What Would You Like To See The Parhelia Called?

[Sasq]

Labrador, while your advice is good, also please remember for a lot of people here, this is our hobby.
As for me, I run dualhead for programming as well as other things, and currently I am getting into 3D animation etc. I for one am willing to buy not the rumoured(sp?) top of the range card, but I am seriously considering buying the 128MB card as I know it will do me for the next 3 years, just as my trusty g400 16mb vanilla has done.

And your car analgy is flawed, yes the car is cheaper, but you don't know how badly it was treated by the previous owner... I have made that mistake before.

Also as far as upgrading to only what you need now, is not looking to what you will need in the future, or are you suggesting buying a video card a year as your needs change? Buy good quality now - as with your G400's - and keep using it for a long time. Yes, only buy what you need, but plan ahead and buy what you will need next month, just not today

Dan

[labrador]

In the car analogy I meant buying it new one year later, just as we can with video cards. You can't do it, I know, but if you could for 1/2 price new, I'd imagine very few people would buy a new car the very year it came out. That is, buy a new 2001 model in 2002 for 1/2 the price.

If my needs pushed it, buying a video card every year that was roughly a one year old release (perhaps 2 years in some cases) would be cheaper than buying a new card just as it is released and waiting for 2 years to do the same again. For gaming requirements it doesn't make sense to maximize the length of time you will be using the same video card - that would mean you would fall 3 or 4 years behind the current cutting edge, and probably under the required specs for current game releases. The best price and performance combination is to stay with 1 to 2 year old hardware releases, and update it about every 2 years.

Games such as Doom III are not going to require a GeForce 4 or Parhelia or top of the range Radeon to play them. To do so would be suicide for any game release. Even games like FS2000, which seemed to be heavy on system requirements, were still reporting stutters with the top end. The FS2002 seems to prove that the issue was simply bad programming.

As for my G400s and web design, I don't know when they will ever become out of date. Perhaps when the displays become out of date.

I've seen those 1/2 inch thick video displays in malls and I'm thinking that people who spend a bundle on the current cream of the crop plasma TVs are going to kick themselves in 4 years. Future TVs will be so thin and light you can lose them if you have one stored with your furnance filters. It is amazing how people behave when it comes to electronics marketing. If I tried to sell a fuel cell hydrogen powered vehicle because in a few years you will be able to drive it around and find a refill station, I doubt anyone would buy it. But electronics is rabid with early adopters who should be crying ouch, but often won't, because they would make themselves look foolish.

I appreciate the same things in electronics as many of you here, but I just don't think there is much logic in buying it the day it comes out. Perhaps if the consumer didn't jump so quickly to buy the stuff at high initial prices, the makers would be forced to reconsider the prices they come up with, and try for a combination of higher quantity and lower price to make the same sales revenues.

[Sasq]

That high price generally has a great deal to do with paying off all the R&D that went into makeing it to begin with. The cards usually become cheaper after the R&D is paid for and then the money is just profit. but there is a hell of a lot of money that goes into producing this tech, and if the manufacturer isn't allowed to recoup losses, why should the develop in the first place?

I like many people here have put off buying a new vid card for the last 2 years, because we have been waiting on the next matrox card because of its 2d quality, and visual quality in 3d (not the current cards speed tho ) so with many of us having a 2 year wait behind us, the price of the midrange cards from matrox arn't really a concern considering how long our current cards have done us for.

[GNEP]

Labrador,

Fair enough point, logically put and well made.

However, I think that the one piece of the puzzle you are missing is that almost by definition this forum has many early adopters, technical innovators and people very interested in the latest technology. And they have a certain place in their hearts for Matrox (heart not head therefore logic ain't gonna cut much mustard).

Hence the value that people put on a new videocard is more than a merely fps/£ and logical financial one. There is a strong emotional content to this.

And besides, for some lucky people money in the range £200 to £500 or whatever is acceptable as "entertainment" (can't think of a better term, although entertainment is not quite the right one). A car (£10,000 plus) is definitely not. I happen to agree with you that if you knew now that you could buy a brand new 2002 model Ford whatever in a year's time for half the price it is now, you would be mad to buy one at full price now. (Unless you needed a form of transport for a year and that was the only option!)

For others, a Pro card is a huge benefit at work, so money is less of an issue.

Let people be in their excitement - many of us actually enjoy anticipation more than the real thing!

gnep

[Voyager3D]

Jabadijabadijap......
Who cares....

You should be happy that someone buys the new hardware... If they didn't the market would slow down....

But of cource i do pretty much the same as you do, im am looking at where i get most for my money... performance/price...

But i couldn't care less, that somone has to have the latest and greatest, if they want to use all there money.. Well then its up to them...

[Greebe]

While I've always been a Bang for the Buck kinda guy, I still fail to see your point. Sure Auto prices drop, but forget that buying it used/a year later caca. If new and paid MSRP, as soon as it's been driven off the lot it's value has dropped so significantly it'll make you sick. Matrox cards hold their value much longer than anyother competitors products because of the sheer volume of features and incredible quality they built into them which even at release time is an incredible value bar none.

Regardless of what you feel it's worth, many others will not feel the same. Sure I bet there are those that have got to have that most extreme version and will buy only for bragging rights, but remember that's their right. We do live in a free world ya know... even if most of us know that the only reason those few may have purchased it was simply for bragging rights, that "Mine's bigger than yours" factor.

Graphic cards are not like cpu's they are priced sky high for a few months and then price cut in half after a few months. Besides what they're priced at is relative to what the market is willing to pay and sales demand. Which at this time nV's marketers have proven if anything that they can charge what you feel is an arm and a leg. A perfect example of this is the Mazda Miata. Mazda originally intended to market this car for the $8k range cause it was an inexpensive vehicle and wanted to sell mess of them. Their dealers tho knew differently and jacked the prices to the $12-15k range (originally) and they sold. Sold so well that dispite Corporate screaming about the artifical price hike why are they our #1 selling car?... to the point that dealers simply retorted with, if we're wrong then why are we always selling out, you can't keep up with production #'s we need to see. Hence in the end the prices stayed high and all were happy... except people like you possibly whom couldn't afford one.

[labrador]

I couldn't afford to buy a Miata because it would only be good for 3 months of the year where I live, and it would have to be a 3rd vehicle for me - a luxury for certain on my income level.

I realize there are rich people and technology pros who don't care or must have the latest and greatest. But I also know many geek types who have behaved like me in the past, and at least one of them used to visit this site. My message is targeted at the person who is possibly a victim of what I consider marketing hype. This person is probably under 30, has a job in the IT sector (or electronics), has no kids, reads Maximum PC or tech portal web sites, and wants the sex appeal of the greatest technology installed in their own PC, even if it means maxing out their charge card. Alternately, this person may be the type of consumer who wants to buy "the best" when they do some upgrades every 4 years - they believe that for many products spending extra for the quality also ensures it will last them longer. I imagine this may describe many of the visitors to MURC.

I can see the point about waiting a long time for a decent card from Matrox if you are still with the G400 and loyal to Matrox products, but at the same time I think that if gaming is the reason to upgrade, it would have been time to try another brand in the meantime. Personally, I was sick of my boss blowing me away in Quake 3 because I couldn't get the distance detail at 800x600, and 1024x768 was about 10FPS. So it was Geforce 2 MX for me (last year).

[Sasq]

Sigh, I know of very few people in the 23~30 age group that work in IT that beleive all the marketing hype. I do appreciate what you are trying to say. but you'll find that although most people here are looking forward to the fps jump of the upcoming card, the're are many pro users here that require the speed for cad or other work (see greebe's post)

From what i've seen typed here by people I know and trust, I'd say this card will do me for the next 2.5 years, I've been around IBM pc's since i had to install the memory myself into the Herc gfx/printer card. and I am not likely to be taken by hype. If I was I would alread have a Ti4600 in the pc complete with nVblur

Dan

[DGhost]

My G400 MAX lasted me until last christmas, when i got more into gaming than i ever really had, and needed something faster.

lemme see, if i remember right i bought that about 2 years ago. it has been the longest that i have ever used a video card actively. I have made sure that the G400MAX is in a computer i use. I would give away the GeForce i have laying around or the Voodoo5 (which i loaned to my brother acctually), or if i had to the 8500 that i have running in my main computer at the moment. The one card that i will never get rid of though is my G400 MAX. It is the best video card i have ever owned. It has given me less problems than any other card. it acctually worked in Windows 2000 for the first year it was out... it took NVidia through the 7.58 drivers to get a good, working set of Win2k drivers. It was the first video card that had drivers out that officially (or unofficially) supported Windows XP - NVidia had to leak drivers for support of this, ATi took a long time to get decent drivers for it, and 3Dfx never made it this far.

I would rather buy a new matrox card because i know it will be supported for the next 3 years. Even if it is not the fastest, its feature set and support is a lot better than any other companies. The drivers have been excellent, even if they have issues. they know how to write drivers properly...

anyways, its funny that my G400MAX from two years ago can blow away a GF2MX, espeically once you get to higher resolutions and color depths...

is it a luxury buying a brand new high end card? yes. but, for me its not a matter of penis size, like you seem to think. i am quite content with my Eagle Summit hatchback as a car, i have a girlfriend i love, i loath pretty much any computer magazine that you can buy in a grocery store or computer store. Marketing Hype is just that to me... Hype...

NVidia failed to deliver Win2k drivers for the GeForce that worked right for quite some time... ATi is struggling with drivers for the 8500... Matrox and 3dfx are the only two companies that have provided good solid drivers in a timely fashion and made sure that they had working ones on new platforms. And of the two, Matrox has always had better support, more frequent driver releases, noticable changes from the driver releases, etc. And Matrox is the only one still in business.

I seriously think that over the summer i will ditch the 8500 i have running in my computer at the moment. Is it a luxury for me? yeah... do i need to do it? no... having a working, stable computer where i don't have to mess around with drivers every week is more important to me than that... i always have other computers i can put it to use in... its not like any parts that i upgrade ever go to waste...

[labrador]

Driver stability has always been important to me as well. That is what brought me to Matrox before 3D was a buzz.

I may go back to Matrox for my next upgrade as well, but it just won't be now, and I would certainly be cautious about the value of the feature set.

I know that people here are very canny about these things and people pooped all over the headcasting thing. But, people thought bump mapping was terrific, and many people think pixel shading is terrific, even though these high profile features are seldom implemented in the current games.

For my particular slant, I care less about the industry wide spectrum than I do about authentic flight simulations. I thought bump mapping would eventually appear in the next generation of flight sims and it hasn't. Maximum PC has been crying out for the appearance of games that would make use of the GeForce 3 and 4 capabilities, and I think they now have 2 games listed. You can see the pattern - the hardware is released first, and then you pray that it becomes worthwhile to have bought. Waiting a year or more makes more sense for both $$ and to check on the availability of software that works with the new hardware.

[rugger]

Hey,

What about: To hell with rationality and "Value for Money". Buying and having the best occasionally is FUN. You get:

1) Bragging rights
2) Something you won't have to worry about for 2-3 years (you won't have to keep questioning if a particular game/software will work on your computer, you can simply assume YES)

While buying the Best all the time is a sure way to drain your credit card/savings, doing so occasionally when it makes sense (eg, the Pentium 60 and 66 didn't make sense to buy when it came out) is a lot of fun and doesn't hurt too much finacially.

I could wait a year to buy a Parhella, but a year is a long time to wait, and I don't particularly like my Geforce.

[DGhost]

Its a shame that EMBM never really made it into true popularity. A lot of developers seemed to find it faster to do fake bump mapping (like Max Payne) than to implement the real thing. Part of this is that NVidia, being the company that drives the game industry, doesn't (or didn't) support EMBM, and in general went in the different direction...

the good news, on the other hand, is the fact that Pixel and Vertex shaders are starting to be used, thanks to them being out for a while... plus the fact that Microsoft is no longer turning to NVidia for implementing DirectX... they have been working with Matrox and ATi a lot more for DX9 than they did for DX7 or 8...

with pixel shaders you can do custom EMBM effects, you can distort visibility, etc... just about anything you can write, you can do..

Morrowind has some of the most impressive water i have ever seen. quite cool to look at.

[rugger]

labrador,

If you are so disinterested in graphics technology, why are you here in the crystal-ball and not in the soap-box(which isn't so polarized to matrox graphics cards)?

PS (I know that this is the pot calling the kettle black, but I am interested in the answer)

[FormerEx-SalesSoup]

it's amazing to think of how many of you are going to be thrilled on May 14th, both skeptics and non-skeptics alike.

[labrador]

I used to be very interested in graphics technology, then I converted into someone that has other things to do. I still have some interest in graphics technology, just not one that includes the saliva side-effects.

I came to the crystal ball to check out any news on the upcoming Matrox hardware. When it is actually released I'll check back in other forums. I posted in this particular thread to offer my suggestion that the card could be called "Leafblower Pro" - a cynical joke regarding the delay between new hardware features and their utility. I decided to explain why I had that view, and I figured some of the people who need to think about the issue are probably in this forum.