Maybe they'll listen......

[albatorsk]

I think that those who cares about Matrox opensourcing their drivers are in the vast minority, probably 0.5% to 1% of their total customerbase.

Therefore, they would gain a lot more by not going opensource, and instead maintain control over who uses their hardware and that way force users to upgrade when they release a new product and stop supporting their old.

[DedicatedFan3D]

but historically companies that have maintained as much backwards compatibility have done better than closed compatibility based companies.

Look at Apple, only recently when they update their OS based on an OSS solution is it still backwards compatible with a previous generation of hardware.

Prior, a major OS update was also associated with a hardware upgrade requirement. This was detrimental.

Case in point, look at nVidia's rising during the TNT->TNT2->GeForce->GeForce2->GeForce3 unifed driver architecture. A GeForce3 owner can easily transition to DX9 drivers and enjoy the same software package download that a GeForceFX owner can.

Their rock solid Linux support accelerates the sales of their Quadro line, and that's based on all major rendering firms incorporating one of two solutions, either a 3DLabs solution or an nVidia solution. There are really no other major players other than those two.

ATI follows suit to 3DLabs, and Matrox isn't even on the map with a "professional" card like the Parhelia. Because of their drivers at that.

I think you're estimation is direly incorrect and correct at the same time. No one really cares, because they would die of rectal cancer before trying to run a Parhelia in Linux in OpenGL, on the other hand if Matrox OSS'd their drivers, alot of people would care and that would astronomically inflate those estimates.

[albatorsk]

Originally posted by DedicatedFan3D
if Matrox OSS'd their drivers, alot of people would care and that would astronomically inflate those estimates.

I think you're vastly overestimating the number of "alternative OS" users out there, who would benefit from opensourced drivers. And nVidia is a very bad example here, since their drivers are far from open.

Seeing as how nVidia and ATI has a firm grip on the 3D market for Windows, what makes you think things would be any different in Linux?

[DedicatedFan3D]

Matrox says over and over "We are marketing towards a specific market"

They claim to be a professional card, yet most professionals who have used Linux prefer it. This is a trend also.

Matrox doesn't need a firm grip on Windows, no one will. However, Linux support can't come from inside Matrox simply because their driver teams don't stand a chance at competing with anything the likes ATI has to offer, let alone nVidia. If professionals are going to purchase a Parhelia, and be appealed to, a good driver solution needs to be in place. I know of alot of applications the Parhelia has a huge edge over the Quadro/FireGL/Wildcat cards. Mainly in the GIMP, any type of 3D modelling with 3 displays. The time it takes the chip to render the complex models will be more than made up for with a triple display.

No one cares, NOW, only because Matrox has nothing in place.

A Studebaker that can drive on 120 miles to the gallon on earth doesn't mean anything to you or I living on the moon. So the question of modifying the engineering to allow the car to get 500 mpg on the moon where there is a small colony would not be profitable? Yet the entire colony uses either nVidia, ATI, or Wildcats and have a ton of money to spend....

Yet the same device is cross compatible.

I dunno, it's just a personal matter of opinion that it would be profitable for them in the long run once Linux makes further inroads into mainstream computing.

However, here is the number 1 reason they should finish their Linux driver. And that's because they keep saying they are going to!

[leech]

Well, I think if everyone started to point out articles like I did to sales, then perhaps linux would get a lot more attention. Specifically find those in the professional V/FX industry that use linux. There are quite a few, you just kind of have to look around on the internet. If Matrox can finally realize that there is a HUGE market for professional as well as amateur video editing and animators that use Linux, then they could start selling the card in mass quantities.

We know at least ILM uses dual-head, and triple head I'm sure would be even cooler for making the next star wars movie. That would be a big selling point for Matrox, to be able to say that their hardware was used in the making of Episode 3. But they need to move fast.

Another feature that I think most people overlook is Glyph Anti-Aliasing in the hardware. Will the AA that KDE3.1 and Gnome 2.x has built-in use the hardware of the Parhelia to do it faster? Plus of course using FAAx16 in the linux version of Softimage and Maya.

Hey if the developers love .Net so much, why don't they check out the mono project? They could even create a power desk with all the same functionality of the windows version.

Damnit, I want to play Neverwinter Nights in linux, but I don't have any 3D drivers. I'd also like to be able to watch DVD's full screen..... it's pretty sad that you can watch them in a window smoother with the Parhelia than you can in a full screen window..... Plus Xmame.gl, Tuxracer..... god, I could go on for hours on what I like to do with 3D in linux. Geez, as it stands now, I can really only use linux to browse the net, and write and all that other boring stuff I do....

I'll stop rambling now.

Leech

[DedicatedFan3D]

Someone else iterated that they will drop something to give Linux attention. I happen to agree w/that.

Bottom line is that they just need to lose less engineers.

[leech]

Originally posted by DedicatedFan3D
Someone else iterated that they will drop something to give Linux attention. I happen to agree w/that.

Bottom line is that they just need to lose less engineers.

Agreed, and even better, higher some XFree86 programmers. Though who knows if that'll ever happen....

Leech

[Marshmallowman]

Well a lot of companies have a perfect oportuntiy to open up linux right now,.

There are 3 distro's released that support opteron but no MS OS(released yet) so if you don't jump on the bandwagon now you might as well no bother, because it is the best most high profile linux event where MS is behind..

[leech]

speaking of which, has Debian branched out for the Opteron yet? Lord knows Debian supports the most architectures out there. None even remotely compare. Most of the distros stick to either x86 or PPC, with a few for the IA64.

Leech

[Six Of One]

Originally posted by DedicatedFan3D
[B]On the nVidia drivers.

nVidia's drivers are the best drivers for Linux period, for any type of device at that.

nVidia's drivers are unrivaled, unparalleled, unequalled, and incomparable to all other Linux drivers for all devices by the shear quality and performance nVidia wanted to get out of their parts in Linux. You will find no better driver for any device no matter where you look, nVidia's is da'bomb and that's just all there is to it without any arguement whatsoever.

Yes, that's probably the reason why they cleverly implemented a memory leak, as reported by David Harris from Debian. (check the FAQ to xfree86 which should be located at /usr/share/doc/xfree86-common)

Speaking of Debian, which i happen to run in the SID incarnation, there is talks about a x86-64 port but AMD has placed some NDAs between Opteron and Debian. It seems that consensus is to not agree. Anyway, SuSE is reportedly working on this stuff and it will happen, sooner or later.

[leech]

Yeah, I found a nice thread over o debian-devel about how they're going to implement the x86-64 architecture. Finally I gave up trying to read it all and went to sleep . I use debian Sid/unstable as well.

Leech

[magog]

Originally posted by leech
I think you're referring to SciTech. Supposedly they're even working with Matrox on some drivers. Though I think they are only going to be accelerated 2D drivers.

Hi!

Yes SciTech Software is working on XFree/86 Linux drivers. They began shipping the first betas 2 weeks ago.
And yes, the SciTech SNAP driver for Linux (and the other supported OS - OS/2,...) only supports 2D. That's because no hardware vendor does allow third party developers look into their 3D stuff.

nVidia doesn't even allow third party developers look into their 2D stuff - that's why SciTech has to rebuild every informations by looking at the XFree drivers.

Three weeks ago SciTech had no agreement with Matrox to get the Parhelia and the new P-xxx cards supported by SNAP. There have been some legal issues (between Dec. 2002 and Mai 2003) but they hope to get it on track (maybe they have it by now - I hope it because I want the Parhelia finally to be supported by SNAP for OS/2).

[WyWyWyWy]

Hi magog do you have any inside contact in SciTech?
Please keep us informed regarding the progress of Parhelia support under SNAP!!

[magog]

Originally posted by WyWyWyWy
Hi magog do you have any inside contact in SciTech?
Please keep us informed regarding the progress of Parhelia support under SNAP!!

I wouldn't call it inside contact, but I'm one of the first beta testers of SciTech's SDD (SciTech Display Doctor) product for OS/2.
Those contacts go back to Dec. 1998 (some month before the open beta of SDD/2).
So if you want to call that inside contact...

All I know is SciTech Software has done a very good job so far. They are in business since several years (who remebers the UNIVBE drivers back in DOS times - they where from SciTech) and hopfully stay in business for the next couple of years.

The support is great and Steve the SciTech support guy can be compared to Matrox support guy Haig. Both do great work.

Anyway. I know some more details on the problems there where between Dec. 2002 and May 2003 after I asked how long I'll have to wait to get the Parhelia supported unter OS/2 (it's already running under OS/2 - it's only unaccelerated), but I think it's better not to say anything about it.
I think it could have worked out better, because this is not the first time SciTech and Matrox are working together.

Some years ago (must have been 3 years now) they got a bunch of sourcecode from Matrox - the well known "XMas present" .

One thing seems to be a joke, but Matrox really wanted (still wants?) to know how many users of SDD or SNAP use a Matrox card (maybe even a Parhelia).
SciTech doesn't know this: They support 200+ chipsets with the current SNAP drivers and there are countless users.
IBM even brings the OEM SDD/SNAP driver to their customers.

I think if they have signed anything, they should be able to support the Parhelia about 2 month after that date (maybe earlier).
This would be a basic support, I don't think they will include dual or tripple head in the first release (Dual Head even works on OS/2 since last year ), but most of the other stuff should be working.

Hopefully they get the DVI on G450 and G550 working with the new HAL.

I'll keep you informed when they get the P supported!

[K6-III]

Look what we see under the Millenium-P product specs:

Minimum system requirements:
AGP 2.0 compliant system
128 MB RAM
600 MHz CPU
CD-ROM drive
Microsoft® Windows® 2000, Windows® XP, Windows NT® 4.0 or Linux

http://www.matrox.com/mga/products/mill_pseries/p750.cfm

Should mean that a nice Linux driver should be coming with availability.