next Matrox card?

[SpiralDragon]

well... still running on my ol' g550 .... an upgrade is in order soon... never owned anything other than M cards since mill. 1 .... hope the new card is good enugh.... fetuers and performance wise.... no need for it to be an Nv or ATI killer... just almost as good...

[dZeus]

Originally posted by Che Guevara
@Tomasz: I had a RF Maxx, nice card but worst support ever (2 driver releases, both terrible, no 2000 or xp driver ever) and that for a 600 DM card!!! Matrox offers XP drivers for older cards.
Further two of my friends still use R8500 on i850 boards and one a Radeon 64 DDR Vivo on a Via board, stability and compatibility with games is very bad since they had bought them (for example, its always goes like this: new driver release, problems with generals solved, new problems with avp2 occur, and so on).
Just look into other hardware/gaming online forums and count the ati/catalyst problem threads.

And why do you need more than about 6 (not 2-4 ) driver updates a year, I don't have any probs, performance is also good. Just think why ATI has to release a new driver each month.

fanATIc = terrible drivers
nVidiot = benchmark cheaters
XGI = now, we will see

I will buy any sucessor of the P immediately.

BUT THAT'S NOT THE SUBJECT OF THIS THREAD, please don't raise another one of these best-hardware quarrels, we're all just murcers .

PS: A die shriked P would be fine (the old Pitou story ), but do you really think they will release a card exactly matching abbilities of the low clocked and passive cooled P650 which is slower? Doesn't makes any sense I think.

his ideas on Matrox drivers are as right as he's on RDRAM on certain platforms.

[Tomasz]

PS: A die shriked P would be fine (the old Pitou story ), but do you really think they will release a card exactly matching abbilities of the low clocked and passive cooled P650 which is slower? Doesn't makes any sense I think.

Sorry, I was exaggerating a little

The point that I wanted to make was that Matrox does not seem to care about the gaming market anymore. So, I don't think that their next product will be very fast in 3d graphics. Realistically, my best guess is that their next product will be a die shrunk version of the P750 with advanced 3d features such as displacement mapping, etc. removed. Furthermore, I am sure the product will be overpriced... the Parhelia Retail still costs $350 (For comparison, I recently bought my Radeon 9800 128MB Retail for $195, and before that, I bought my Radeon 8500 128MB Retail for $168... these prices are the main reasons that made me switch from Matrox to Ati!!!)


P.S. I still don't think that Ati's drivers are as bad as you say (and the raw performance of the 9800 core is awesome)

[gorg]

I still can't figure out why I must replace my G400 and G550 cards for something overhyped from either ATI or NVidia. Unless you play 3D games or want to show off running meaningless benchmarks I find little reason spending money on a Radeon or a GForce.
And yes, I spend tons of money in hardware every year. I just prefer to buy an Adaptec SCSI RAID controller, an ultra fast (and realtively silent) Seagate SCSI HD, an Eizo TFT and a Logitech wireless keyboard/mouse set before I go for an overrated 5GHz Intel CPU and a Radeon 9900 gfx card with 8 fans.

[Che Guevara]

@the hole thread
Aaaaahhhhhrrrrrrg, no Matrox fans on Murc anymore!!!!
Where are the guys from the 'happy parhelia thread'?

@Admiral:

@dZeus: lol , fact is fact

@gorg&SpiralDragon: You're totally right

@Tomasz: I don't expect the next matrox card to be as fast as 9800XT, but don't you think we could expect something faster than the Parhelia?



PS: Always I start a thread it soon has nothing to to with the original topic (I'm not interested in Atis drivers, only my ati using friends are, and they hate them ).

[K6-III]

I, for one, absolutely love my Parhelia and wouldn't even consider anything else, at least for the moment.

Assuming that Matrox has a faster card than the Parhelia and AMD64 drivers for it, for both Windows and Linux, in a PCI-Express format, I'll defenitely make it my next card when I move to the Socket 939 Athlon64FX with a PCI-Express vidcard...

[albatorsk]

I think that releasing a new graphics card would be a real relief for Matrox, since they then wouldn't have to pretend to support the Parhelia any more, and just tell it like it is.

[a_h]

A new card would most likely be based on the Parhelia (LX?) core, so they would have to support it anyways...

[Kurt]

I guess they'll release more of a "business/pro" version of their boards, considering that PCI-E won't really make it into the mainstream before september or march the next year. So it could very well be a new revision of the med boards or the mms ones...

They'll kill the G450/550 sooner or later and the P650 (or the P550) will replace them in the low end. There will probably not be a PCI-E Parhelia. I guess there could be a PCI-E P2?

[Goc]

Keeping fingers crossed...

[Kruzin]

As long as you're not holding your breath...

I've loved all my M cards, including my Parhelia. Still nothing out there that makes me want to give it up.

But as has been mentioned many times, in many threads, Matrox is not the same company it used to be. Staff in all departments has been cut back, positions eliminated (including many programmers, engineers, devs., etc). There is no longer anyone activley pursuing game developers. There is no focus on gaming any more. NONE. The only way they will get back into it is if the accidentally stumble on some great breakthrough in some future card, years from now.

Their business model has changed, and their focus is on specialty cards for offices, studios, medical facilies, airports, and so on.

So don't expect to see anything cutting edge any time soon. Parhelia was their last charge at something that could go against ATI and nV in the general retail market.

[leech]

Originally posted by bsdgeek
Yeah, really Leech, how can you say that they have good driver development? Aren't you one of the most outspoken regarding the half-baked Linux drivers?

Oops, I should have changed that to read "HAD" good driver support..."

I actually do like their WindowsXP drivers, even though they do use the evil .Net. (main thing I hate about that, is on a fresh install of WinXP you have to first download .Net, and the whole time you'll be stuck at 60hz!) But at least the interface is EASY as hell to use, as compared especially to ATI and nVidia's.

If Matrox came out with a faster card than the Parhelia, with many of the features of it (namely triple-head, which I don't think I could live without anymore...) And added some features, such as more DX9 capabilities, and OpenGL 1.4 and made it a 'little' faster. (I'm thinking at least make it so games will run smoothly at 2400x600 with FAAx16 and AFwith maxed visual settings. Right now many games DO indeed run pretty smooth at this setting. But others chug. Like Raven Shield.)

Leech

[Chrono_Wanderer]

Interface wise, I personally think ForceWare is the best, you can tweak the hell out of it, a very fun toy. Their recent 3d quality isn't bad either, all the way up there with ATI. The DX9-->CineFX compiller seems like a smart idea. My first nVIDIA card (5200) is a great experience. (nView is pretty powerful too)

Onto ATI. And of course I get FreeBSD and Linux drivers too! (awesome)

ATI used to have crap drivers years ago, but their Catalyst is rock solid, no doubt about it. Also their new innovations are very welcoming (like overdrive and shaders effects). I perfer nV's interface over ATI, but no doubt their drivers are world class, my 8500 never has any problem after 2 yeras of using. ATI XP drivers overall are great, I don't see any problem

Matrox, I don't have a Parhelia, so I can't comment.

But given the fact that they laid off most of their employees, I don't see them releasing any 3D-oriented graphics hardware. I personally wonder how hard it is to implement DirectX 9.1. (I am not too fimilar with the efforts invoved in implementing new features into a piece of graphics hardware) If it doesn't take too mcuh effort, maybe they will rollout a "Pitou" on PCI-Express in fall, but speed maybe still similar to the Parhelia.

But that is assuming DX9 is easy to implement...

If it is not, then forget this idea. Maybe they will release a P650 MMS Quad or something....

As for why most of us don't like Matrox anymore, I think it has something to do with the fact that Matrox failed to impress us in the past 4 years. 4 years is a lot in the computer industry, esp graphics (one of the fastest growing area IMO). I think most of us are here for the people, not for the hardware.

Honestly, I think this thread should belong to The Crystal Ball...

[a_h]

Personally I had nothing but troubles with nview & the tv-out (tv-tool) - it could only be solved to my deepest satisfaction with getting the P.

As for why most of us don't like Matrox anymore, I think it has something to do with the fact that Matrox failed to impress us in the past 4 years.

Mmm. When I saw the P's benchmarks 1.5 years ago, I wasn't that overwhelmed, but I'm now. Why? Because in these times I gave nada about anti-aliasing for example. I wanted raw power. Today - if there wasn't the FSAA bug in the 1.5s - I would set it on "Always", cause it's beautiful, blazingly fast & I can't live without it (2002 it was with FSAA enabled ahead of the Geforce4 Ti's!).

Sure I'm here because of the people not because of the hardware - do you see any anywhere ;-))?

I'm sure they will release new hardware, simply because they have too - the market requires it. But wether it can compete with the current power horses, I'm less than sure.

[3dfx]

If you dont need the 3 monitor (which I think Nvidia and ATI will incorporate into their cards eventually) then ATI is the only option imo. I have had my Radeon 9700 for almost a year and it is still running games like a dream and I very VERY! rarely get any problems with it.

I think the only market can succeed in is business as the gaming world is about speed and Matrox cards dont offer that. Which is not a bad thing but it is the case, I prefer quality over performance myself but I prefer both and that's why I went ATI. The ATI R300 cards are very FAST ! and the quality is definately comparable to Matrox standards.

I would like to see Matrox join forces with ATI(money and reputation) and make a nice card that caters for both sides of the market.