My parhelia to be replaced.

[K6-III]

Just bought a Geforce FX5900 (not the XT) for $165 shipped.

That should cure my Linux/Matrox woes.

Given that I should get some $200 or more for my Parhelia, I win out in the end.

As for my continued use of Matrox, only the G400 in my dedicated linux box will remain...

[3dfx]

Probably a good idea to be honest as the linux/parhelia support is well You can now play games with Anti - Aliasing and Anistropic filtering at a still playable FPS. Plus the fact that you'll have less problems with games in general due to better support plus the 2d quality is nice on the 5900.

[Marshmallowman]

Tried any gaming yet? ET,utk4,tux

[K6-III]

Just bought the card. I'd expect it to arrive in about a week.

[Ribbit]

I ended up getting a FireGL 8800 off eBay. £35, Parhelia-level raw performance, full open-source support for practically every feature (missing motion-comp support is the only one that comes to mind, but my machine's far too fast to need that), and signal quality on the same level as my G400 Max (okay, so a bit worse on the DVI output).

Disadvantages? The stupid Windows drivers have NO gaming adjustments - AA only seems to work with OpenGL and has no performance/quality options, and there is no mention of anisotropy or anything else. Loads of options for 3DSMax/AutoCAD/loads of other programs I'll never use though.

But then again, it runs everything I've tried so far (which is NOLF, MBTR, and iL-2, so not much) at 1600x1200x32 very smoothly with all the eye-candy turned on, so I'm not complaining much iL-2 in particular looks absolutely beautiful - the G400 really couldn't do it justice.

[Jon P. Inghram]

The FireGL 8800 (and 8700) are basicly just Radeon 8500's with 128 or 64 megs of RAM. You can do a little .ini editing in the Catalyst installer and use the regular drivers for Windows.

[PAugustin]

About the Linux support, Matrox is recruiting a couple of engineers for driver developpement under Linux. sounds like good news for you guys

[Ribbit]

Originally posted by Jon P. Inghram
The FireGL 8800 (and 8700) are basicly just Radeon 8500's with 128 or 64 megs of RAM. You can do a little .ini editing in the Catalyst installer and use the regular drivers for Windows.

More info/links? I knew the hardware was basically the same, but I never found any info on running the Catalyst drivers on it.

This "make near-identical hardware and forcibly differentiate them with drivers" attitude is something that really bugs me about the Windows/closed-source world. (And something which Matrox should be commended for not doing too.)

[KeiFront]

Originally posted by PAugustin
About the Linux support, Matrox is recruiting a couple of engineers for driver developpement under Linux. sounds like good news for you guys

eh source?

K6- III, succes with your new card , i'm still doubting about buying the new X800 Pro or a 9800Pro (expecting a price fall) to replace my (almost unsupported) Parhelia.

[dZeus]

Originally posted by Ribbit
More info/links? I knew the hardware was basically the same, but I never found any info on running the Catalyst drivers on it.

This "make near-identical hardware and forcibly differentiate them with drivers" attitude is something that really bugs me about the Windows/closed-source world. (And something which Matrox should be commended for not doing too.)

I don't see what's wrong with that practice. It means you can buy a 8500 cheap without having to pay for all the effort that has been put in polishing the drivers for pro-market apps. And those that want to use the card for those means usually have the money to pay for that premium, and thus are forced to.

According to you, differentiating with hardware through different product lines is 'allowed' but differentiating through all other means is not? talk about making stuff inefficient...

[Wombat]

What makes you think Matrox doesn't do it?

[dZeus]

What makes you think that I think that Matrox doesn't do this?

[DGhost]

What makes you think that I think that you think that Matrox doesn't do this? (i think?)

[Umfriend]

What makes me think you guys think at all?

[dZeus]

you think so?