Matrox Legendary 2D Image Quality Revisited

[bsdgeek]

I don't have banding during 2d/overlay/PowerDVD testing, or it was too little to notice. I've only seen banding once during the Hoth level on JK:JA.

However, I must say that any card which has a problem like this is a crappy card, especially one with laacking support and varying clock speeds.

[WyWyWyWy]

Originally posted by bsdgeek
However, I must say that any card which has a problem like this is a crappy card, especially one with laacking support and varying clock speeds.

In short, broken promises.

Sr17, would you please share your methodology as to "testing" the quality of various gfx cards?

Thanks.

[X-Caliber]

Hey Wombat,

Aside from the Banding issues, what are some of the other issues with this card?

Thanks,

-V-

[Sr17]

Originally posted by The PIT
Sr17 I think you're confusing external interferance with an internal design fault.

No

This is more complex than "a design fault".

Because if it was a simple design fault of the chip, all Parhelia would be affected.

And I don't believe too much to the "defective chips" theory.

But maybe the design have a flaw and the Parhelia have problems in certain circomstances with certain mobo or other environmental problems.

And, yes an external cause may cause such problems.

A chip contains a lot of logic circuitry. When the logic circuitry is working, this is doing pollution in the input current.
In the case where the supply of the card is too weak, the logic part may cause such pollution in a level where the RAMDAC may be affected.
Why ? Because when logic circuits are working, they need high current at a moment. If the power chain can not supply, it can result in voltage variation in the power supply of the chip.

Since power is like water. When you are taking a bath and using water, you might be disturbed by another person using water at the same time, resulting in pressure variation and temperature variation.

You must note that the problem must come from multiples causes including defective or weak capacitors on the card. But it may come also from mobo if it can't provide high enough intensity.

I have already seen problems like this because i have already done some hardare design.

Ok, you can say to me that you are a customer and it's not your problem. You'r right and that is also my opinion : Yes Matrox fault is here.

But in order to help those who have a Parhelia, it may be useful to try to understand this problem.

Maybe it can come in some motherboards and not in others.

Don't forget that this is like an chain. One "faulty" element and it whon't work.

Some other card don't eat so high current or they include external power connector.

[Sr17]

Originally posted by WyWyWyWy
In short, broken promises.

Sr17, would you please share your methodology as to "testing" the quality of various gfx cards?

Thanks.

The methodology for testing :

First, I use a very good monitor : The sony F520.

And for testing, only try the two cards and look at the text bluriness with little fonts like in windows explorer.

Of course, you may use same resolutions and refresh rate for all the cards. I have tested at 1600x1200@85hz.

When testing with the Parhelia, the G400, G550 and Hercules Radeon 8500LE i can say :

Betwen Parhelia and Radeon, the Parhelia is realy a lot better.

Betwen Parhelia and G550, again the Parhelia is realy better.

Betwen Parhelia and G400 it's difficult to say. In may opinion they are on par.

I must note that these results are realy clear and at this level I cand not do mistakes or errors.

[Sr17]

Originally posted by bsdgeek
I don't have banding during 2d/overlay/PowerDVD testing, or it was too little to notice. I've only seen banding once during the Hoth level on JK:JA.

However, I must say that any card which has a problem like this is a crappy card, especially one with laacking support and varying clock speeds.

And for you, a card that have no banding at all but a blury disply isn't a crappy card ?

And what are you calling "laacking support" ? Matrox support seems to be as good as other manufacturer support.

For the varying clock speed, with other manufacturers you get varying clock stability margin because each chip getting out has it's own max clock speed.

Yes, the Retail buyer that have found a 207 Mhz clock speed can be hangry. But it seems that matrox has run out of chip that can reach 220 MHZ. What to do in that case ? Stop doing Retail versions ?

The Retail Parhelia I have bought isn't running at 220 Mhz. And what ? It run fine for me. I lost some FPS. Yes. But the parhelia is the ONLY card i can use for work and play because mu eyes don't like blury text.

[Sr17]

Originally posted by Wombat
I switched to a high-quality 450W power supply to try to alleviate the banding. It didn't help.

Have you tried another motherboard ?

[bsdgeek]

Originally posted by Sr17
And for you, a card that have no banding at all but a blury disply isn't a crappy card ?

Just because it's not a Parhelia does not mean it's automatically blurry, the G400Max I have in one of my boxes is not a crappy card, the new P650 & P750 aren't crappy cards, they have sharp outputs without banding. Even ATi cards aren't that bad when it comes to 2D quality.

And what are you calling "laacking support" ? Matrox support seems to be as good as other manufacturer support.

They steadfastly refuse to implement Vertex Shaders 2.0, DirectX 9 support, a properly working set of Linux drivers, or to fix several bugs that have been complained about since release (even before those offices got axed). In fact, VS2 has been erased from existence, with no mention of it left on their website. That is the very definition of lacking support.

For the varying clock speed, with other manufacturers you get varying clock stability margin because each chip getting out has it's own max clock speed.

Yes, the Retail buyer that have found a 207 Mhz clock speed can be hangry. But it seems that matrox has run out of chip that can reach 220 MHZ. What to do in that case ? Stop doing Retail versions ?

The Retail Parhelia I have bought isn't running at 220 Mhz. And what ? It run fine for me. I lost some FPS. Yes. But the parhelia is the ONLY card i can use for work and play because mu eyes don't like blury text.

They advertised it at 220MHz with no clock speed variances, several months later a "+/- 10%" mark was added. With other manufacturers, they toss out the chip or rebadge it as another, lower-clocked/piped/whatever product. They do not simply sell it as-is with a lower clock and expect everything to be peachy.

This has all been discussed to death, and yes it is a design fault, and a design fault which has been, like many other things, swept under the Matrox carpet. It was also a design fault which was known about by Matrox before release, yet it was given the green-light for production anyway, Parhelia is half-baked.

[Sr17]

Originally posted by bsdgeek
Just because it's not a Parhelia does not mean it's automatically blurry, the G400Max I have in one of my boxes is not a crappy card, the new P650 & P750 aren't crappy cards, they have sharp outputs without banding.]

Yes. It's true.

But they haven't the 3D capacity of the Parhelia.

If you don't have the need of 3D, the G400 and P650-750 are great cards for you.

I bought the Parhelia because I ***WANTED*** 3D. Yes, the Parhelia isn't the fastest card on the marked. But it work correctly for all the game I tried. Even the FPS like UT2003.

Even ATi cards aren't that bad when it comes to 2D quality.

Sorry, but in my own test, the Parhelia is realy better than ATI"s cards. It seems that ATI use third order filters where matrox use 5th order filters.
But yes, you can get a good ati with good 2D capacity. It's the FireGL series. But like the Parhelia the price is also very high for the 3D capacities.
In my country, the price of a fireGL card based on the Radeon 8500 is higher than the Parhelia price.

They steadfastly refuse to implement Vertex Shaders 2.0, DirectX 9 support

First, they never promise a FULL DirectX 9.0 support but only some functions.

But you should understand that these functions are completely USELESS without a full DirectX 9.0 support because NO GAMES wille use a partial API and they all switch to Direct X 8.x functions.
For using these functions, the developpers must have developped a "codepath" for Parhelia only. Developpers will never do that because there is only few Parhelia customers.

What is the interest of to have useless functions : They aren't.

Note that all could have been different if Matrox sold great number of cars. The developpers could have made a "CodePath" for it.
In a time, John Carmack said that it would implement a codepath for the Parhelia. But i say after that he whon't do it.

I think that Matrox can do more interesting things for the customers than using the developpers time for completelly useless functions. Even if they broke a promise.

a properly working set of Linux drivers

What isn't working in linux drivers ?

or to fix several bugs that have been complained about since release (even before those offices got axed).

Correcting bugs may take a long times in certain cases. Especialy when in some case you must find a way to correct mistakes of some software developpers.
It's also a good idea to correct bugs but trying to not put other bugs in the same time is better.

Globaly i can say that Parhelia drivers are fairly stable and well done. I have no problems, no crashes, no artifactings.

Like all software, I think it has minor bugs. But since the first drivers, Matrox has well worked on it. The only bug I found with a software was fixed by matrox. I gave them infos on the bug and they fixed it.
I can't say th support is crappy. Like other company, they do what they can.

In fact, VS2 has been erased from existence, with no mention of it left on their website. That is the very definition of lacking support.

Stopping support on fonctions that nobody will use isn't a mark of lacking support. A good company must not spending it's power in actions which are useless for customers.

They advertised it at 220MHz with no clock speed variances, several months later a "+/- 10%" mark was added. With other manufacturers, they toss out the chip or rebadge it as another, lower-clocked/piped/whatever product. They do not simply sell it as-is with a lower clock and expect everything to be peachy.

In fact, it seems that even OEM cards works correctly at 220 MHZ. I think they did this choice to ensure maximum stability margin.
But if they wanted to do it more clever, they would havec locked all cards at 220 MHZ like ATI or NVIDIA does...

In the facts, all these cards work over 220 MHZ....

This has all been discussed to death, and yes it is a design fault, and a design fault which has been, like many other things, swept under the Matrox carpet. It was also a design fault which was known about by Matrox before release, yet it was given the green-light for production anyway, Parhelia is half-baked. [/B]

Honestly, do you know one product in the world that has absolutely no design faults ? They aren't.

Past a level of technicity, the problem isn't if there are faults or not, but how many...

[bsdgeek]

Originally posted by Sr17
Yes. It's true.

But they haven't the 3D capacity of the Parhelia.

If you don't have the need of 3D, the G400 and P650-750 are great cards for you.

I bought the Parhelia because I ***WANTED*** 3D. Yes, the Parhelia isn't the fastest card on the marked. But it work correctly for all the game I tried. Even the FPS like UT2003.

Great, good for you.

Sorry, but in my own test, the Parhelia is realy better than ATI"s cards. It seems that ATI use third order filters where matrox use 5th order filters.
But yes, you can get a good ati with good 2D capacity. It's the FireGL series. But like the Parhelia the price is also very high for the 3D capacities.
In my country, the price of a fireGL card based on the Radeon 8500 is higher than the Parhelia price.

I didn't say that they were as good or better than Parhelia, I said that they weren't "that bad".

First, they never promise a FULL DirectX 9.0 support but only some functions.

But you should understand that these functions are completely USELESS without a full DirectX 9.0 support because NO GAMES wille use a partial API and they all switch to Direct X 8.x functions.
For using these functions, the developpers must have developped a "codepath" for Parhelia only. Developpers will never do that because there is only few Parhelia customers.

What is the interest of to have useless functions : They aren't.

Note that all could have been different if Matrox sold great number of cars. The developpers could have made a "CodePath" for it.
In a time, John Carmack said that it would implement a codepath for the Parhelia. But i say after that he whon't do it.

I think that Matrox can do more interesting things for the customers than using the developpers time for completelly useless functions. Even if they broke a promise.

No, I don't care if may or may not be useless. They promised it and are now not only refusing to fulfill that promise, but have removed the feature completely from their website. You think this is OK?

I'll use Maggi's analogy. Let's just say you got a car with a turbo. Then you find out the turbo is turned off at factory, so you go to your dealer. The dealer tells you that it's not going to be that beneficial, and there aren't any streets where you can drive it that fast anyway, so it's just too bad, no turbo for you. How would you feel about that?

What isn't working in linux drivers ?

A better question would be: "What is working in the Linux drivers?" OpenGL is barely there on an unsupported driver, Xv, DPMS both missing, it doesn't run right on SMP machines, and on some distributions busmastering and/or OpenGL just get shut off. Look, even if you completely ignore everything else that I say, that right there justifies my statement of "lacking support".

Correcting bugs may take a long times in certain cases. Especialy when in some case you must find a way to correct mistakes of some software developpers.
It's also a good idea to correct bugs but trying to not put other bugs in the same time is better.

Globaly i can say that Parhelia drivers are fairly stable and well done. I have no problems, no crashes, no artifactings.

Like all software, I think it has minor bugs. But since the first drivers, Matrox has well worked on it. The only bug I found with a software was fixed by matrox. I gave them infos on the bug and they fixed it.
I can't say th support is crappy. Like other company, they do what they can.

Yes, I like Powerdesk, it is stable, overall it's a very nice interface. But, there are several things which they just haven't fixed that have been complained about repeatedly. Multidesk and Milkdrop to name a couple.

Stopping support on fonctions that nobody will use isn't a mark of lacking support. A good company must not spending it's power in actions which are useless for customers.

A good company doesn't pretend that certain features don't exist, or hide behind little secret clauses that were added after-the-fact.

In fact, it seems that even OEM cards works correctly at 220 MHZ. I think they did this choice to ensure maximum stability margin.

Yes, some OEM cards may work at 220MHz, so what? What are you trying to prove? Of course they clocked them down to ensure stability, that's the only reason they have to do so. That doesn't change the fact that the "+/-10%" was added after many had purchased the card, and they still got lower clocked Parhelias.

But if they wanted to do it more clever, they would havec locked all cards at 220 MHZ like ATI or NVIDIA does...

Huh?

In the facts, all these cards work over 220 MHZ....

That's not a fact, not all of these cards work over 220MHz.

Honestly, do you know one product in the world that has absolutely no design faults ? They aren't.

Past a level of technicity, the problem isn't if there are faults or not, but how many...

How about some reading material?

http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?s=&threadid=44959

http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?s=&threadid=45077

http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?s=&threadid=44988

http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?s=&threadid=44893

http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?s=&threadid=44846

http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?s=&threadid=44954

http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?s=&threadid=36666&highlight=horizontal+disturbs

[sparky001]

We have stumbled upon a real fanboy here. Think back to when we all used to be like this, now we are a jaded bunch who have been ripped of by matrox one to many times for us to stand it any longer.

I am enjoying this debate.

However I do need to ask what is the problem with milkdrop?
I dont have a parhelia but I was thinking how good it would be to run milkdrop on a p750 (if I get one.)

[Maggi]

Originally posted by Sr17
...

I bought the Parhelia because I ***WANTED*** 3D. Yes, the Parhelia isn't the fastest card on the marked. But it work correctly for all the game I tried. Even the FPS like UT2003.
...

so you never played a 3D game that renders fog and had FAA enabled at the same time ???

Just curious ...

Maggi

[The PIT]

"But if they wanted to do it more clever, they would havec locked all cards at 220 MHZ like ATI or NVIDIA does"


Eh???? Funny I thought both Nvidea and for ceratin ATI cards can be overclocked. I believe both supply an overclocker via there drivers. Ati does for the latest.

[bsdgeek]

Originally posted by sparky001
We have stumbled upon a real fanboy here. Think back to when we all used to be like this, now we are a jaded bunch who have been ripped of by matrox one to many times for us to stand it any longer.

I am enjoying this debate.

However I do need to ask what is the problem with milkdrop?
I dont have a parhelia but I was thinking how good it would be to run milkdrop on a p750 (if I get one.)

Yes, I remember when I would have defended it as Sr17 is doing, times change.

Mlikdrop just renders a black screen.

[DentyCracker]

I would never have defended it like SR17 is doing. That being said, I haven't seen the banding (thank God) and have had no issues with this card, except for a brief episode after installing the latest drivers, which was sorted by uninstalling then reinstalling them. I do agree that many mistakes were made with this card, however for what I do it is the right choice. If Matrox doesn't make a reasonable successor to this card, I hope that some other manufacturer steps up to the plate in the image quality department. I truly have become quite spoiled in this respect.