One year review request

[ExMatgineer]

Hello! It has been just over a year since I worked at Matrox and since then I have been totally out of the video hardware loop (focused on starting my own unrelated company). I couldn't think of a better place to come to get a summary of the goings on for the last year. Would some kind person with extra time to kill give me the cliffs notes version of what's going on with Matrox and other hardware development over the last year to save me hours of reading?

[PAugustin]

Well Matrox has launched the Parhelia. A card aimed at Professional 2D/3D market. It is an excellent but overpriced card. It has excellent 2D (it's a Matrox), triple-head but the 3D lags behind the competition (it's a Matrox).
They released the Millenuim P650 (DH) and P750 (TH). They are baby Parhelias So cheaper cards (though still a bit expansive) with excellent IQ but low 3D perfs (1/2 Parheila).

Oh and a few "special" cards have been released.

Now about what's going with Matrox, only Matrox people nows. Very few people beleive that they will be lauching a card that would have the Matrox 2D and superior 3D perf.

[ExMatgineer]

Thanks for the update. I worked on Parhelia and it was released shortly before I left. At the time there were a couple of other cards based on Parhelia in the works but they weren't out yet. Glad to hear they released a couple more cards. How is Parhelia holding up to the competition?

[Kruzin]

Depends on who you ask.
If you ask a frame counting gamer, not well.
If you ask a Surround Gamer, there's still nothing else that can do it.
If you ask a 2D CAD monkey like me, or anyone who loves their triple head for real work, it's still untouchable.

[Chrono_Wanderer]

Matrox as a company, I think they cut a lot of their R&D engineers (as you may already know). Generally speaking the market share of P is extremely small (market as a whole), from home users (too expensive, which is also the majority) to gamers (too slow).

As for other companies...

S3 is debuting their DeltaChrome (a DX9 part) and should be on sale soon.
XGI is a new company made of mostly ex-SiS and ex-S3 employees. They have a very high profile, and the cards seem "compariable" in 3d, with support of DX9
Trident's GPUs seem to be "vapourware".
ATI, ever since the 9700 PRO launch, nothing much happened.
ATI released the following: (in speed order, from lowest to highest)

Low end, DX8

Radeon 9200 SE
Radeon 9000
Radeon 9200
Radeon 9000 PRO
Radeon 9100

Mid-range (DX9)

Radeon 9600 SE
Radeon 9500
Radeon 9600
Radeon 9600 PRO
Radeon 9600 XT
Radeon 9500 PRO (8 pixel pipelines)

High end (all 8 pixel pipeline)
Radeon 9800 SE (128bit memory interface)
Radeon 9700
Radeon 9700 PRO
Radeon 9800
Radeon 9800 PRO
Radeon 9800 XT

as for NVIDIA, when the first GeForce FX was launched, their image quality was crap and was found cheating in a varieties of benchmarks through drivers. Now their quality is MUCH better, and also gains some speed. Pixel Shaders are still slow, but other games work "well" with it. The quality and speed gain was primarily due to a new series of drivers they have written from grounds up. I think what it does is it takes normal instructions and translate into codes that suit the NV3X architecture more. So that way, you gain speed AND quality. Apparently their drivers team is pretty huge (and world class)

So here are their products: (chronological order):

GeForce FX 5800/Ultra
GeForce FX 5200/Ultra
GeForce FX 5600/Ultra
GeForce FX 5900/Ultra (replaced 5800 soon after initial release, due to excessive noice 5800 fans generate)
GeForce FX 5700/Ultra
GeForce FX 5950

[bsdgeek]

You worked on the Parhelia (perhaps others?)? Would you like to stop by MURC's IRC: dzeus.sasqs.net #murc?

Compared to the competition in raw speed, the Parhelia is like a 9500/9600 non-Pro.

Little nitpicking (sorry Chrono )... XGI is Trident + SiS.

Nvidia's and ATI's next generation parts (NV40 and R420 respectively) should be arriving in the next few months, little bit before summer I should think.

[Tjalfe]

Doom 3 appears to ship on July 14th, so chances are new cards will be ready just in time for that.

[ExMatgineer]

Originally posted by bsdgeek
You worked on the Parhelia (perhaps others?)? Would you like to stop by MURC's IRC: dzeus.sasqs.net #murc?

Yea I worked on Parhelia on the OpenGL team, also on the G400 and a very very little bit on the G200. I appreciate the invite to IRC but I am currently without an installed client and I'm trying my best to keep my focus on work. It's way too easy to burn up an afternoon on chat and the message boards. Matrox was a great place to work and a great bunch of people to work with, very sad to get caught in the downsizing. I guess the market changes and you have to change with the market (or at least your market share) to stay in business. I used to read here from time to time when I was taking a brain break. It was always interesting to see what people had to say. I must say that I really miss reading peoples guesses on how fast the next card was going to be, what hardware was in the leaked picture, etc.. Some guesses were close and some were way off but they were all entertaining.

[Kruzin]

Originally posted by tjalfe
Doom 3 appears to ship on July 14th, so chances are new cards will be ready just in time for that.

I believe it was Supertramp that sang
"Dreamer...you're nothing but a dreamer...."

[Che Guevara]

@ExMatgineer:

Thank you for working on the Parhelia, the P-512 chip and the Parhelia card are both a work of art.

Again, Thank you for the best card I ever used...

Best Regards
Che