Why havent the hardware reviewers benchmarked surround gaming!

[Snakebitten]

Suprises me they arent benchmarking the key feature of this card. So what if they have nothing current to compare the scores to. Whatever the card gets, just means it can do that much more than the current cards can.

The reviewers need to think of it this way:

Parhelia is now the card "to beat" in surround gaming benchmarks.

The card can do and outperform any other card on the market now when it comes down to this surround gaming feature. Mainly because no other card offers it.

If the reviewers aren't buying the better graphic/fsaa quality or the fact that there is much less of a performance drop when enabling fsaa than someone needs to state what I said up above about the surround gaming in their reviews.

Parhelia may not win single monitor benchmarks when compared to TI4600 or ATI 8500 but it sure does win in graphic/fsaa quality and surround gaming benchmarks.

Plus like every new card coming out in the market including matrox's old video cards in the past, drivers take time to mature. They often times get faster/prettier and more efficient.

[Dr Mordrid]

Because even though they call themselves "hardware reviewers" all they reall do is run benchmarks and make sure what they say parrots what everyone else says.

Kinda like CNN does with the Democrat Party talking points

If any of those idiots actually had to beta a card I don't think they'd know how or even where to start.....

Dr. Mordrid

[Fenrir(AVA)]

Simply but review sites just care about the numbers not about the quality of the card.

[Kenshin]

lol the "normal" benchmark are already very slow so on 3 monitor... 3* poligone more + big resolution => very low perf

[notagain]

I have to say Kenshin is likely to be right....

[Cobos]

Just for the fun of it I played with numbers here...
2400x600 = 1,4m pixels
1600x1280 = 2,0m pixels
3072x1024 = 3,1m pixels

So if you run 800x600 in surround mode it's actually less than the normal high resolution. And even the next step up is only about 50% more pixels....

Cobos

[notagain]

but: it is not the same scene that is computed at 2 different res:
2400*600 and 1600*1280.
therefore your point is useless

[Snakebitten]

Bump, still havent seen any reviews/benchmarks on this topic. Would be nice to see what supported games are actually playable and what kind of speeds we can expect. (Not guesses)

[Dr Mordrid]

I've played Q3-Arena and UT and both are very much playable. Been using 1024x768x32 with FAA-16x and they look great.

Dan Woods was right: medium rez's + FAA-16x do look as good or better than high rez's on "other cards" with FAA-4x and they play just fine.

Serious Sam SE is also a scream and more than fast enough.

Dr. Mordrid

[mikeul]

I hardly call a card which doesn't support anything over 2x anisotropic a "quality card". I've been spoilt with my Radeon 8500 which offers up to 8x anisotropic and going back to 2x makes me wary.

The real reason why Gaming Surround wasn't benchmarked is that since the card would have to display 3x times more than normal mode, the framerates would be catastrophic, 3 times worse than what they already are.

Come on, what's the use of Surround Gaming? You guys imagine yourself going to LAN parties carrying 3 monitors? Guess not.

[The PIT]

Next question is how many people are going to buy one or more extra monitors or have the space too do it in.

[mikeul]

"more than fast enough"
Maybe, but not as fast as my Radeon 8500

[mikeul]

You guys imagine how big your desk must be to use 3 monitors?

[ben2207]

my 3 monitors are on the floor I don't have a desk big enough for 3

[The PIT]

Gawd if I played on the floor my back would be fubarred. Ouch.