No Win98/Me drivers for Parhelia

[Yannick]

Re: Re: Re: Re: --Win98 Problem at Work--

Originally posted by Zanna

I Agree. If at leat 10% of potential customers doesn't buy the Parhelia because he/she don't want to ugrade the operating system, Matrox lost 10% of Parhelia sales.

And that does not count the people that need to dual-boot to Win9x from time to time. Of course I suppose we'll get some default support from the OS ?

[donny]

Re: --Win98 Problem at Work--

Originally posted by Colette27
I talked my company into ordering 14 new Matrox cards, I'm the IT person i guess, anyways,

They show up, and NO WIN 98 drivers!!

In defense of Colette... small companies cannot afford IT staff, and they outsource a lot of the IT work. Moreover, Win98 is quite prevalent in the workplace. Not too long ago (this year) I was working for the largest soft drink company in the world in the Canadian H.O. and they were still running Win98.

Collette, here is my suggestion. Get an ATI card, or the old Matrox cards (G550, G400). I just purchased a Radeon 8500 and 2D is excellent... I would say indistinguishable or better to my G400 at 1600x1200, but i normally use 1280x1024. 3D mark2001 gives me a score of 8800... I have no driver problems... works great with games (ie. Jedi Knights 2, Neverwinter). P.S. buy the built by ATI card, since i'm quite sceptical of the quality of the components used from other OEM manufacturers.

[Pace]

Anyone else think that the post was a joke?

[WyWyWyWy]

It wasn't, but its now becoming...

[The PIT]

Another thing to consider is some companies have specilist software that only runs under 98. The company that written has gone bust so they're stuck.

[Greebe]

Exactly TP... my other half works in accounting at a Hilton (Hotel) and they're still running Win95

They were going to upgrade all their systems this last fall because Hilton corporate is forcing it (or loose the franchise), but due to 9/11 and the entire tourism/Hotel/motel etc industry being hit so bloody hard here in the US they now have an excuse not to. There just isn't the money to afford new machines, new OS's, and especially rewriting all the custom software they must use on a daily basis.

OK they aren't per se Parhelia candidates but none the less applicable to this conversation.

[Pace]

As Greebe says...the Parhelia isn't a likely candidate for them

Run legacy systems all you want, with legacy software. Just don't complain if cutting edge stuff ain't compatible.

However, does anyone have a guide on how to get a working VLB Parhelia?

[Wombat]

Sure, with a little bit of soldering you can get the EISA version to work in a VLB slot

[xortam]

NP ... my last computer had both EISA and VLB slots.

[Pace]

wIll my GeParphELia 4 TIII fit in mY AG-VLB Who-Let Compaqkard bell PC?! aLL my BaSe!

[UberLord]

Originally posted by Pace
wIll my GeParphELia 4 TIII fit in mY AG-VLB Who-Let Compaqkard bell PC?! aLL my BaSe!

ROFLMAOWTRDMF!!!

[Yannick]

Originally posted by UberLord
ROFLMAOWTRDMF!!!

I'm afraid I don't understand past "L".

[Ribbit]

I get it up to the 'O'... maybe the 'W'...

no wait, I know...

Rolling on the Floor Laughing My Ass Off With Tears Running Down My Face...

[tmservo]

Look, seriously, if this small place had enough kit to buy 15 cards @ $300+ a piece (that's $4,500+ in video cards alone) then I find it hard to buy that they couldn't do research on it because they were too small to afford IT. Anywhere I have ever been, even with high IT budgets, an expenditures of more then $1,000 (an expense which could be capitalized) was highly scrutinized and normally wasn't just a "do it" event.. if they are big enough that it's a "do it" event, then they should have had resources to do better research.

[Admiral]

I'm confused, I can't figure out what market segment the Parhelia's aimed at.

pure Gaming ?:
If it's games, they should have support for 98/ME, want it or not 98 is still the prefered OS for this activity, whether dual booting or used alone.
From a marketing point of view your aim is to sell as many cards as you can. How can you do that if the bulk of the segment is ignored ?
You can't force customers to buy another OS along with the card, they might say screw you and go with ATI and the extra performance for the same price, unless they want surround gaming.

office Work ?:
If you owned a business you'd probably be best with a G550 or a PCI G450 and Win 2000/XP as an OS.
Unless you're an idiot like Colette's boss and would be willing to spend more than five grand on 14 Parhelias.
You'd probably buy a P for yourself () and the people in the office that really need triple head for work (how many of those would be ?).

Work@home & casual (or less casual) gaming:

This segment is pretty much made up of Matrox loyalists, who are willing to forgive M's blunders more easely. In this case the Parhelia is the reward for the long wait and it doesnt matter it's expensive, nor that the competition already has a faster card.
Still, there are voices that say "I just raised money for the P, I don't want to blow extra on XP" , "I love Matrox and all, but I want to play my games in 98, where's the driver support ?" or "I'm dual booting, so it would be nice if there was support for 98".

OEM deals:

Probably the rabbit they're pulling out of the hat again. Though the rabbit's kind of expensive this time.