looks like Parhelia's a no-no for me!

[Ribbit]

Originally posted by Joel
I know I'm going to get jumped on for asking this question but what games????

Well I don't know who's going to jump on you, but it's not me Mainly flight sims (e.g. Falcon 4, Flanker 2), rally games (CMR2, RC2000) and the occasional FPS (I think No-One Lives Forever is the best game I've ever played - can't wait for the sequel!). On a side note, this is why you never see me in the gaming forum - everyone else here seems to play UT and NWN. (Nothing wrong with that.)

[Dogbert]

Joel,

There are many win3.11 era games like Gazillionaire

Also, there are many many many nostalgy DOS games like tyrian, jazz jackrabbit, OMF 2097, Princess maker, Archon, Gauntlet, etc. etc. etc.

[Pace]

Originally posted by Ribbit
And who still uses NT 4 anyway, especially if they'd be needing the P's features?

So, they should support Win98 instead of NT4? The point Elie is making is everybody should use Win2000/XP - as they cover every base.

Except those with 32MB systems. Then you can use Win98/NT4 where needed.

Any if anyone is buying a Parhelia to play only games then you've missed the boat

The only reason I'd say for staying with Win98 over 2000 is cost. WinXP has a lot more annoyances than 2000 though, so not liking XP is believable.

If you've got a 256MB etc Win98 system, then upgrade man If you've less RAM, then why are you getting a 128MB graphics card?

P.

[Ribbit]

Originally posted by Pace
So, they should support Win98 instead of NT4? The point Elie is making is everybody should use Win2000/XP - as they cover every base.

And the point that I was making was that more people are probably still using '98 than NT, and the '98 people probably have more use for P's features than the NT users (3D professionals etc. are probably using 2K, as NT is horribly slow and heavy), so NT support in the absence of '98 support seems like a big waste. Tell me if my assumptions are off.

Except those with 32MB systems. Then you can use Win98/NT4 where needed.

I'd just like to say here that I've used NT 4 on systems with up to 384MB of memory, and it still feels sluggish.

Any if anyone is buying a Parhelia to play only games then you've missed the boat

Why not buy a Parhelia for gaming (if you've got the cash to spend)? My G400 Max isn't exactly quick any more, but it makes the games I play look fantastic and still gets good and smooth framerates for the most part. As a non-fps-whore, I'd say it makes a great gaming card. Look around this board, a lot of people are saying the same things about the Parhelia.

The only reason I'd say for staying with Win98 over 2000 is cost. WinXP has a lot more annoyances than 2000 though, so not liking XP is believable.

If you've got a 256MB etc Win98 system, then upgrade man If you've less RAM, then why are you getting a 128MB graphics card?

For me personally, there is just no reason to 'upgrade' right now. The disadvantages of Win2k outweigh the advantages. (Actually, the advantages wouldn't make much difference to me.) Win98 plays my games just fine. I'm sure Win2k will run all my games just fine as well, but it wants more memory, more CPU, and more disk space, and it's harder to trim the fat from. I didn't buy my processor and disk and memory for the OS to eat, I bought them to run my games with (And do my work, but I don't work under Windows anyway.)

[Belwarrior]

Is there any way to ask Matrox to write win98 drivers for parhelia? I wouldnt buy ANY video card at the moment unless it supports win98SE,Win2k and Linux. I befuddled by the upcoming NT drivers - what reason Matrox has for writting them? That there are a lot of users using that OS? if so there are many more users using win98 than NT. And saying that support for win98 is not necessary as it is an old OS and to get support win98 users are to upgrade to win2k or at least WinXPHome does not hold water as WinNT is much older than win98SE and in fact winNT users should be the ones to upgrade to win2k or winXpPro .

So Is there any way we can go around Matrox carrying "We Want Win98 Drivers" placards?

Haig, are you reading this?

Bel.

[Ribbit]

I say we head over to the Matrox tech support forum tomorrow (although I may not be able to make it tomorrow) and at least get a clarification for this. I'm also mystified, and I can't think of one reason why NT 4 drivers would get priority over Win98 drivers. With luck, maybe this will turn out to be some stupid mistake ("duuuh - I gone done edited the wrong boxes on the screen thingy...")

We can't carry placards around, so maybe we should have a standard 'protest avatar'. Heck, it's about time I got an avatar anyway...

[Joel]

Joel,

There are many win3.11 era games like Gazillionaire

Also, there are many many many nostalgy DOS games like tyrian, jazz jackrabbit, OMF 2097, Princess maker, Archon, Gauntlet, etc. etc. etc.

And are you absolutely sure that these games will not run under XP. XP does give you the ability to set compatibilty modes for older games.



I'll also try to find it but I read an article here just recently about even setting up XP to run DOS base games.

I have not had any problems with any of my games, that I play at this point, but then again I have not pulled the boxes out of the closet yet with all my older, not played in years, games to check everything.

Joel

[Technoid]

I have had greater succeses to get old games working on W2K than on XP....

[Wombat]

I've got a copy of Soul Reaver that I'd really like to get working on WinXP. I also pulled out my copy of "Mission Control" but no luck there either.

[BuddMan]

Just a question, but if you want to run DOS games, why do you need Parhelia to do it? Can't you just get out your old computer to do that??

[Pace]

Originally posted by Ribbit
And the point that I was making was that more people are probably still using '98 than NT, and the '98 people probably have more use for P's features than the NT users (3D professionals etc. are probably using 2K, as NT is horribly slow and heavy), so NT support in the absence of '98 support seems like a big waste. Tell me if my assumptions are off.

Well, I think they are off anyway. The Parhelia is an all-round workstation/professional card card. Tell me what OS sounds like it suits that?

Clues:
Windows 98 ...................
Windows NT4 Workstation
Windows 2000 Professional
Windows XP Professional

Looks like one if those ain't a pro/ws OS And I'd say many 3D professionals might still be using NT4. Hell, I would use NT4 if it supported DX5 (ok, maybe I use 2k for more reasons than that ).

Why not buy a Parhelia for gaming (if you've got the cash to spend)? My G400 Max isn't exactly quick any more, but it makes the games I play look fantastic and still gets good and smooth framerates for the most part. As a non-fps-whore, I'd say it makes a great gaming card. Look around this board, a lot of people are saying the same things about the Parhelia.

If I only played games, I'd be running a Radeon 9700 on Win98. I don't. I run a G400MAX on Win2k, and I plan to run a Parhelia on Win2k. Parhelia is an excellent gaming card, but it's not the best (I think I can safely use that as a fact now the Radeon9700 is here).

As for your closing statement, I go back to NT4. I really like the NT kernel. The features lacking in NT4 are just too much (USB, DX6..9 etc) of a necessity. I could use Win98, but after running dual/triple boots for years, I've yet to really find a new home outside of Win2k. My last triple boot was 98/2k/xp. 98 I didn't even bother installing drivers for, xp I just plain broke (don't use Win2k to play around with an xp partition, especially when Win2k gives you lots of error messages and says, "are you really fecking sure you wanna feck this partition up with those permissions?" once or twice ).

I have 512MB of RAM, oodles of disk space so I run 2K. Whether the OS is consuming 32 or 64MB doesn't really matter, as long as it doesn't go *PING* when Photoshop opens a few high res images, alongside Dreamweaver or whatever. Say you had 448MB of ram...would you really notice 480MB all of a sudden? I would - if it was badly managed

P.

[Wombat]

Just a question, but if you want to run DOS games, why do you need Parhelia to do it? Can't you just get out your old computer to do that??

What old computer? I only have the one.

[BuddMan]

Originally posted by Wombat
What old computer? I only have the one.

Well, like most are saying. You can run most DOS games, etc, in XP just fine. Another option would be to get a cheap computer if you really want to run DOS games, one at a garage sale or something for around 100-200 bucks. Hell, my laptop isn't even worth that, and it can run DOS games like a champ.

[Wombat]

And Win95 games?

[KvHagedorn]

Ribbit, you have an MP motherboard, 512mb of RAM, a 73GB Atlas hdd and SCSI, and you don't see any advantages to w2k over 98? With that system, your excuses just don't add up. I got W2kSP2 because I didn't want XP (and may never get another MS OS if their attitude remains as it is.) but I'm very glad I got W2k.. it was the easiest OS I've ever set up, does everything 98 did (have found very few programs it didn't like) and is far more stable. The extra features may not seem useful at first, but you will begin to appreciate them very quickly. I thought I would be switching back to 98 occasionally, but I really have not had to bother. I could see it if there were some things I needed to do in DOS, but I don't really need that. Microsoft did an excellent job on this one, and I intend to keep using it as long as I can.