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**Ryu Connor** · 2 July 2002, 03:27

You have rather strange expectations from a driver that is only three build points older than Hardware.fr's drivers and only one build older from what the majority of hardware testers received.

What were you expecting from a build update?

**Edward** · 2 July 2002, 03:46

Originally posted by Ryu Connor

What were you expecting from a build update?

A 50% gain, 16x aniso with zero perf hit

Well, to be honest, I think it will take 2-4 mounths if we are lucky, driver development take very much time.

I have a R8500 and performance is stil increasing and is coming from a long way.

I play with 2 cards a GF4Ti4600 and a R8500 128 mb, (yes I'm freak) both have their charmes, ATI R8500 delivers awesome IQ in d3d with 16 aniso UT 2003 is still playeable, (thats the strength of the R8500, and you don't find it in a review, only Digit-Life) the GF4Ti has superb openGL with awesome lod, and a better aniso performance with latest drivers.

In about a week I'll have 3 cards, when the P arrives, maybe this week I hope

**Ant** · 2 July 2002, 04:02

Re: The truth behind the new drivers from matrox

I'm really starting to get fed up with the way you post I've already told you about this. I have seen no where any beta tester refusing to give you any sort of information or refuse to test drivers for you. Why they hell should you treat them as your own personal testers? As I've said if this is so all damn important you go out and buy a Parhelia and do the testing yourself.

If you continue to post trolls like this and keep having a go at the BBs and spouting your conspiracy theories your posts will be deleted. Your comments are just pure BS about people not daring to comment, act in a reasonable manner on these forums or you will no longer be welcome here.

Originally posted by mikeul
I've asked repeatedly for the beta testers here to tell the results they had with the new parhelia drivers released by matrox, but they all refused for all kinds of reasons (they didn't want to be "forced to test drivers which matrox didn't ask them to test", etc.)

I asked hardware.fr to test them for me instead since all beta testers here seemed to be swarn to secrecy.
The results are in French and can be read at :

HardWare.fr - Erreur (Raison inconnue)

http://www.hardware.fr/news/lire/01-07-2002/

I understand why no one dared to comment on these drivers.

According to hardware.fr, there was NO PERFORMANCE INCREASE AT ALL. Anisotropic filtering and FSAA was UNTOUCHED. Anisotropic filtering is STILL LIMITED to 2x.
There was however some bug correction : textures no longer were blue in Comanche 4. However, AQUANOX was STILL BUGGY in high detail mode (to think that some testers claimed that high detail modes were the modes to use with Parhelia!)
Anisotropic filtering can now be forced in Open GL.

**Tempest** · 2 July 2002, 04:25

Have patience, young gr****opper...

At this point the weight of driver development will definitely lie on bug-squishing, compatibility and stability instead of performance improvements. Only when those are acquired on the basic driverset can additional features and speed tweaks be implemented.

Compatibility and stability must also be what the beta boys are testing at the moment, so they aren't currently concerned with performance either. The performance might be the same as earlier (in which case they might say "I think the speed is pretty much same as earlier revisions") or they might notice some slight improvements (and say "I think application XYZZY is running a little faster") but not much more than that.

With the first Parhelias hitting store shelves, the beta boys must also be awfully busy at the moment. So I'm not amazed if they tell you they won't test out some driver revision older than the ones they are currently running (which they can't comment on because of their NDAs).

So basically we'll just have to do as Ant says - wait until some non-beta people with a Parhelia and too much time on their hands find their ways into this forum and agree to test out what you want to know.

**Ant** · 2 July 2002, 04:26

I'll do all the testing you guys want (within reason) as soon as my problems are resolved.

**103er-Fan** · 2 July 2002, 04:29

No offense to you mikeul, but I think you watched too much X-Files

The BBs here are under NDA, which means they can't give any specific numbers for the drivers, maybe they had even to sign a contract with Matrox to get their cards, and I think you should respect it when they just can't comment on the performance.
Also the Parhelia isn't really available, with some luck you might get bulk versions, but that's it. You can't expect a huge performance increase with the first public driver set.
Just look at the Radeon 8500: The first public drivers alos didn't really changed the performance, they just increased stability and compatibility.
I also don't know why you are only posting any anti-Parhelia comments here, if people like me want to spend 400$ for a gprahics card, then it is their choice, I think everybody here has enough experience to decide if they should get the P. or not.

**mikeul** · 2 July 2002, 04:34

What is BBz?????

**Greebe** · 2 July 2002, 04:38

BBz = Matrox Beta Tester(s)

Please read

http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?s=&threadid=30371

**Joel** · 2 July 2002, 04:42

At this point the weight of driver development will definitely lie on bug-squishing, compatibility and stability instead of performance improvements. Only when those are acquired on the basic driverset can additional features and speed tweaks be implemented.

Compatibility and stability must also be what the beta boys are testing at the moment, so they aren't currently concerned with performance either. The performance might be the same as earlier (in which case they might say "I think the speed is pretty much same as earlier revisions") or they might notice some slight improvements (and say "I think application XYZZY is running a little faster") but not much more than that.

With the first Parhelias hitting store shelves, the beta boys must also be awfully busy at the moment. So I'm not amazed if they tell you they won't test out some driver revision older than the ones they are currently running (which they can't comment on because of their NDAs).

So basically we'll just have to do as Ant says - wait until some non-beta people with a Parhelia and too much time on their hands find their ways into this forum and agree to test out what you want to know.

Thanks You. I could not have said it any better myself.

Reminds me of Kyle over at Hard????, something or another, saying that the reason me didn't get a card is because Matrox was scared to let him test it.

Joel

**Afronaut** · 2 July 2002, 05:18

Not for nothing....

But since these driver seem to really bite..... How good are these Beta Driver testers anyway? It is really a statement of this day and age. These drivers that are mediocre at best, and yet the attitude is "Superbowl" by these boyz. Very entertaining.

**frankymail** · 2 July 2002, 05:35

BTW Ant, I have a quick and painless (rather joyful) cure for your problem: Viagra

**Ant** · 2 July 2002, 05:37

Originally posted by frankymail
BTW Ant, I have a quick and painless (rather joyful) cure for your problem: Viagra

**GT98** · 2 July 2002, 05:41

Originally posted by Afronaut
Not for nothing....

But since these driver seem to really bite..... How good are these Beta Driver testers anyway? It is really a statement of this day and age. These drivers that are mediocre at best, and yet the attitude is "Superbowl" by these boyz. Very entertaining.

I don't understand your point your trying to make here. The BBz test what is given to them and make suggestions/comments on what needs to be fixed or what M fixed in the newer set of drivers. Matrox is dealing with a totally new Archetechure here and its going to take some time to find out its little tricks here and there to improve performance. Lets remember there hasn't been any really huge changes archetechure of the Geforce series, thus Nvidia has been writing drivers for the same product for nearly 3-4 years now and everything is tweeked out to the max as far as the software and hardware performance.

**Greebe** · 2 July 2002, 06:15

afronaut, seeing that you are absolutely clueless as to what function we perform for Matrox as Beta testers, please refrain from makes such rediculous and slanderous comments.

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The truth behind the new drivers from matrox

The truth behind the new drivers from matrox

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