What would you like changed in Parhelia?

[TdB]

- Anisotropic Filtering efficiency algorithms: 4x and 8x almost for free, and 16x for a lesser drop than 2x on competing (read: GeForce 4 Ti) hardware.

I thought that was what they were using the extra tmus for in the first place, and that all we need is a simple driver update.

[diuby]

My wishlist is very simple and :

-lower price tag
-win98 drivers
-custom resolution
-better anisotropic filtering quality and performance
-better general perfomance

What about DVD and TV-out capabilities? Is Parhelia really better than my G400max? Hardware Motion Compensation works fine? (i don't like when i use mouse scroller and DVD movies on PAL TV become choppy....).




Thunderbird 1100 - KT 133 mainboard - G400max - SoundBlaster Live! - Win98 OS

[bibble]

lower price
faster
true 3 head

[Catweasel]

1. more Speed (higher Core clock and faster memory)
2. more effective Memory controller
3. Bandwith saving Features
4. fixed FAA and fixed aniso
5. 98SE Drivers
6. more than 4textures/pass (loopback)
7. PS 2.0
8. OGL 2.0
9. lower price
10. 0.13µ

Thats all - for now.

Greetings from Germany,
Swen

[frankymail]

No, the GeForce 4 is kinda stupid: it filters everything; on the other side, ATI's Radeon 8500 as an algorithm that decides which pixels to filter; ie: a surface facing you at 90 degrees would not be filtered, but a floor would be… Man, you guys are not talking about the Parhelia are you? I hate to burst your bubble, but if you think Matrox is making a "spring refresh" of the Parhelia, you'll be crying a ol'lot o tears. If you want a faster card than the Parhelia, buy a Radeon 9700 or a NV30... but don't expect seeing a Parhelia 2 anytime soon (well, at least no before June/July 2003)...

[Zanna]

I'have forgotten to mention at least one thing, in my last post.

Another great thing to have on Parhelia would be a set of drivers to use decently this board on older operating systems.

I have to boot on old Windows 3.11 or Windows 95 partitions, in order to make testing/assistance, and to have a second CPU only to do this is a little disappointing.

In the past, I bought my Matrox G400 MAX because it have a complete set of drivers even for older operating systems.

I think it's absolutely necessary to have drivers for Windows 98 due to the large amount of users this O.S. have today, (does Matrox want to sell this card to W98 customers or not?) and at least a basically video driver even without PowerDesk for W311 / W95 would be a great thing.

I seen drivers for Windows NT are scheduled, hope this does not change...

Sorry for my English writing.... please say to me uncorrect o strange senteces in this post......

Goodbye!

[lecter]

-Game&Benchmark compatibility problems solved
-Higher core speed
-Proprietary DVD Player
-A Marvel Version (or at least an add-on tuner&capture card)

[Tomasz]

Basically, I would want something that is a better value than the current incarnation of the Parhelia. When I built my most recent computer, I just could not justify spending $399 for the Parhelia when the Radeon 8500 128MB was available for $162 (especially since the computer would be running only 1 monitor).
I really like Matrox graphics cards, but I really cannot justify spending an extra $200 dollars for just slightly better image quality.

So I would like:
A cheaper (~$250) single head version that performs as well as the beta boards were rumored to perform: Basically I want a card that can run current games at 1600x1200x32 with antialiasing and high quality anisotropic filtering (imho, anisotropic filtering is the more important of the two, especially at high resolutions). The Radeon almost gets me there, allowing me to use 1600x1200x32 with 16x anisotropic filtering, however the Smoothvision antialiasing is too slow to be usable. Compared to the Matrox cards I have used, the picture quality is just as sharp but the colors it puts out are slightly washed out and the drivers have a few more issues (but have been surprisingly stable).

Still looking forward to the next Matrox card,
Tomasz

[SpiralDragon]

-Full 3head suport
-10bit alpha min...
-16bit/colorchanal
-seperate TV out with powerprotection
-LOWER PRICE TAG
-more Speed
-0.09µ


how about a new age quntum based GPU

[Pace]

I'd like a fancy coloured PCB

[CaineTanathos]

a gold card

[Umfriend]

- Quad head is nice with gaimg too to have a center, left and right and back screen. Easier to watch your 6 in (combat) flight sims. I also want a PCI version of the card so I can add some top and a bombardier views. One simply can not have enough screens. And indeed, they need to be true multiple head capable

- Fast and Stable drivers under Win9X indeed, or lets just say, as stable as G550 drivers?

- I HATE .NET. I do not see the reason for going through .NET for drivers (pls enlighten me).

- Software package: Just throw in some games (UT2003, MS Combat Flight Sim etc).

[typedef enum]

Let me provide a more basic thing I would like to see...

I just spent the afternoon doing a massive bunch of errands, and I was sorta' looking for a Parhelia...I didn't leave the house with that in mind, but I got to thinking...

Anyhow, here's the problem. Here I was, driving around, and I went to just about every place in town...and I live in a big city.

Not one place had any Matrox products. I'm not just talking about Parhelia's...like, none...zip...no Matrox of any sort.

How many times do people walk past a demo/box/etc. and say, "Hmm...OK, I'm sold..." I know I do.

Note to Matrox...If any of these stores carried Matrox products, you would have made at least one sale this afternoon. I know I'm not the only dude out there that would fit this profile either.

Matrox has virtually no presence whatsoever (be it retail, web, or otherwise), and they need to do something about it. They might very well not want to compete with the likes of the 9700's and NV30's (when it becomes available), but they sure as hell need to increase their presence.

Aside from all of that, they absolutely need to address the following:

1. A good year of driver tuning. This is just part of the process, obviously...so not a new feature per-se...

2. Memory Bandwidth Tech: It's rather clear that this design went forward without significantly addressing preserving bandwidth. They need to take it to the next level, and put much better intelligence into their memory controller (a-la Lightspeed).

3. Likewise, better HSR technology. I don't recall what the numbers were for things like the Villagemarks of the world, but it seems that this might play into the low performance numbers @ low resolutions, etc. This has the obvious effect of lowering performance in more significant ways.

4. Memory/Core: This doesn't always tell the whole story, but it's pretty obvious that Matrox has to do a much better job in this area. ATI has just proven how far you can take .15u, and it does make Matrox look like amateurs by comparison (no offense to the engineers @ Matrox).

5. Features that work all the time. FAA looks amazing, but is not a good solution if it cannot be made to work 100% of the time. If there's no solution in making it work, then move on to something else.

6. DX-Features...Quite frankly, I really wouldn't care too much about this, as long as all the other things were addressed.

[Pace]

And, the question is, what do people look for off a shelf?

Besides the bad advice they'll likely get (oh, Voodoo's are the best cards around madam), they'll likely look at the specs.

Matrox will need to explain their visual quality in simple, but reassuring terms - 5th order filters

FAA - simple reassuring terms.

True DualHead - simple reassuring terms.

The average off the street buyer might go in with $300 to splash out on a really fast graphics card, without reading THG for benchmarks, so Parhelia could sell well here.

However, do you realise how many they'd have to make to have a retail presence everywhere? Plus they'd need to assure the shop owners to stock them. And why will they do that? Their 3dfx range is still their top seller. And will they really shift? I'm hoping marketing have done their work, and selling the card the best way the think.

P.

[mutz]

...and change the photo on the retail box. What's that guy sitting in the chair supposed to represent? Some yuppie listening to his B&O stereo?

...jeeezzz, what a jerk!