Tom's Hardware

[Dr Mordrid]

Win2K Pro here. Not even interested in WinXP's bloatware until that first service pack fixes some of its less than glamorous limitations.

Dr. Mordrid

[rocketmanx]

I don't believe 98 & ME support one of the major new features of the Parhelia the way 2k & especially XP do. I haven't heard of anyone using dual monitors in 98 yet. The triple head will most likely be used by people wanting a cheaper solution for this- pv230 dsk type of thing. These users are most likely not using 98 or ME. Plus the Parhelia is designed as a card that was built for future use and a year from now 98/ME won't be supported much by anyone.
Soon 64 bit will be here and 16 bit will be like a throw back to the dos days.
I think Matrox made the right desicion with 2k/XP support first. Hopefully they will do as well as Nvidia did with the hardcore Linux crowd by providing good drivers quickly. I'm not a huge fan of Linux but the Linux crowd is VERY vocal.

[bobby2]

rocketmanx:
I haven't heard of anyone using dual monitors in 98 yet.

Umm - up until very recently Ive been using dual on w98 - and still am when i boot into it. I also use it on 2000/XP and Linux.

Its not really Linux support though - its actually XFree support - and Matrox will keep their business sense and see that many trading companies use multiple monitors under Xfree.

As for dual/triple - I will use triple immediately I can get it on one card.

[Wombat]

Its not really Linux support though - its actually XFree support - and Matrox will keep their business sense and see that many trading companies use multiple monitors under Xfree.

Please e-mail Matrox and tell them this. Hammer it into their skulls.

[rocketmanx]

bobby2- I know dual monitors don't work the same in win2k (unless I'm doing somethin' wrong) as it does in XP. If 98 works the same way as win2k does, (for my cards at least) I don't know why you would want to use it. It doesn't extend the desktop in 2k the way it does in XP, more like a mirror of the one I already have. Anyway, I was just trying to make a point about future support being geared towards XP and not towards 98/ME. I gave up on trying to keep up with ALL the hardware tech specs back when all the different flavors (Tbird, coppermine...) of cpu's and graphics cards started coming about, way too much to keep up with and still actually spend any time using my comp

[az]

See - this is why you should use matrox... In Win2K it's the same as in Win98 which is the same as in XP - ONLY with Matrox cards. ALL other cards behave differently in 2k because it doesn't allow true dualhead on one graphics core.

You are right though that (unfortunately for me, I like 98) XP is the future. From a manufacturer like Matrox I expect "obsolete" OS support, too, though

AZ

[Pace]

rocketmanx: What card do you have?

IIRC, Win98 introduced the multi-monitor support (initially on separate graphics cards until someone at Matrox had a brainstorm), and Win2k removed the single card part - the only way to get 2 outputs from one card is with a Matrox. Otherwise it's a GeForce in AGP + 4MB Rage PCI

Matrox remain the only company to have created a workaround, so if you want Win2k Dual monitor, get Matrox.

P.

Edit: Couldn't reply cause the server time bug is here, so edited the post (re: Win2k Single card multi-monitors).

[mattsteg]

Dual screen support is not absent in windows 2000. It was never removed. Win2k just interfaces a bit differently with hardware, making dual monitors from one card a bit messed up. Dual card solutions work fine though.

[Greebe]

rocketmanx... I've been using dual monitors in Win98 since I first got my G400Max back in August '99... many of us here have.

The problem with Win2K is that M$ first said they would support this feature in an upcoming SP release... but it didn't show. Then they claimed it would be in the next SP and then unexpectedly canned it... put off functionality til Whistler (XP) was released. Matrox found a way around this and thus was the first to incorporate dualhead'esque functionality in Win2K... the difference basically boils down to loading the drivers twice, one for the primary head and another for the secondary head... of course this doesn't appear straight away cuz it's done automagically

[Maggi]

Anybody noticed that these two articles are virtually identical ?

http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/02q2/020514/index.html

http://www.rivastation.com/parhelia_e.htm

Not too surprising since the author is in both cases the same, but come on ... how low can you go ?

[[GDI]Raptor]

Hehe! Those articles ARE identical......

Toms Hardware = nVidiot

[Maggi]

that's what I thought, but I couldn't be bothered to verify it all ...

[Indiana]

This has been stated quite a few times before (that the article on THG is written by the webmaster of a NVidia site).

And guess what: the same guy also did other gfx-card "comparisions" before between the Radeon8500 and the GF3 where surprisingly the Nvidia card was able to win...

[rocketmanx]

rocketmanx: What card do you have?
Have always been a Matrox user until my Max became to slow for the games I was playing. Recently went from a 8500 to a G4 TI 4400.
Didn't know 98 ever supported multi monitors (til now), haven't used 98 since 2K came out in (was one of the lucky 6000 people to win a free copy of 2k Pro from MS before it hit stores ) I was just trying to make a point(while speaking about things I don't have full knowledge of obviously ) which I think you got. Just trying to say that to keep a consistant train of logic throughout the product, as Matrox is very good at, they continued their "future" thinking by including the lastest OS's first and will probably include support for older os's (isn't unix like the same age as my grandfather ? ) later.

[Pace]

Yup.

Still not fixed that 'nana yet?