My 10 days experience with the 9700 pro

[Kruzin]

2400x600?
I been playing my surround games at 3840x768+16xFAA (2,949,120 pixels)...which is WAY more than 1600x1200 (1,920,000 pixels).

So the frame rate of your ATI at this res with AA on??
nya nya nya.

Face it...not everyone gives a crap for frame rates. Some of us are smarter than that. As long as it is playable and smooth, an intelligent mind wont care if it's at 50 or 100 fps. Especially when you get the added benefit of surround gaming.

Now everyone grow up, and stop this pissing match. You sound like some lame nvidia group whipping it out to see whose is bigger. Guess what. M's is bigger, others are just faster (and less satisfying).

[Novdid]

It's not a pissing match, it's a "hey it's a joke match", hence the "'s" and the "'s".

[borat]

Well made point kruzin, i can play UT2003 at 3072x768 +faa+aniso at smooth framerates, never bothered measuring them but they are smooth to the eye on all but a few maps then i simply disable aniso and its perfectly smooth again, its a matter of choice, i am hooked on surround gaming now but competitors are faster so its whatever does it for you really.i think parhelia is a fine gaming card, its flawed in places(banding) but it plays everything i run with ease.

[crow8k3a]

the x600 looks great when you have fAA on

[Eon]

Originally posted by Kruzin
2400x600?
I been playing my surround games at 3840x768+16xFAA (2,949,120 pixels)...which is WAY more than 1600x1200 (1,920,000 pixels).

How many screens is that actually? Three?

1280x768x3 is just that, you have 3x more information visible at the time, but it has less DPI precision than if you had more pixels on the same screen, so as far as your eyes are concerned == less details.

So the frame rate of your ATI at this res with AA on??

Usually in the vast majority of games with a good machine you play at 1600x1200 with 16x Aniso filtering (so no blurry textures) and 8x AA (without parasitic artifacts or missed AA items).

nya nya nya.

please, this is not a kindergarten, get a hold of yourself.

Face it...not everyone gives a crap for frame rates. Some of us are smarter than that. As long as it is playable and smooth, an intelligent mind wont care if it's at 50 or 100 fps. Especially when you get the added benefit of surround gaming.

Now everyone grow up, and stop this pissing match. You sound like some lame nvidia group whipping it out to see whose is bigger. Guess what. M's is bigger, others are just faster (and less satisfying). [/B]

Unfortunately the vast majority of the non-enlightened, uneducated and unwashed market has decided otherwise, obviously diligent customers vote with their feet and wallets.

High-level and quality texture filtering is essential with today’s candy-coated games, not to mention that everybody having played games, especially the FPS kind, knows that average frame rates and the orthodox “60 FPS is enough!” mantra doesn’t mean anything, it’s about having a minimal frame rate so that the game doesn’t crawl to a slideshow when you got a heavily loaded scene. Even if you get a part that plays fine at 50 fps most of the time, if it drops to 10 fps it’s going to completely destroy the user experience even if 10 screens are used.

[Ryu Connor]

So the frame rate of your ATI at this res with AA on??

Given how poor the Parhelia performs at it, it wouldn't be all that hard to best it.

[Bigg]

need three screens...
flight simulator 2002 pro would look mighty good on a P. so would combat sim 3.
jeez... this is a MATROX forum, and you are dissing matrox's main card?? c'mon. if you wan to dis it, go on over to the [H], or Overclockers, where they dis it all the time. but not on a MATROX forum. BTW. I do know this is in no way associated with Matrox... but still

[Wombat]

We'll disrespect the card if we feel like it. This is a Matrox <B>user</B> site, not a Matrox <B>fan</B> site. We try to remain objective here. Besides, [H] is a crappy site: Kyle is a whiny baby, and they edit/ban people in their forums when they don't like what is said.

And unfortunately, FS2002 doesn't look that hot on a Parhelia because Matrox has a circuitry bug that makes some stuff look like crap with FAA on.

[ZokesPro]

Most of you guys are running very powerful machines and yet I have a petty MSI GeForce 2 Pro in my system and I find the graphics to be fine and the gameplay smooth. I don't go any higher than 1024x768 @16bit though.

People should stop counting frames and look at quality. I'm sure if I owned a Parhelia, I would be BLOWN away by the graphics, and it's obviously faster than my GeFart Deux.

[Wombat]

Originally posted by ZokesPro I'm sure if I owned a Parhelia, I would be BLOWN away by the graphics, and it's obviously faster than my GeFart Deux. [/B]

Don't count on it. The drivers suck.

[Kruzin]

Originally posted by Wombat
Don't count on it. The drivers suck.

That's funny...an ATI owner dissing Matrox drivers

I have seen nothing sucky about the drivers that have been released for Parhelia. They have been stable, feature rich, and gotten faster with each major release.
While they are not as mature as the Gxx0 Powerdesks, I find them WAY better than the Radeon drivers I have to use at work, especially when it comes to multi-monitor support.

[Wombat]

Originally posted by Kruzin
That's funny...an ATI owner dissing Matrox drivers

I have seen nothing sucky about the drivers that have been released for Parhelia. They have been stable, feature rich, and gotten faster with each major release.
While they are not as mature as the Gxx0 Powerdesks, I find them WAY better than the Radeon drivers I have to use at work, especially when it comes to multi-monitor support.

I have never owned an ATI card, ever. I have owned a Parhelia. I no longer own a Parhelia because it gets about 18fps on Half-Life at 1024x768x16, no FAA/FSAA. Oh, and it's stuck at 60Hz. As of the 1.03 drivers Matrox did not care to fix any of this, despite myself and others reporting it on their forums.
My G400 was faster than that.

I "downgraded" back to my GF3Ti (which is clearly visible in my sig), and Now I have 72fps (HL cap) at 1280x960x32 with FSAA on, at 85Hz.

[Kruzin]

Originally posted by Wombat
I have never owned an ATI card, ever. I have owned a Parhelia. I no longer own a Parhelia because it gets about 18fps on Half-Life at 1024x768x16, no FAA/FSAA. Oh, and it's stuck at 60Hz. As of the 1.03 drivers Matrox did not care to fix any of this, despite myself and others reporting it on their forums.
My G400 was faster than that.

I "downgraded" back to my GF3Ti (which is clearly visible in my sig), and Now I have 72fps (HL cap) at 1280x960x32 with FSAA on, at 85Hz.

OK...I mis-typed when I said ATI....but it's not like nCrapia are all that much better with their weeky driver updates. I also have a GF based card at work, and it is on my parts shelf because it causes so many system lock-ups in basic desktop uses.

As far as frame rates in HL...I just came out of a TFC game.. I have my maxfps set to 100. It never went below 70, pegged at 99 most of the time, according to Fraps (no idea where you get the idea that 72 is the max HL can handle). This is at 1024x768 with 16xFAA. And the 60Hz issue is NOT unique to Parhelia. Many cards experience this problem (a quick browsing of any HL forum will show you that). It's a game problem, not a Parhelia specific problem.

You're happy with your GF. Fine. Good for you. That's your choice.
But i'm getting tired of you bad-mouthing Parhelia every chance you get. It's not the POS you would have everyone believe. Not even close.

[Wombat]

Originally posted by Kruzin
OK...I mis-typed when I said ATI....but it's not like nCrapia are all that much better with their weeky driver updates. I also have a GF based card at work, and it is on my parts shelf because it causes so many system lock-ups in basic desktop uses.

As far as frame rates in HL...I just came out of a TFC game.. I have my maxfps set to 100. It never went below 70, pegged at 99 most of the time, according to Fraps (no idea where you get the idea that 72 is the max HL can handle). This is at 1024x768 with 16xFAA. And the 60Hz issue is NOT unique to Parhelia. Many cards experience this problem (a quick browsing of any HL forum will show you that). It's a game problem, not a Parhelia specific problem.

You're happy with your GF. Fine. Good for you. That's your choice.
But i'm getting tired of you bad-mouthing Parhelia every chance you get. It's not the POS you would have everyone believe. Not even close.

Weekly driver updates? You're dating yourself. nVidia used to be like that, but I don't see them acting that way now. The drivers I'm using now are the third set I've used since I bought the card. They are the "latest", released over two months ago. I've never had my GF3 or my P cause a blue screen, so they're neck-and-neck for stability. Scratch that - PowerDesk would crash out a couple times a week, so I guess the GF3 is more stable.

Okay, you cranked up your maxfps number higher than mine, big deal. Why are your frame rates so much higher than mine and others? My system is comparable to yours. I doubt you have an explanation, and Matrox doesn't either, although they too have seen the problem?

Yes, the 60Hz is a game bug, or XP bug, or whatever, but other cards have workarounds, and P apparently does not. I tried a complete format and reinstall, but still the P never performed. If I played the Natural Selection mod, frame rates often dropped into the single digits.

My card was a pretty bad bander. Has Matrox even <I>acknowledged</I> that problem yet? The card itself far is so-so, maybe be even very good. The support and company behind it is awful of late.

[Kruzin]

In the last 12 months, nVidia has released well over 20 driver updates (including public betas). That averages a release about every 2 weeks. Yea, in the last 2 months they have slowed down, but that is only because they where spending so much time on the now dead GF_FX card's drivers. Now that this card is finished before it even started, I expect they will pick up the pace again.

As far as BSOD's, I have never had one on public drivers, and only a few on non-public betas. My current up-time is over 2 weeks...the last time I rebooted to install new betas.

Why are my FPS higher than your's in HL? Because I know how to set up the game properly.

And there you go on the 60Hz bug. You blame Parhelia, then admit it's a game/XP issue. So Matrox hasn't made a work-around. Oh well. The game is almost 5 years old. They have bigger fish to fry than a now ancient game.

And yes, Matrox has acknowledged the banding issue in their TS forums. And as bad as many would make this issue sound, it only happens in very specific situations. Most of the time, under normal use, there is no banding.

Their support is awful? What other graphics card company hosts their own TS forums, where you can count on a reply to any post from a TS rep the same day, often within an hour if you post during business hours? None.

Grow up, and stop trolling. You where once a valued member of these forums, now in my eyes, you are one of the biggest whiners. If you hate the card and company so damn much, go sign up at some nVidiot board, where you can stroke each others egos over your FPS count.

I'm done with this thread, and your constant bitching.