Parhelia Questions - some techie

[UberLord]

Greets guys! Some questions before I splash the cash on a Parhelia

I've done a quick search on these forums, but I couldn't find some answers. Appologies if they've been answered already

1) Are the p.'s on the Matrox (UK) shop pre-order page the retail or OEM variants?

2) Does the p. work with UT (the origonal, not UT 2003) OpenGL with S3TC textures?
By OpenGL I mean using the renderer available from http://unreal.epicgames.com

3) Does FAA blur the console text in UT and/or text in other games?

4) Does the nPatch implementation support the custom ATI extensions in OpenGL for games like HL/CS and RTCW?
If not, does Matrox plan to implement it?

5) Does the driver allow for custom refresh rates to be set on a per-resolution basis to cure the 60Hz problem for games?

6) Does the driver allow custom settings per game/application?
ie - Can I set UT not to use FAA and Morrowind to use FAA or do I have to toggle driver settings each time?

7) Is the reported lack of Q3 performance translated into other OpenGL games?

8) My current ATI 8500 has a few problems with hardware fog (mostly table fog) - does the p. have any such problems?

Thanks in advance!

[TdB]

welcome to murc.

1) both, i think

2) yes i think so, some screenshots can be found here: http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33763

3) no, 16xfaa only antialiases polygon-edges.

4) the hardware supports it, but i don´t think the opengl icd does(it might come if ATI makes the extension open), it does support rt-patches and n-patches in d3d though, you might want to follow this thread: http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?s=&threadid=34512

5) yes, matrox has supported this in their drivers almost forever.

6) I don´t know, I guess you are thinking of the kyro2 drivers here, it would be cool if they had .

7) I don´t know.

8) don´t think so, it is probably the radeon8500 drivers fault.

[UberLord]

Originally posted by TDB
welcome to murc.

Aww shucks

Actually I used to visit loads when I had my G200 and Unreal first came out

6) I don´t know, I guess you are thinking of the kyro2 drivers here, it would be cool if they had .

ATI cards can also do this through 3rd party tweakers such as Rage3DTweaker so its not just Kyro specific - but the Kyro option is much nicer

BTW, would you be the same TDB that posted at the Revolution->PowerVR NET forums?

[UberLord]

Originally posted by TDB
1) both, i think

http://shopmatrox.com/preOrder/europe/parhelia_datasheet.asp

Only one card is listed and I can't find any clarification about which version it is.

Just wondering if any of you guys had ordered here and which version you got

[TdB]

yup, I have posted alot on various powervr forums including yours, mostly pvr-net and paraknowya and the kyro2 section on slackercentral.
regarding shopmatrox, since it has a software-bundle i would think it is the retail version, but im not sure.

It would probably be cheaper if you bought it in a local onlineshop.

[UberLord]

Originally posted by TDB
It would probably be cheaper if you bought it in a local onlineshop.

Everywhere cheaper charges for delivey - making the Matrox UK shop pretty much the same price bar a pound or two

[103er-Fan]

I am almost 100% sure that shopmatrox.com only ships the retail versions!

[Greebe]

1. both
2. Yes
3. same answer as TDB
4. clairify first Q, doubtful
5. yes
6. Current drivers have not been optimized (yet). Crank up res and details and it beats all cards out.
7. Fog/smoke looks very good

[Joel]

1) I looked at the UK site and they only show one. I think it should be the retail version but if in doubt call them.

2) Been running it that way every since I got the Parhelia and it looks and runs great. 1280x960 is a walk in the park (meaning it has no problems) for this card with eveything maxed on my setup.

3) No, everything looks fine.

4) I'm like Greebe on this one in that you should clarify the question.

5) Yes

6) Right now you will have to toggle the FAA function through the drivers until games are written to use it. But one good thing you can toggle it without having to reboot.

7) What??? Is >100fps at 1024x768 with everything maxed not good enough for you???

8) I have not noticed any.

Joel

[UberLord]

Originally posted by Joel

7) What??? Is >100fps at 1024x768 with everything maxed not good enough for you???

Well, it also translates into the Q3 based games such as RTCW, JKII and MOHAA. Those three games push the engine much harder and the benches I've seen show it.

Also, DOOMIII is reported to run very slowly on .p according to Carmack, so its also an OpenGL concern

But I'd be happy with a minimum of 60fps regardless of the highest fps in any game

[103er-Fan]

Originally posted by UberLord
Well, it also translates into the Q3 based games such as RTCW, JKII and MOHAA. Those three games push the engine much harder and the benches I've seen show it.

Also, DOOMIII is reported to run very slowly on .p according to Carmack, so its also an OpenGL concern

Benchmarks showed that the P. performs ok in JK2 and RTCW.

About Doom3.... this game is more than 12 months away, we won't see the box of it in the shelves before Q3 2003, if you want a card that plays Doom3 best, then wait for R400 or NV40 (maybe Parhelia 2?) next year.
Anyways, JC stated that the P. performs slower than the R200 and Ti200, but he never said that the P. runs the game slow. And since we don't know any specific numbers, I think it is too early to say how good all the cards perform in Doom3.

[Greebe]

Just remember that M is in bug fix mode atm, no optimizations have been done yet per se.

[GT98]

Originally posted by UberLord


Well, it also translates into the Q3 based games such as RTCW, JKII and MOHAA. Those three games push the engine much harder and the benches I've seen show it.

I ran RTCW last night on my Parhelia and it ran great! SOF2 (another Q3 engine) runs great also. I have JK2 and MOHAA also, but not on my Computer ATM. After testing the P last night I dont care what the FPS counter is telling me...it runs them very smooth ATM..and this is coming from someone that had a R8500 in the same system and the P seems faster and smoother then the R8500 now at the same Resolutions or Higher...