Some of the worse ground textures look fuzzy and dizzying enough to induce headaches or seizures if you view them long enough. This is *not* a MW2 programming issue, but just the limitations of the Mystique's 3D rendering abilities. Of course, it's kind of easy to harshly judge this 4 years later (as of 2000). In all fairness, when looking at the MW2 versions made for lower end 3D cards (ATI, S3, & Matrox), this would probably have been the only one of them to play at a consistantly high enough framerate [on the systems at that time] to be usable online for Netmech and still allow you to be competitive. Looking at it from a modern perspective, unless you are a real Matrox fan[atic], IMHO it's really not worthwhile to use anymore, with old 3Dfx Voodoo or PowerVR PCX2 cards/versions being so cheap, available, and performing & looking so much better. Videocard Compatibility: Compatible with the original Mystique (MGA-1064SG) and the Mystique 220 (MGA-1164SG). From what I have read about MSI, it was only used/compatible with these cards. OS Compatibility: All the MW2 Win95 based versions only seem to install and run correctly (or run period) on Win9x based systems. The Mystique cards have display drivers available for several OS's, but it is unlikely that any of them support 3D acceleration via MSI, aside from Win9x and [maybe] NT. Basically, you're going to need a Win9x partition for OS and driver compatibility for the 3D Enahnced versions of MW2. Tweaking: I've never seen a listing of Mystique specific variables than can be adjusted via the registry or autoexe.bat. As with the other 2/3D cards, you're more limited and pretty much end up having overclocking as an option. There is an old Mystique specific overlocker still available for download at various sites. It's usually listed as MYSTCLK (short for "Matrox MGA Mystique/Mystique 220 GCLK/MCLK Programmer") and as the name implies, appears to be soley for core/memory clock adjustment. The best choice would be Entech's Powerstrip, which not only allows you to overclock, but also manipulate various other display settings. Matrox Mystique support sites: Matrox Users NetMech: I didn't get a chance to see the Mystique NetMech worlds yet, but if some of those weird textures or extremely dark conditions are there, you would definately be at a disadvantage if you had all textures on. Wireframe does work with this version, but you might as well run the Pentium version if you are going to use it all the time.. Cheats: The Cheat codes are the same as the regular Win95/Pentium version, though I don't believe the "bounding spheres" works on these versions. Bugs: The music track resets when you go into the Game Options menu and then reenter into the SIM. Apparently the torso twist is not a full 180 degrees. I haven't been able test the armor bug on this one. Misc. Notes: When the Mystique card was released, it recieved some criticism for its 3D rendering quality. Since the whole issue of 3D acceleration was relatively new to PC's, Matrox decided to side with speed and sacrifice some visual quality. Though they got hell for this, I can't say that I am completely against their decision. If you have ever played a nice looking action or FPS game at 5fps, then you know what they were trying to avoid. On the other hand, I do remember reading some responses from Matrox developers back then that basically stated that if the games were ported to take advantage of the Mystiques special/specific abilites, then you would not have those 3D quality problems (vs. "generic" D3D ports). Well, this game *was* ported specifically for the Mystique chipset and it's still pixelated, as are all the other MSI ports I've seen. Matrox
Mystique Screenshot Gallery:
(Running a Matrox Mystique/MGA-1064SG 4mb PCI card) |
