Now would be a good time...

[Topha]

... wouldn't it? The last major evolution step for Graphic Chips has just been taken, the products are not yet available, and there will be no major specifications changes for quite a while now. So it would be a great time for Matrox to announce their own next-gen chip. I know they almost certainly won't, but hey, the crystal ball needs some kind of revival

[Mikko]

Yep, Parhelia with full DX9 support would be nice!
But I've just bought the new AGP-8x version, so I wouldn't upgrade straight away, I guess...

[Marshmallowman]

Final beta dx9 driver=RIP matrox consumer graphics

[K6-III]

The lack of decent linux drivers for Parhelia was the nail in the coffin.

Even I, a diehard Matrox fan and supporter, am moving away...to NVidia...unless Matrox somehow surprises me...

[Nicram]

Matrox will back to normal consumers market!!! In a 5-15 years :P Are You happy now ?:P

[magog]

Originally posted by K6-III
The lack of decent linux drivers for Parhelia was the nail in the coffin.

Even I, a diehard Matrox fan and supporter, am moving away...to NVidia...unless Matrox somehow surprises me...

If you are looking for 3D I can't give you an alternative, but if it's 2D you want to look at SciTech SNAP.
Two weeks ago I got the information, that the Parhelia will lock up with the HAL (Hardware abstraction layer) SciTech got from Matrox, but the P-650 and P-750 are working just fine with it.
SciTech is working on Multihead and some other features right now. After they finish that, they'll try to get the Parhelia working.
I'll try to get a special SNAP build (OS/2) for the Parhelia, so I can try it myself....with my Parhelia. Maybe only their Parhelia testboard is screwed up (i think they only have one).

They recently started to release a special version for one chipset for free (for private use only).

Here is the newsgroup post:
===========================
-----------------------------------
SciTech SNAP Graphics for Linux
Personal Edition BETA
-----------------------------------


What is the Personal Edition?
-----------------------------

SciTech Software, Inc. is proud to announce the availability of our new web site for dynamically generating Personal Edition versions of SciTech SNAP Graphics. Personal Editions are licensed for non-commercial use, and are locked down to a single graphics chipset as part of the dynamic building process on the web site.

To use the Personal Edition log into the new web site (URL listed below) and register an account. Once you have an account listed, you can select your Operating System (presently Linux and OS/2 are supported), your graphics card manufacturer and your graphics chipset. Once you have validated your account via email, you can then log in and start generating custom builds of SciTech SNAP Graphics.

Note that the Personal Edition versions of SciTech SNAP Graphics have no timeout period, but are not licensed for commercial use. Commercial users should continue to use the full version available for download from our web site.


Where can I download it?
------------------------

In order to download the personal edition of SciTech SNAP Graphics for Linux, you must sign up and create an account on our web site using the following URL:

http://my.scitechsoft.com

For the duration of the beta period this web site is password protected, so you will need to use the following userid and password to gain access to the site:

User Id: mybeta
Password: lassen


About SciTech SNAP Graphics for Linux
-------------------------------------

SciTech SNAP Graphics provides high performance graphics accelerator access across a wide range of modern graphics hardware and operating systems. The core technology is our SciTech SNAP Graphics Architecture, which is a cross platform device driver technology enabling the use of the same device drivers in all versions of SciTech SNAP Graphics. Sharing the drivers between platforms improves the quality and performance of device drivers for all supported operating systems.

The install archive contains the end user Linux installation of SciTech SNAP Graphics. It contains all of the necessary Linux based utilities and device drivers that work with SciTech SNAP based applications, as well as full support for XFree86 4.0.2 and later official releases. Applications that can utilise SciTech SNAP currently include applications developed using the SciTech MGL graphics library, or applications written to work directly with the SciTech SNAP device drivers.


Support
-------

If you wish to discuss the Personal Edition and any problems you might have with the new web site, please use the SciTech newsgroups at:

news://news.scitechsoft.com/scitech.snap.graphics.linux


--
Kendall Bennett
Chief Executive Officer
SciTech Software, Inc.
Phone: (530) 894 8400

http://www.scitechsoft.com

~ SciTech SNAP - The future of device driver technology!
===========================