Matrox market share drops again.

[Mikko]

I just don't think Matrox let their best engineers to leave without fighting. Maybe there are still some of them working for Matrox who absolutely know everything about triplehead etc.

[Wombat]

Well, forgive me, but I just don't understand why ATI/NVIDIA still hasn't released their card for triplehead/Surround Gaming, almost three years after Parhelia. Markets are there to be taken. Maybe they don't take those ex-Matrox engineers seriously...

You make no sense. What markets are there to be taken? 0.4% of the market, at the most? Who cares? Those people will come around to non-Surround video cards anyway.

[Wombat]

I just don't think Matrox let their best engineers to leave without fighting. Maybe there are still some of them working for Matrox who absolutely know everything about triplehead etc.

Then you have very little idea what was going on. Matrox laid a lot of engineers off. Plenty others left after getting shafted on pay.

[DGhost]

I just don't think Matrox let their best engineers to leave without fighting. Maybe there are still some of them working for Matrox who absolutely know everything about triplehead etc.

riiiiggghhhttt...

[Mikko]

Then you have very little idea what was going on. Matrox laid a lot of engineers off. Plenty others left after getting shafted on pay.

Then I'm very sorry. It has been almost three amazing years with Surround Gaming (so far) and probably nothing else will ever provide such a great feeling of realism. When my Parhelia finally dies, I won't be playing much. I just can't stand single monitor gaming anymore...

[UtwigMU]

I think surround gaming would be a hit if it would be done right:
- support by influential graphic company or two (or three)
- this would cause better support with developers
- a card that would perform adequatly - parhelia was not powerful enough at intro to gain mindshare among extreme gamers.
- prices of LCDs that take less desktop real estate have fallen


Look at SLI for instance, it's selling beyond expectations (in chipsets and cards) for nVidia, despite more games supporting Matrox surround gaming than nVidia has made SLI profiles and it's not exactly cheap. If people have money for two GF6 cards, motherboard and beefy PSU (600$ for entry level SLI), they would also pay for surround card and 3 monitors if next killer card (or SLI combo) offered it.

[Wombat]

Then I'm very sorry. It has been almost three amazing years with Surround Gaming (so far) and probably nothing else will ever provide such a great feeling of realism. When my Parhelia finally dies, I won't be playing much. I just can't stand single monitor gaming anymore...

This is BS, and you know it. You won't suddenly stop playing video games. You'll get a replacement card.

As for me, I think single-monitor DX9 provides more "realism" than triple-monitor low-fps DX7.

[DirtFarmer]

more real but....

This is BS, and you know it. You won't suddenly stop playing video games. You'll get a replacement card.

As for me, I think single-monitor DX9 provides more "realism" than triple-monitor low-fps DX7.

When it comes to sims, single monitor just isn't wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiddddddddddde enough for me.

I'm more depressed about the lack of progress in the surround gaming / triple head capabilities from ATI and nVidia than I am about the dwindling market share of Matrox.
It pisses me off that they consider surround gaming resolutions a cheat on some online games, yet you can run in as high a resolution as possible on any other $800 VC with the fastest PC and largest monitor as you can afford, and that's all fair and OK. Graphics card companies marketting dept. and gaming company politics. That's what helped to get Matrox to where they are today, with a little help from Mr. Wood of course.

I wonder if their is some type of Copyright issues stopping the other manufacturers from using 3 monitor technologies????

:Cheers:

[Mikko]

This is BS, and you know it. You won't suddenly stop playing video games. You'll get a replacement card.

As for me, I think single-monitor DX9 provides more "realism" than triple-monitor low-fps DX7.

OK. Maybe I won't suddenly stop playing, but it will be very hard to find a replacement card for Parhelia. I think I'll have to consider two adapters, then, and play games in a windowed mode across all monitors. That is, if my favourite games will work that way. Think about racing games, for example. You can't have the same kind of feeling of speed, if you can't see "something" moving on your side monitors. This "something" means trees, rocks, concrete walls, fences, other cars etc.

Btw, why do you compare single-monitor DX9 to triple-monitor DX7? Surround Gaming usually suits better for DX8 / DX8.1 games. The resolution in DX7 games is limited to 1920x480. And besides, the image quality is quite enough for me in most of the DX8 games.

[dshumake]

Here is an ATI card. Four monitors possible, 2 chips.

http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon/reviews/xentera/

dshumake

[Wombat]

Here is an ATI card. Four monitors possible, 2 chips.

http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon/reviews/xentera/

dshumake

Yes, but those two chips present themselves as two adapters, therefore you're only dealing with two monitors as a display.

[Wombat]

Btw, why do you compare single-monitor DX9 to triple-monitor DX7? Surround Gaming usually suits better for DX8 / DX8.1 games. The resolution in DX7 games is limited to 1920x480. And besides, the image quality is quite enough for me in most of the DX8 games.

Well, it's not "enough" for me. DX9 features look very, very nice. And a lot of things skip DX8 entirely. I'm pretty sure HL2 has a DX7 path and a DX9 path, and nothing in between.

[Nowhere]

It does has DX8 path...

[dshumake]

Yes, but those two chips present themselves as two adapters, therefore you're only dealing with two monitors as a display.

They also have a card with 4 gpus that allows for 8 CRTs or 4 DVI monitors.

http://www.colorgraphic.net/newsite/products/xentera_gt8_models.asp

dshumake

[DirtFarmer]

How about one with 3 or 5 monitors and 1 big framebuffer. I don't like starring directly at a monitor bezel which would happen with even number of panels stretched out in front of you.