Question

[TheNewGuy]

The Matrox QID

Is this a Parhelia with Quad display, or a new chip altogether.

If it is Parhelia could you have triple gaming and still have a desktop remaining?

Is this card certified with Maya or Max (Or is any Parhelia for that matter?)

As you see I'm new here so be easy with me

[Kruzin]

Welcome to MURC.
Since QID is not yet available, nobody has one to say for sure. But I'll do my best to take a stab at answering....

-It's built with a Parhelia-LX chip. Slower clockings, fewer 3D features than the original Parhelia, but based on the same chip.

-My guess on surround gaming is that the card will be far too slow for it...but it should do surround across 4 screens, since I assume the quad desktop will be in stretched mode (not independant), just like Parhelia can't do independant on more than two displays. Surround gaming can only be achieved with a stretched desktop. If the desktop is streched, the game will run "full screen" across all 4 displays.

-As I mentioned earlier, QID is built on the P-LX chip, which is not geared much for 3D. There is no mention on M's site for certification on these apps with QID. If it was certified, they'd certainly advertise it.

If you look here:

http://matrox.com/mga/products/qid/home.cfm

You'll see the 'Key Markets for QID' are far from what you are looking to do...Digital restaurant menus, retail store displays, airport arrival/departues, casino machines.

If you want surround gaming, I'd suggest an original Parhelia (which are also better geared for max/maya). If you want more than 3 displays, add a PCI G450.

[Chrono_Wanderer]

hmm... surround gaming on 4 displays don't make sense, because the reason why people want 3 displays is because games, esp fps games like quake 3, you want to look at the centre. If you try 3 monitors, the centre is within the second screen. But if you have 4 monitors, the center is between the border of 2nd and 3rd screen. So, 3 monitor gaming makes a lot more sense.

Although hardware wise I think it is possible, it doesn't make a lot of sense pratically/

[FormerEx-SalesSoup]

I can't add much to what Kruzin and Chrono already mentioned, but no, you cannot play a game across three displays and use the 4th display for your Windows desktop with this product.

The QID board is meant to run video and animation across 4 displays where the MMS quad boards are meant for less intensive multi-display purposes (such as financial trading, call centers, control rooms).

[TheNewGuy]

Thanks alot everyone, I was thinking of course of three screens for the game, the fourth for a faq, or forums of that game up.

Say I do get say a 9800XT or anyother kinda of profesisonal card like a wildcat, then as Kruzin suggested add a PCI G450. Which driver would control three setup of the multiple displays, ATI's or Matrox?

Also it's been awhile since I lurked here. What is this PCI Parhelia and why is it $100 extra, because it a rarer interface type (PCI) for a graphics card?

Are there links anywhere to a Parhelias performance in Maya? Thanks.

[UtwigMU]

Say I do get say a 9800XT or anyother kinda of profesisonal card like a wildcat, then as Kruzin suggested add a PCI G450. Which driver would control three setup of the multiple displays, ATI's or Matrox?

You'd have to use Ati/3d labs drivers for primary card as it's not natively supported by Windows. The G450 PCI would use Matrox drivers provided by Windows (just drivers, no powerdesk.

Of course it would be impossible for you to control triple displays as Parhelia does and you wouldn't be able to use stretch mode.

As for gaming, perhaps some 2D game that supports multiple viewports could utilize this, but not 3D.