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**Maggi** · 8 October 2002, 08:20

it looks as if your monitors had bad shielding and would interfere with each other ...

**thop** · 8 October 2002, 08:41

Or it could be another non-fixable hardware issue, I got nvidia cards and they are full og them The DXTC1 problem in GF1 wasn't fized until the GF4 for example. Are there any gfx cards out there without any hw issue?

thats exactly the point. when i buy myself a nvidia card i don't expect quality all around. i know what i get for the buck. if i happen to get one that has good image quality it's a nice addon, but if not then i'm not complaining because i didn't expect it in the first place. IQ is just an example.

now with matrox things are different. i'm not revealing any secret when i say matrox cards are expensive

but many people gladly pay the extra price so that they don't have to bother with quality issues. and there seems to be one here.

now i dunno if this is a big deal since i havent seen the problem. also i wonder if matrox knew this before they shipped the parhelia and considered it a minor problem or if some guy in the QA department is getting his butt kicked during the last days

**UberLord** · 8 October 2002, 10:17

Originally posted by thop
now i dunno if this is a big deal since i havent seen the problem.

It's a big deal for people affected by the problem.

For example, I can no-longer admin UT clan matches as my eyes hurt because I have to run UT in a window and have an IRC channel open at the same time.

also i wonder if matrox knew this before they shipped the parhelia and considered it a minor problem or if some guy in the QA department is getting his butt kicked during the last days

If the problem can't be fixed without RMA'ing the cards then I'd expect heads to roll if I was da Boss. Luckily for those responsible, I ain't

**GT98** · 8 October 2002, 11:11

Originally posted by UberLord

If the problem can't be fixed without RMA'ing the cards then I'd expect heads to roll if I was da Boss. Luckily for those responsible, I ain't

Too bad it doesn't happen

**The PIT** · 8 October 2002, 13:40

Funny it's taken so long to surface. Is a case that someones noticed it and then everyones started looking for it and once noticed it so annoying you bugs you to hell. Or is a few cards effected???
If it's just suddenly appeared it maybe a driver problem. Just trying to positive on this one.
Also saying that Matrox should have spotted it it seems that none of the reviewers have spotted it either.

**Indiana** · 8 October 2002, 14:53

This seems to me e.g. like the "800x600 resolution has a crappy pixelized image on TVOut" problem with the Radeon8500. I had this and wondered that noone else complained but didn't really bother that much as 1024x768 and my self created 768x520 resolution for DVDs worked quite fine.
But when some guy (nintari?) posted this on Rage3D people began looking and guess what: quite a few started complaining afterwards...

**UberLord** · 8 October 2002, 16:25

Originally posted by Indiana
This seems to me e.g. like the 800x600 resolution has a crappy pixelized image on TVOut problem with the Radeon8500. I had this and wondered that noone els complained but didn't really bother that much as 1024x768 and my selfcreated 768x520 resolution for DVDs worked quite fine.
But when some guy (nintari?) posted this on Rage3D people began looking and guess what: quite a few started complaining afterwards...

True - but what the post starter over at the matrox forums did was put the problem into words that I couldn't.

I was actually in the process of borrowing a spare monitor + cable as I thought it was a problem there. I did test the other monitor and it was still the same.

**Wombat** · 8 October 2002, 16:46

Just because it wasn't posted in the forums before doesn't mean that there weren't plenty of people telling Matrox about it.

**Muad'Dib** · 8 October 2002, 22:29

Strange. I hadn't noticed any flickering on my parhelia. In fact, it seemed pretty good to me in the 3d respect. Well, I'll take note of this when I get my card back.

This is a BAD thing I'm thinking. I wonder how come nobody noticed this in the reviews when they came out? Or am I forgetting something?

**Wombat** · 8 October 2002, 22:41

It doesn't seem to be every card. Many/most are probably just fine.

**Maggi** · 9 October 2002, 01:36

Hi Guys,

to see what we're talking, you should set your desktop background color to a light grey (eg. 200/200/200 R/G/B) and either launch the PowerDVD system check or any 3D app that runs in a window.

While it's running, you should observe your DT background and you'll either see some sort of 'pumping' in brightness or maybe even some soft bandings that start wandering over your screen.

Most intertesting to me is, that the banding is stretched over both of my VGAs and moves synchronously.

I could simulate a screenshot if anybody wants me to.

**DGhost** · 9 October 2002, 01:37

what i found interesting about it is that in EQ, if i drag windows around in game the distortions change... the area of primary focus follows the windows around... kinda funny...

**luni** · 9 October 2002, 04:38

Originally posted by The PIT
Funny it's taken so long to surface. Is a case that someones noticed it and then everyones started looking for it and once noticed it so annoying you bugs you to hell. Or is a few cards effected???
If it's just suddenly appeared it maybe a driver problem. Just trying to positive on this one.
Also saying that Matrox should have spotted it it seems that none of the reviewers have spotted it either.

Think the reason for that is that problem looks so much like some interference or cable issue that many people probably thought it was localized problem with their own setup (I did for instance). Guess it took some time for users to become so annoyed with it to try and swap monitors, cables, move components around and when the thing was still there, someone posted on forums. The rest is history...

**Muad'Dib** · 9 October 2002, 09:04

Just out of curiosity, are the problems spread across the retail and OEM boards?

**103er-Fan** · 18 October 2002, 15:51

Well, I just did some testings and I also have this problem, I ran the Power DVD diagnostic programm, if you have a bright wallpaper (just set it to white for testing), you can the the problems. But this also happen in games:
When you find some clues in NOLF2, the paper you see is white, and if you have a closer look at it, you can also see the corruption, though it is running in fullscreen mode.

I really hope Matrox can fix this, I am not sure how much it really "hurts" the eye and the head, but I get headache a bit faster than a couple of months ago, but otherwise that might just be me

Announcement

BAD parhelia image problems, reputation damaging!

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