New Parhelia Drivers!

[JaG]

Anyway Nuno and DGhost, that's what I ment with a bit lacking 'practical knowledge'.

It's Matrox' first generation of those modern achitectures. Balanced hardware design or not. In hardware and software might help optimizations still very much. For it's first step into the world of more complex 3D accelerators, Parhelia offers some really interesting details.

Well, perhaps the biggest mistake was, that Parhelia came a bit late last July. One year earlier with a less complex design, they might be already further with actual products. Since the market entry of vertex and pixel shaders (at least the programmable ones...) much has changed in architectural requirements.

On graphic market followed one revolution the next in the last years. I think it slows down a bit now and goes more into details. So we'll see, how the next Matrox architectures will appear and how they will perform.

[Nuno]

I guarantee that if ATI had chosen to do a 4x4 architecture and Matrox had chosen to do an 8x1, you would be arguing exactly opposite of what you are arguing right now.

Every design choice is arguable, but I stand to the point a 4x4 is not an efficient design. Ati did a mistake with their 2x3 with the original Radeon, and they corrected it.

Blame it on drivers or anything else, but Parhelia:
- Doesn´t stand out on heavy multitexturing situations
- Does take a performance hit for trilinear
- Does take a even greater performance hit for anisotropic, why don´t even alow more than 2x aniso on the drivers?

I´m willing to bench a Radeon 9700 at Parhelia clock speeds and then I´ll post the results. (Not now, I´m at work )

DOn´t take me wrong, Parhelia is a nice product as it is, pricing is of course ruins it all. What I´m saying is that it could have been much better, even briliant, but Matrox blew it.

[DGhost]

See, you are trying to compare a 9700 versus a Parhelia. Apples to bananas. Too many differences between the individual components (memory controller, TMU's, pixel pipes) to do it effectively.

Personally, the Parhelia does stand out in heavy multitexturing. But, thats me. And I have seen a couple benchmarks that show it on par with a 9700 Pro. The rest of those problems are with Matrox's specific implementation.

In a 4x4 product design when using 9 textures (a realistic number for the next generation of games) it would only take 6 passes to render 8 pixels. On an 8x1 it is going to take 9 passes. That is a fairly hefty difference. Where the Parhelia falters and the 9700 excels is the amount of time it takes to do each pass. Latency with memory access, amount of time it takes to read each texture, clock speed, etc.

If ATI did a 4x4 product it could very easily wind up being faster than the 9700 Pro or 9800 Pro in the next generation of games that are coming out. As well as being cheaper.

As far as the Radeon being 2x3 and failing... look at the time it was released... no games were being released to use more than dualtexturing, even though ATI pressured it. And it was the only card with 3 TMU's, not worth the effort to optimize for, let alone develop specific content.

Look at the stuff coming out in the future though. Doom3 will use 7-9 textures per poly. The Unreal engine stuff is probably going to use a fairly similar number because of the real time lighting/shadow casting.

There is no true substitute for multitexturing capabilities.

[K6-III]

Originally posted by tjalfe
which bridge needs to be cut to get the multipliers higher than 12.5X?.. I guess I could look it up elsewhere, but this is easier

The interactive Thoughbred Painting Guide will tell you: http://www.ocinside.de/go_e.html?/ht..._painting.html

[lecter]

Hey, can someone benchmark a Quake engine game like RTCW, Jedi or even Quake3? I'm curious about the real-world OpenGL increases (would've done it myself, but my Parhelia is in a different hemisphere at the moment ) Oh yeah, and Serious Sam would also be interesting...

[Tjalfe]

Originally posted by K6-III
The interactive Thoughbred Painting Guide will tell you: http://www.ocinside.de/go_e.html?/ht..._painting.html

Thanks

[K6-III]

Originally posted by WyWyWyWy
Something wrong? 2.5ghz XP should be faster than 492 CPU score... hmm... FSB? It is only 179! Make it 210*12!!

You're right. I'll look into it when I get home.

[Nuno]

See, you are trying to compare a 9700 versus a Parhelia. Apples to bananas. Too many differences between the individual components (memory controller, TMU's, pixel pipes) to do it effectively

DGhost, I said I would benchmark my R9700 at same speeds because you said:

Clock for clock it would be capable of beating a 9700 Pro or 9800 Pro in any Doom3 engine game or most of the next gen Unreal engine games

I know they´re not comparable.

Personally, the Parhelia does stand out in heavy multitexturing. But, thats me. And I have seen a couple benchmarks that show it on par with a 9700 Pro. The rest of those problems are with Matrox's specific implementation.

Wich benchmarks? On templemark it performs on par with a KyroII. On Doom III leak it doesn´t even reach 10 fps (ok, forget this one, it´s foolish to draw conclusions from leaked alpha software)

Anyway, this subject was already discussed on http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php...k&pagenumber=1
Look, I´m not trying to troll here or something like that. I do have my opinion on Parhelia, and I accept I don´t even start to know the whole picture about Parhelia development, nor do I have technical knowedgle to do that.
What makes me real sad is that Matrox may have made a mistake about Parhelia launch, and they´re not willing to correct or even to admit it, they´ll get out slower AGP 8X parts based on the same core instead. It would be very very sad to see Matrox going down like Number9 or 3dfx.

[Maggi]

Originally posted by BoD.Led
Changing the DVDMax source doesn't work for me!!?
Someone having the same problem?

same here when I try to toggle between my DVB-s TV card and WinDVD ...

[joonie]

Getting pretty hot in here
The problem is, can Matrox do anything with their drivers or anything to get the best performance out of Parhelia?

[chhfchhf]

release notes
PowerDesk V1.04.00.078 for Win2k/XP

-----------------------------------





Supported Products

------------------



Parhelia 128MB

Parhelia 256MB





Description of release

----------------------



Supports Windows 2000 and Windows XP.





New Features

------------



2D:



- Support for the Matrox Monitor Manager utility which allows to define

monitor settings, such as resolution and refresh rate.



- PowerDesk-HF advanced option in the Desktop Management category to adjust

the desktop management settings for different applications.





3D:



CAD/MCAD/DCC:



- Added Matrox certification for following applications:

Pro/Engineer 2001 and WildFire

Catia v5r10

SmartPlant Review



- Updated Matrox certification for following applications:

AutoDesk AutoCad 2002

AutoDesk Inventor 6

ERSI Arc View 8.x

Lighwave 3D 7.5

Solid Edge V12 and V14



Multimedia:



- PureVideo/DVDMax can toggle with a hotkey between up to 2 different video

window using the overlay, and with different WYSIWYG plug-in preview window.



- WYSIWYG plug-in for PhotoShop preview on TV (or on a monitor). See the

Matrox

Photoshop WYSIWYG plug-in's readme.txt file for more information.



- PureVideo/DVDMax support for Ulead MSPro 7





Main Fixes

----------



2D:



- Fixed PowerDesk-HF crash after reboot or "log on/log off" sequence.



- Blinking cursor disappears from 3rd display in 3 displays stretched mode.



- Font corruption in Excel 2002.



- Missing resolutions when in singlehead mode. Clients are asked to use our

monitor manager. We recommend that you use our monitor manager to create a

new monitor profile.



- Blank display when using 3 digital panels in analog mode. We recommend

that

you use our Monitor Manager utility to create a new monitor profile.





Games:



- Fixed a flashing pointer when in Clone mode with a TV. Games affected

were:

Age of Mythology, Dark Age of Camelot, Escape from Monkey Island,

Combat Flight Sim 3, Combat Mission 2, Star Trek Starfleet Command III, FS

2002.

- Fixed slowdown with text in Freelancer

- Fixed black boxes around text in Freelancer

- Fixed transparency problem with FAA-16 when approaching water in Asheron's Call 2

- Fixed texture corruption on the ground in Unreal II

- Fixed corruption of textures in Sum of All Fears

- Fixed blue screen with Mars and displacement mapping demos

- Fixed Splinter Cell when FAA-16 is enabled, you no longer see through walls

- Fixed lockup in Tenebrae when fragment shader is enabled

- Fixed slowdown in Counter-Strike in certain areas

- Fixed pixel shaders on characters in Asheron's Call 2

- Fixed corruption in 3dmark 2003

- Fixed the corruption and flashing polygons during the intro of Shadow of Destiny

- Fixed crashing in Shadowbane when changing terrain detail levels

- Fixed slowdown in Shadowbane when the intro is playing

- Fixed detail texturing not getting mipped in Serious Sam: Secound Encounter

- Fixed slowdown in There in certain areas

- Fixed texture compression in There when changing modes

- Fixed problem in Rightmark where the girl's eyes are popping out

- Fixed corruption of textures in Aces High

- Fixed problem with Revolution not running on Parhelia

- Fixed sun reflection pulsating on the floor in Moto GP

- Fixed corruption with GLMark 1.2 and Neverwinter Nights @ 1024x768 on Parhelia 256MB





Cad/Mcad/DCC:



- Slow OpenGL performance in Combustion.

- Crashes in Petrel application after render performing a render.

- One light would get displayed in Combustion when using a scene with

multiple light sources.





Multimedia:



- Fixed choppy Clone on the TV when the TV standard is PAL.

- Fixed blank path entry when doing the Setup for Lightwave plug-in

(now use the default path).





Main known issues

-----------------



2D:



- Glyph AA is causing black borders on webpages's text with transparent

backgrounds when in singlehead mode.



- Powerdesk-HF does not load in Windows 2003 server and will report

"An unexpected Error has occured". The problem can be fixed if you install

DotNet version 1.0.





Games:



Cad/Mcad/DCC:



- 16xaa will not engage in the LightWave viewports.



- Slow performance in Messiah when in metanurb mode.



- Contents of our frame buffer will be displayed for a short while when

opening SoftImage3D when in any multihead mode.





Multimedia:



- Overlay issues with Hauppauge and Canopus series of cards.



- No overlay in Matrox Media Tools when using a Matrox Parhelia 256Mb board



- Playing back WM8 or WM9 encoded clips will show a green square in the top

left of the video when using Windows Media Player 9.





Known Limitations

-----------------



2D:



- A setup with a CRT, DFP, and a TV is not supported for independant display

mode.





Games:



- App hints will automatically enable HUD mode for the following titles:



Jedi Knight Outcast single and multi-player



Quake III Arena and Team Arena



Return to Castle Wolfenstein single and multi-player



Duke Nukem Manhattan Project





Please disable HUD mode if you wish to play in single display mode.





Cad/Mcad/DCC:



- The PrecisionCAD driver will not install over a network. Clients are

asked

to copy the drivers onto their system over the network prior to installing

the drivers.



- You cannot open PowerDesk when SoftImage3D is open. This is normal since

Softimage all

take over the windows focus. Use the "Windows" key on your keyboard to get

back

the focus, and open PowerDesk.



- Reflections do not appear in Combustion when in OpenGL mode.





Multimedia:



- When in Dualhead with "Special Feature" mode, overlay is provided ONLY on

the primary output when the overlay switch is enbaled. Media players will

display a blank video window when dragged over the the 2ndary output but

the video clip will still output via DVDMax. With the overlay switch

disabled, you will get blit on all outputs when in any stretched desktop

mode but DVDmax will be disabled.



- "Show Desktop" will lose DVDMax with Avid ExpressDV. This occurs because

the application does not recreate the overlay surfaces after a resolution

change, so DVDMax cannot restart.



- Dual-Display and TV-output feature will work with Video Editing

applications that support overlay surfaces for video preview.



- Real-time Preview is supported only with video editing applications that

have this capability built-in.



- When in 2 Independent + feature, premiere hangs when draging the video

window from a display to another while the video is playing.