What's happening with Matrox?

[seer]

Ok, I give up.. I'll keep posting here from time to time.. Damn you all ! ;-)

@Blackmonk

Strange.. I've been using a Parhelia (3 monitor setup) since the card was released and have no real  probs whatsoever. Have you used a Parhelia ?

GFX quality is superior to that of a Geforce4 4600, and only marginal slower then the GF4 (Used both cards here, same setup.. Well except for 1 monitor) depending on the game and the setup. And it's well known that the Parhelia supports only AGP4 when it was released and this was said by Matrox several times ! (It can do AGP8, but this is "disabled").

Matrox is a very helpful company, much better then nvidia, I have no experience with ATI on this.(Matrox own forums are a great place with people from matrox being really patience and helpfull even when "Idiots" refusing to listen to what's being said".. I remember a fellow who kept on arguing that the product data where wrong/misleading, when it was obvious it was not. Even tho it was a tech forum, not a customer service forum, the Matrox people kept trying to help him). Besides, if my card goes faulty, it goes back to the dealer, not to matrox. It's the dealer's job to sort things out.. If they don't, kick the dealer ;-)
 
Sure their are some driver isues, but ever used the first ATI or nvidia drivers ?  

As for the financial problems, any links on that ?

Matrox is not ONLY tied to PC graphics, they also do medical imaging and audio/video stuff, I believe. No idea what THOSE divisions are doing or how well.

AFAIK they are doing well.. But it doesn't seem to be something Matrox talks about alot.

[seer]

Did it ever get released, as a while back I remember reading in a magazine that the G800 was to be the card used in the AmigaOne

The G800 is death, or was what is now the G550. The G550 is a "cutdown" G800. Not that anybody except Matrox really knows the real story but;

MURC 1

This thread by "Amiga Blitter"... have some info.. Use Google for more info..

Most references related to the G800 are either gone, hard to find, or only rumor related, no facts.. Hmm.. The G800 is the AAA of Matrox..

(Sorry 'bout the late reply, been reading these forums ;-)

[seer]

@BlackMonk

Matrox WAS a well-respected company in the PC market, too, well-renowned for their image quality. Now, however, that reputation has taken a severe beating

Depends who you talk to.. Like I said, I believe 2D image still is way better then a GF4.

As for the financial info, well, MURC used to have some posts and articles written by laid-off employees that the MURC news poster (VigilAnt) flew to Canadia to personally interview.

Ah.. The best info; laid off employers... Sorry, read these to, but so what.. I'm more interested in stock market reports and dusty number reportings.. Many big companys laid people off, happens every year.

The owners also were removed from Canadia's "top 100 richest people" where they used to be around the 80th position or so.

Well, that's a bit interesting. But could also mean that other people became richer then them, not that they lost money.

If most of their revenue, though, comes from the PC division

I have no info backing this, but it seems Matrox has been more of a "profesional" GFX suplier then consumer... That's why most people were happy when Matrox was announced to be a "partner", just like the Amiga, Matrox is pro video.

The main thing that people are pissed about is that the Parhelia has problems--confirmed, real problems, and Matrox is denying that these problems even exist (the banding is what I am referring to).

Like what other company doesn't deny problems with their products ? M$ certainly seems to deny any serious problems, yet you can update Windows several times a week. So does Phillips/Sony/Amiga deny problems until proven otherwise in public by several non related people.

Well, in many tests the damn thing is slower than a GeForce3

Test ? I give a rat's *ss about tests.. FYI, the parhelia outperformed the Geforce 4 with some demos that were made to demonstrate the Geforce 4 powers.. So what does that proof ? Anyway, both Geforce3 and 4, the Ati Radeons and the Parhelia can do more then most games throw at them.. Most games are still programmed with the Geforce 2 era in mind (except Doom 3 ;-)).. And DX8 could use some more optimasations (SP?)

this card was slower than the competition the second it was released.

So you get 90 FPS instead of 100 FPS, while your display can only refresh 80FPS..... If you buy a Parhelia you do so for the triple monitor support and superior GFX. (DVD movies with 10it Gigacolor (TM) look great, Unreal and wolfenstein have never been so much fun.. Even Tiberian sun is great over 3 displays :-D )

AGP 4x has little to no performance benefit over AGP 2x--and by the time applications will NEED the extra bandwidth

There aren't that many 8x mobo's sold yet, I guess 2003 will see them more and more ;-)..  Still, I prefer that the GFX get even more ram onboard.

I wish I had more solid info for you, but the most solid info was from former (and current) employees of Matrox and those comments were lawyered away from MURC. So... you only have second-hand recollections from me and I didn't follow things too closely.

I wish so to... Also seems that G800 rumors threads are gone from the matrox forums..

All of my information has been gleaned from online sources, not first-hand.

Hmmm.... Having had a GF4, and now a Parhelia I can say I prefer the Parhelia... But I'm not just interested in gaming, that's on the third place for me. If your a hardcore gamer then a more powerfull FPS card may be a better choice.. Then again, having a bigger POV in Firts person shooters is realy great, I hope other GFX cards will have this option one day to.

Another thing,  you seemed a bit angry in your replys, sorry if I upset you, but if you don't own the a Parhelia or never ownded one, why ?

[seer]

I'M NOT ANGRY YOU SON OF A !$#@~@)$*(

Ok... that's good :-) ;-)

Sorry, but I doubt I can afford or use something like that in my PC.

Well, it's not like it's my habbit of forking out 490 euro for 1 gfx card, and 1200 euro for 3 Belinea 101570s (Highly recommend if anyone is looking for a good TFT screen)... I don't expect to buy any PC related hardware for say 4 to 5 years.. (How fast can a P4 2Ghz grow old  :-o ......)

It just seemed absurd to go off on the broadcast equipment tangent when that is SO not applicable to this thread.

Hmm... The topic is what's happening with Matrox, and if he means that Matrox is more and more becomming a broadcast/profesional equipment manufactor it is related to this topic.. Maybe not to your first post.

I believe the banding also shows up in games. So... even the non-professional users are seeing this in recreational computing.

I had this with my Geforce 2 card, but not with games.. Or at least I didn't notice them when playing games.. Tho that was a driver isue.. And somewhat unrelated here ;-)

You see, that's what's been happening with several of the Parhelia purchasers. That's why they are beginning to get frustrated with Matrox and feel as though they have been betrayed or deceived.

I'm not saying this isn't true, but in the Netherlands a dealer must replace the defective product if it is returned within 1 week (it's then a DOA) or if the customer wants replace it with another similar priced product. This may not be the case in other countries, but I sure as hell would go to the dealer, not Matrox.. (Would be difficult if the card was bought directly from Matrox)

That's what gets my goat. How can you, as a business, just do that?

Well, it's easier then to try to make customers happy..

Matrox used to treat the customers much differently.

Well, if they are in financial trouble they would try to do as little exchanging/repairing as possible..

Then the G400 got rushed, apparently, and the G800 got crippled and turned into the G550 instead. Then the Parhelia came out. All the time Matrox started slowly bleeding employees and no longer investing in R&D.


How familiar.. C= anyone ?

I mean, the Parhelia doesn't even do bandwidth saving compression of geometry or, what is it, occulsion testing?...Basically, it doesn't test to see if something is visible before sending it to be rendered.

Indeed it doesn't, can't think of the correct term at all, but I do believe Matrox explained why they didn't include this in the Parhelia.. Can't find it tho..

which isn't supported by every game, last I checked, and also drops performance down a bit--which is a shame since the resolution is also limited in what you can choose?

Hmmm.. I've only seen 1 test in a magazine about surround gaming performance, and the drop was either minimal or just as fast... AFAIK, the max res is 3 x 1024*768 but that's only when using stretched desktop and in games.. (No problem for me either, the TFT screens won't go higher then that).. The first drivers also had a problem with displaying video within a triple monitor setup, but it's working great now.

I'll skip commenting on the links, I believe I've read them all allready...  Besides, I don't beleive in most of these benchmarks, some of them are biased towards one card or another, I prefer live testing.. (Not always possible, I was lucky to be able to borrow a Geforce 4 when I got my Parhelia, so I could compare them)

If the card's great for what you use it for, excellent!

ThanX, it is ;-)

I would not buy a Parhelia unless it was guaranteed not to have banding issues or unless I had a need (and ability to get) multiple monitors/LCDs.

I've said it in other threads/forums, I only recomend the Parhelia if you want it's extra features.. If you want raw 3D power get a Geforce 4 or the latest radeon.

You can't look at Matrox's financials because it's a privately-held company that doesn't disclose that information.

Bummer ain't it ? ;-)... Who knows, if they are in financial troubles maybe they go "to market" to get some cash..

There's a difference between realism and blind optimism.[/]

Again; how familiar :-)

However, your responses seem to be somewhat apologetic or dismissive--the issues I'm bringing up are not FUD, they are fact. You can find this information elsewhere on the 'net if you look hard enough.

Well, the reason why I'm "dismissive" is because I also know of troubles about Geforce / Radeon cards, and you often hear only the bad experiences... A lot of the bad feelings also comes from the overhyping done at MURC and other websites and the computer press. Somewhere down the line Ben Hermans said this card was a Geforce Killer (Feature wise it may well be), but Matrox never claimed it would beat the Geforce 4 IIRC (If I'm not, then I stand corrected later on).

I'm stuck working on a holiday while the rest of my company is off so I have nothing else to do for 8 hours today

I know how you feel... This is the first year in 3 years time I don't have to "stand by" during newyear, and don't have to work on the first day of the year..

i][I think Matrox's PC product division is in big trouble and being horribly mismanaged.

I think it's more a PR problem at the moment, but that's after R&D "cancelled" the G800 / relabeled it to G550 and after the Parhelia overhyping..

You haven't upset me and I hope I'm not too bothersome to you.

If I found you bothersome, then I wouldn't reply.

It's just that you seem so out of the loop for a Matrox user

Hmmm At work I use some G200 type chip (not sure, can't check it) and the Parhelia is the first Matrox card I have bought.. Before that it was nVidia and before that Voodoo.. I couldn't care less about Matrox, I do know that my next card is another triplehead card, either from Matrox or from somebody else.. Offcourse, if none of them exists, ah well, live goes on.. I have other important things to worry abouth (Health being one)

It seems like you're only hearing about these for the first time in this thread.

No I heard them before, but having to hear problems of others on a daily basis, and hear people teling me something doesn't work but wont' listen when I tell them how to fix it (Really... If a network printer can't be "pinged" then it's either switched off, unplugged, bad cable, or kaput... Reinstalling the drivers isn't going to work.. Jet, they refuse to check any cabling ! (I can't do it for them, I work "remote") I take these kind of reports a little light.

I wish Matrox luck and I'd probably pick up a Parhelia 2 when it gets released... if they hadn't apparently cancelled the project.

Nothing on the Parhelia 2, AFAIK only rumors. I don't expect it to be released for at least another year (Matrox doesn't seem to release new products as fast as ATI/nVidia) and don't expect it to beat he competition powerwise either...

I hope these are all just unfounded rumors but seeing Matrox's conduct and the issues with their current hardware has me leaning towards assumption of the worst.

Time will tell... Hell, as an Amiga user we should be used to this....

2 hours to countdown... But happy newyear just in case....