Thinking about buying a Matrox Parhelia for surround gaming? Well, think again...

[Tony Ostinato]

"10. Quake 3: Supports surround gaming, but spontaneously reboots during play, and all in-game menus and text are unreadable in surround mode"

Never even once has that happened here, I've played ridiculously long sessions on q3 and elite force without a single hiccup.

Check your power supply and all connectors, I bet one is loose.

Ive been playing those games plus Battlefield 1942, it sure is hard to go back to single screen on the few games i still play that dont support surround, but in all fairness those are ancient primitive games like MS Allegiance.

I couldnt be happier with Parhelia.

[Geotpf]

Originally posted by Tony Ostinato
"10. Quake 3: Supports surround gaming, but spontaneously reboots during play, and all in-game menus and text are unreadable in surround mode"

Never even once has that happened here, I've played ridiculously long sessions on q3 and elite force without a single hiccup.

What is this, then?

http://www.matrox.com/mga/support/faq/details.cfm?id=101

Now, the version that they state is the one that I am running, and is the latest version. Does this mean I should I go to an earlier patch? (BTW, I discovered this after I posted here...)

[Geotpf]

Look, I'm sorry if you think I was rude about this. It's just that every game I've encountered seems to not run correctly on this card.

[Maggi]

maybe it's a flaw in ID's pointrelease, when they specificly state a version number 1.31 ?

Anyways, Parhelia's drivers are still pretty new and hence you cannot expect full compatibility for all possible configurations and moreover you cannot expect them to be fully optimized for quenching out the last bit of performance just yet.

[Tony Ostinato]

Its never happened to me ever. I'll let you know if/when it does!

[FormerEx-SalesSoup]

Originally posted by Geotpf
Look, I'm sorry if you think I was rude about this. It's just that every game I've encountered seems to not run correctly on this card.

I would recommend that you get in touch with Tech Supp. They'll gladly look into these issues to address them in future driver releases (providing they aren't configuration issues). If you've already done so, I can comfortably say that they're looking into such issues (if they are really bugs) as we speak.

[az]

Marketing, eh?

You do a good job

Any chance marketing has any influence on prices?

AZ

[103er-Fan]

Are there any plans to include a surround gaming option in Sim City 4? I think it would be great to play this game across three screens, you have much more overview there and the whole atmosphere would get better, especially in larger cities, because you see more of all the happenings in the city.

[FormerEx-SalesSoup]

Originally posted by az
Marketing, eh?

You do a good job

Any chance marketing has any influence on prices?

AZ

none whatsoever. but i'll put in a good word for you.

[az]

Thank you still. It's the single one thing that's holding many buyers back, IMHO.

AZ

[IcedEarth]

Originally posted by Greebe
Watch it or I'll make you eat Brussel sprouts with me!

What's wrong with Brussel sprouts?

[thop]

hmm so marketing it is

[Geotpf]

Update!

Ok, I now have XP SP1 and the new driver patch (1.01). I also installed the UT2003 demo. Here's the total changes:

With XP SP1 and the older driver, now XP (sometimes) valiantly tries to recover from the crash in RTCW. The middle monitor goes to 640x480x16 colors (not 16k, 16), and displays a message that Windows had recovered from a device failure. I can use the start menu, or hit CTRL-ALT-DEL and get the list of programs, but if I try to either kill RTCW or reboot the computer, it crashes. With the newer driver, THE REG ENTRY FOR OGL.TRIPLEHEAD NO LONGER WORKS. (So the menus and in game HUD are stretched over all three monitors, instead of just one, which is how it's supposed to be.) I haven't tested it further beyond retyping the reg entry forty seven times and going back and forth between the old and new drivers...

...because I've been busy playing UT2003. This game works PERFECTLY using the latest drivers in surround gaming mode. (Well-almost perfectly...decals such as scorch marks aren't quite right, but I'm almost ashamed to mention that...) Interestingly, I orignally ran it under the old drivers, and it suffers the same menu corruption after running it twice or changing the resolution that UT did; the new drivers fix this problem in both games. However, Kyodai and Crimson Skies also still don't work at all in 3D mode, even with XP SP1 and the 1.01 drivers (Kyodai has a 2D mode where it works in, like Crimson Skies). (And of course the Reef Demo is broken now...)

[Kruzin]

Geotpf:
See the following thread regarding your problem with the reg key not working any more...

http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?s=&threadid=36262

[Geotpf]

I'm going to try this when I get home. I think the drivers are getting much better, and I again apologize about the initial tone of my post...I was just angry because I was at a LAN party when I tried Crimson Skies, then the next day I tried to play RTCW, then I said ok, never mind, I'll relax with some Kyodai, and none of them worked... They still have plenty of bugs to work out, but they are working on them. I imagine they will issue another patch shortly to clarify where the Triplehead reg key goes (as well as to un-break the Reef demo...)