Matrox will never become big if they don't lighten up

[Snakebitten]

They could very well be pleased with the 15% market share. If they are serious about becoming larger in the market. They and their fan sites (MURC) need to lighten up. Either by "leaking" drivers/utilities for the masses so matrox receives free beta testing with customer input. This or actually release beta/unsupported drivers/utilities on a regular basis on the matrox website.

Until Matrox and their fansites start doing this, they will never become as big in the market share nor will they mature/optimize their drivers as fast as the bigger companies.

There has never been a leaked Parhelia driver in the past, this driver could of been purposely leaked on the biggest matrox fan site for a reason. Someone(s) in Matrox believe this or we would not have gotten a leaked driver.

[Taz]

So you don't think that leaking beta drivers with potential bugs could tarnish Matrox's name and reputation

[Greebe]

There is no such thing as a leaked driver from Matrox. Additionally Matrox would rather stay small and have a lucrative marketshare than to deal with the headaches of having to please everyone all the time. They can do this where the competition can't soley because they are privately owned and operated.

As to you including the MURC as part of your whine go find another site which can supply as much detail and insight as here. You won't. When any of us join the MURC you agree to certain legals which ARE enforced. If you don't like it then leave.

One last thing this isn't a Fansite but a users group. Difference? We won't bash another product without merit like True fansites do.

Ditto Taz

[Snakebitten]

Of course not, the users that use leaked drivers are the ones that are not newbies when it comes to computers. They typically know how to troubleshoot and can provide decent feedback to Matrox.

Has leaking of drivers/utilities tarnished ATI/Nvidia? Off course not, its spawned a community of "beta testers" some of which even optimize and develop their own set of drivers or utilities.

[Snakebitten]

Whats more cost effective than free beta testers? Free labor, input, idea's just for aggresively releasing beta drivers/utilities. This is why ATI/Nvidia have succeeded and have the bigger money/more important market share.

I want Matrox to grow just like many other users. They've even "implied" they want to move into the gaming market share or they would never of implied the Parhelia was a good gaming card. Hopefully they change their mindframe to what I've stated already, so we the users receive better/more optimized/more mature drivers and utilities.

[Greebe]

and as I said before that's not how Matrox does business. It's their choice, live with it. Nothing you say or do will change that... tho I wish I could mention what would be neccessary to make some refreshing/positive changes.

Until that day we'll all just have to suck it in.

[Greebe]

I didn't tell you or state I wanted you to leave... read what I said, not what you think it ment. Geesh

[Snakebitten]

Sorry edited and reworded.

I have to ask however. If matrox does move down this road in the future. Does MURC still ban "leaked" matrox dirvers/utilities if Matrox neither condones nor recommends using them?

[borat]

if they are illegal then they will be banned i would think if not then i see no reason to ban them, these were obtained illegally by what i understand.

[Mikko]

Just to let you know:
My 3DMark benchmark results with leaked drivers, which I posted here a while ago, aren't available at MadOnion comparison site anymore. I don't publish them until the official drivers from Matrox are available. Actually I'll never publish those results again, because the official drivers can possibly give a different result.

[Taz]

Originally posted by Snakebitten
Whats more cost effective than free beta testers? Free labor, input, idea's just for aggresively releasing beta drivers/utilities.

Er isn't that exaclty what the BB's who frequent this forum do

Matrox have just decided to do it in a more controlled way

[TdB]

This or actually release beta/unsupported drivers/utilities on a regular basis on the matrox website.

they allready do this, just take a look here: http://www.matrox.com/mga/support/dr...atest/home.cfm

the newest gxxx drivers are unsuppoted beta drivers, but unlike leaked drivers from the competition, they actually work well and are stable.
matrox cares about driver quality, and they can´t maintain that driver quality, if their intermediate builds gets leaked all the time.

Has leaking of drivers/utilities tarnished ATI/Nvidia?

yes, IMO there is a reason why matrox has a reputation for having more stable drivers than ati/nvidia, and thats because leaked drivers often are more unstable than official drivers/official betas.
the user who installs the leaked drivers might be aware of the potential issues, but, for example, his friend who visits him, only sees an unstable geforce/radeon, who then tell his other friends, that his friend´s geforce/radeon is very unstable, and thus a bad reputation appears.

[GT98]

Snakebitten,

You have to relize that Matrox's Video Graphics Department isn't the only thing they make money off of. If you check out their website they have a Huge professional Video Editing product line, Imaging hardware and software,and even sell Network products.

I would venture to say that they have the entire Multimontior dept market pretty much sewn up with their MMS Series and I bet their Digital Video products make up a large portion of the DV editing equpiment out there. This explans how they could have kept making money in the past 2 years and not folded up like 3Dfx, since they aren't totally dependant on just the PC market out there.

I would rather see Matrox keep what they are doing....offering a high quaitly product with good to excellent drivers. The only thing that unsupported drivers do is add to tech supports headaches when it comes down to it and fustrates the customer when they have major problems with it...just look at what happens with some builds of Nvidia's Detnoator drivers or even with ATI supported drivers at times

[Indiana]

Speaking of ATI, there is absolutley no difference in stability between leaked drivers and official drivers here. For instance the latest official drivers (even WHQL'ed) have a strange random crash-bug with Mozilla1.0 that is not present in the last leaked driver before...
I would rate NVidias driver better than Matrox though, especially for OGL, but nowadays even for D3D.

If Matrox is reacting that heavy on a leaked driver, that is their choice and maybe they have their reasons. It still does look a bit strange from "the outside". And if they're that tight on driver-leaks, they SHOULD release drivers themselves more often. Even if it is only minor fixes and/or speed improvements, they ARE welcome to most users.

[TdB]

I must admit, i never owned an nvidia or ati-card myself, so i can´t say how stable they are, but i have NEVER had a driver-related crash with my g400max.
however, being thight regarding leaked drivers gives matrox the control over their own reputation, while nvidia/ati can only hope that some of their less than exellent intermediate builds doesn´t get leaked.
The keyword is control.
matrox CHOOSES which drivers the puplic gets, nvidia/ati doesn´t.