What's happening with Matrox?

[BlackMonk]

Matrox has delivered their next-gen part, the Parhelia.  It is expensive and not a great performer.  It is trying to compete based on features but I believe it costs more than the latest high-end offerings from nvidia and ATI.

In addition, their vaunted image quality took a horrible blow when they had banding artifacts on the cards (some HARDWARE issue) and Matrox's reputation among their customers went down the crapper when they DENIED THE EXISTENCE OF THIS PROBLEM.  I think they are also refusing to RMA the defective cards.  The kicker is apparently they KNEW about the problem but shipped the cards anyway.

There is supposedly an AGP 8X "refresh" of the current hardware that has a fix for this but word on the street is that Matrox made too many of the current defective 4X parts and wants to clear inventory--so the 8X refresh won't happen soon, if at all.

There's supposed to be a Parhelia 2 (Pauva?  Or something?) that is supposed to take the relatively solid Parhelia core (it is just somewhat slow by today's standards) and turn it into a real competitor.  However, word on the street is that due to Matrox's financial woes and layoffs, this product will never see the light of day even though it had already been designed(?)

My info is sketchy.  There used to be insider rumors posted at http://www.matroxusers.com/ but Matrox lawyers threatened the site maintainer and had him edit ALL of his content.  Since then, no new info.

The messageboard is a decent place to find out the latest info on Matrox.  They are still making driver updates so at least they aren't dead yet, but as a privately-held company they are under absolutely no obligation to release financial info or strategic plans--and they don't.  How they are doing is honestly anyone's guess.

What Matrox's relationship with Amiga is, I don't know.  How Amiga wants to use the (overpriced) Matrox card, I don't know.  But I do know that Matrox is really taking a beating by its longtime, loyal fans.  Their lack of information is leaving the Matrox community disenchanted and looking elsewhere.

Heh, does this sound familiar?

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.

And that, my friend, is what's happening with Matrox.

[BlackMonk]

I'm sorry, but... so what?  THIS IS NOT ABOUT THE PROFESSIONAL DIVISIONS OF MATROX.  THIS IS ABOUT THE CARDS MOST PEOPLE CAN AFFORD.

Thanks for paying attention, eh.  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.

The mumblings that I have heards is that Matrox's other divisions, while traditionally being rather strong, are weakening as of late.

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.  They had talk about how the G800 project was a total boondoggle, how the fabrication technology at Matrox was ancient due to lack of understanding by the owners in investing in process equipment, how more and more Matrox employees were being laid off, how morale was low, how all types of projects were cancelled, etc.

Somehow I don't think that is the sign of a healthy company, financially-wise.  Now this appears to only be the PC video division, I do not have any info on the other divisions.

The owners also were removed from Canadia's "top 100 richest people" where they used to be around the 80th position or so.  That would imply that their fortunes are tied into their company and those fortunes are greatly reduced.  While the IT industry as a whole is in pain, with the diversification (right, Animagic?) of their products you'd think they would be able to better weather any PC product problems.  If most of their revenue, though, comes from the PC division (doesn't seem likely?) then that would explain why they are laying off people and being removed from "richest in Canadia" lists.  

I honestly don't think the PC division is THAT important overall, but who knows.  I suspect that the other divisions are also hurting.

The insiders also blame marketing for pushing out the Parhelia when they KNEW it had defects.  And for idiotic focus of, say, HeadCasting.  To sell a product.  While other companies were adding T&L and anti-aliasing and a bevy of other features.

The Parhelia's defects apparently do not show up under DVI-based monitors nor do they show up in all cards.  They are, however, extremely noticable if you have them--read the MURC forums to see the complaints.

Matrox's support group is unto gods, apparently, and they are the sole reason many people still stick around to buy and support Matrox.  But the support people are of course hamstrung by the owners, the lack of information from the company, the driver team, etc. etc. etc.

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).

Now you get a card with a 256 bit memory interface and as many texture units as the Parhelia has and you'd THINK it would perform well for complex shader programs.  Well, in many tests the damn thing is slower than a GeForce3.  I've seen some tests where it has been beaten by a Kyro2 or a GeForce2.  The chipset clockspeed is 200 MHz, I think (I believe they clocked it at both 225 and 200 but don't tell you the difference), and it just isn't pushing out the performance needed to compete--this card was slower than the competition the second it was released.

I'm not complaining about the Parhelia only doing AGP 4x, it's just that the rumored "fixed" Parhelia was to be marketed as the "AGP 8x" version.  AGP 4x has little to no performance benefit over AGP 2x--and by the time applications will NEED the extra bandwidth anyway, the system you're trying to run the application in will be the bottleneck more than the AGP speed.

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.

The only Matrox cards I have ever had were a Mystique for a short while--it didn't work in my system for reasons unrelated to Matrox, a G200 which I currently have and don't really use, and some Millennium II cards that I don't really use.  All of my information has been gleaned from online sources, not first-hand.

[BlackMonk]

BTW, on the financial front, I fully realize that laying off people does not necessarily indicate that a company is in financial trouble.  Hey, reorganizations ALWAYS help, right?  But the fact that they seem to be cancelling any future products along with cutting down on R&D, driver programmers, and chip fabrication investment seems to me to indicate that they are STUPIDLY cutting costs for short-term gains.

If you shoot yourself in the foot by removing your ability to make your next product competitive, well, you're only setting yourself up for failure.  Combined with the fact that the employees felt as though the company was leaderless and the owners were taking out personal vendettas on some people doesn't make me too optimistic.

As always, there's no way to know for SURE.  Matrox sure isn't talking and all of this is heresay.  I'd like to believe that Matrox has a kickass product waiting in the wings that will save them and restore faith in the company, but I just don't think that is the case.  That's what I thought Parhelia was going to be.  While Parhelia is nice and has some nice features, it isn't fast enough nor the features mainstream enough to justify the high price--especially when you may or may not get a defective card that Matrox may or may not RMA.

I think many of the MURC blokes did mail-order or direct from Matrox or only noticed the banding after the dealer 30-day return policies ran out or something.  Or maybe they used European distributors who don't have a return policy, I honestly do not know.  But the angry customers seem to be blaming Matrox rather than just taking the cards back for a refund.  Odd, that.

[BlackMonk]

BTW, if I had the money, I actually WOULD buy a Parhelia and one of either of these:

http://www.panoramtech.com/products/pv230.html

http://www.panoramtech.com/products/pv290.html

Heh, surround gaming would kick ass!

[BlackMonk]

Your daughter... plays... GTA3?

Whoa.  That seems so non-typical that a female would be interested in that type of game.  Perhaps I'm just stereotyping, though, I dunno.  Women don't seem as attracted to mindless violence as men, though.

My fiancee was unable to play GTA2 on her 1 GHz P3 with a GF2Go video card.  Bad stuttering and framerates.  I don't know if that is related to the video being slow or the game being poorly-written when interfacing with nvidia cards.  So the fact that you got a ghetto G550 working decently with it is a nice feat!  

[BlackMonk]

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



I was a bit annoyed with that other guy saying/implying that we shouldn't care about Matrox's consumer-level offerings because they have good broadcast equipment or whatever.

Sorry, but I doubt I can afford or use something like that in my PC.  Or that it'll be working with an Amiga anytime soon?  It just seemed absurd to go off on the broadcast equipment tangent when that is SO not applicable to this thread.

Anyway, I should have mentioned "current employees" more often.  No, it wasn't just bitter ex-employees.  It was also anonymous current employees.  In fact, all of the ex-employees LIKED the company and products but were disheartened by the lack of leadership, the cancelling of future products, and the apparent total power that the marketing department had over product focus, i.e. people don't want performance, they want headcasting!

2D quality the Parhelia is great.  However, many of the users of this card got it to do CAD/CAM stuff over multiple monitors and with 3D-accelerated rendering.  The banding issues THERE are not inconsequential and the 2D quality or gigabit color don't help those people.  Yeah, I guess they could pay for a bunch of DVI-based LCDs or try to get their company to do so, but hard to justify that if you already have 3 24" CRT monitors that you got for this purpose.  

I believe the banding also shows up in games.  So... even the non-professional users are seeing this in recreational computing.  Now if you had this banding issue you would run into it--you don't run 2D only.  And if you ran into it I'm fairly certain you'd start to wonder about the quality of this product--especially when you find that Matrox officially denies this as happening (even though current and ex employees said that it was a known issue BEFORE shipping but they decided to ship it anyway) and in some cases refuses an RMA.

You plunk down, what is it, $400 for the card? and then find an extremely noticable image quality flaw and THEN get told that what you're seeing doesn't exist AND you cannot get the card replaced under warranty, well, then you'd likely have a different opinion of the matter.  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.  Or cheated, at least.  You were lucky and got a good Parhelia, great.  But there are many documented instances where the card's been shown to be flawed and Matrox has turned their backs on their own customers.

That's what gets my goat.  How can you, as a business, just do that?  Matrox used to treat the customers much differently.  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.  

I mean, the Parhelia doesn't even do bandwidth saving compression of geometry or, what is it, occulsion testing?  I forgot the term so that might be the wrong one.  Basically, it doesn't test to see if something is visible before sending it to be rendered.  Both these performance-enhancing features had been on cards that were released at LEAST a year before the Parhelia was released, probably a year before the Parhelia was even ANNOUNCED.  So they spend their time making a buff shader back-end but don't do no-brainer performance enhancements that have been around for a while?

Ah, something I had forgotten to mention, some of the employees interviewed had actually left, not been laid off.  They were so frustrated with the environment and lack of direction/morale that they quit without even finding another job first.  So they aren't bitter due to being laid off, there's something else that got them to leave.

For the Parhelia performance, sure, in some games it is 100 fps versus 90 fps.  In others it is like 40 fps versus 100 fps.  I think Tom's Hardware has some extensive card roundups.  I hate Tom's with a passion, but it is a necessary evil.

http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20021218/index.html

Oh, here's your vaunted Parhelia running on the fastest PC hardware currently available:

http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20021218/vgacharts-04.html

Oh, look, it is performing on par with the current BUDGET cards from ATI and nvidia, the GF4MX and the 9000.  Even somewhat close to an SIS video card.  SIS for God's sake!  A GeForce3 that was released, what, over a year before the Parhelia? is kicking the crap out of the Matrox card.

I used the UT2003 benchmarks because Matrox themselves claim that the Parhelia is not designed for high fps in older games at lower resolution, it is designed to better weather more complex/demanding games at higher resolution with minimal performance loss.

Granted this benchmark doesn't show how well the Parhelia weathers different resolutions or features being enabled, but it's being beaten by budget and year-older cards.

How about this one?

http://www17.tomshardware.com/graphic/20021218/vgacharts-06.html

Where other cards are basically CPU-bound, not fillrate-bound, the Parhelia is clearly already at the limits of the chip, not the CPU.  That's what the flat results of the faster cards imply and the fact that the Parhelia is pretty far back from them shows that the card is the bottleneck, not the system.  A GeForce2 solidly beats the Parhelia.

Now look, any way you slice it, the Parhelia's got some issues.  You're paying $400 for a card so you can... watch DVDs in gigabit color, have three monitors, and love the 2D quality.  You already said that you don't put a high emphasis on games so I guess we can ignore surround gaming (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?)  And what happens?

You're paying $400 for a video card that is slower than a GeForce2.  

Now you might enjoy your Parhelia, that's fine.  Feel free to enjoy it.  Until recently I was running a Voodoo3 2000 PCI because, well, it was good enough for me.

To be fair:

http://www17.tomshardware.com/graphic/20021218/vgacharts-02.html

There's one benchmark on a very tough engine that shows the Parhelia FINALLY beating all the GeForce 3 cards.  There's still at 16% jump in performance from the Parhelia to the slowest non-budge GeForce 4, though, but at least it finally edges out the year-older card.

However, if I recall correctly, the ATI and nvidia cards were either already out when the Parhelia finally shipped (not announced way back in... March? but actually shipped) or shipped soon after.  

The shakey image issues and the questionable business practice of Matrox makes buying an expensive, under-performing card for professional work seem iffy.  You can get an nvidia Quadro, ATI FireGL, or low-end 3DLabs WildCat III for around the same price.  

I suppose I might also be irate because I'm disappointed.  To me, Matrox always meant performance and quality.  This card has neither and Matrox just blindly PR's on about other things.

Performance is OK compared to other cards released or on the market at the same time.  In the same ballpark, at least.  Quality is iffy depending on the card you get--the kicker there is that Matrox will ignore you if you try to get the problem resolved.

If the card's great for what you use it for, excellent!  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 have a TV for watching DVDs.  I have a GeForce3 for playing games.  I have the option to get a dual-head video card and a separate PCI-based card if I want three screens.  About the only thing I lose out on is the surround gaming but since I don't game too much it isn't a big deal.

You wanted to know what was going on with Matrox, this is what is going on with Matrox.  You can't look at Matrox's financials because it's a privately-held company that doesn't disclose that information.  I don't think that Matrox is listed in any Canadian or US stock markets so you can't find any information that way.  I know you're more interested in hard numbers and facts, but Matrox doesn't provide those.

I think the last information on Matrox financials is from the year 2000.  Other than that any official inquiry gets ignored and they only thing they talk about is their past products and how excellent they were and how Matrox is the choice for excellence, blah blah blah.  Oh, you can now buy a 256 MB version of the Parhelia for $600.  Yay.

There's a difference between realism and blind optimism.  The Parhelia seems to be a good fit for you and there's nothing wrong with that.  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.

If you discount all things employees say, then you have NO way of knowing what Matrox is currently like or what they are currently doing.  If you give excuses as to why it doesn't matter that a $400 card can be beaten, performance-wise, by a GeForce 2, then I can't cite any benchmark numbers.  If you don't care about physical defects in the products shipped to other people and accept a company renowned for its image quality categorically denying that there is an issue, then I cannot call into question their character or business practices.

You can keep your blinders on if you want, it doesn't matter to me.  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.  Yay for network operations!    Long posts are fun because when researching various points I often learn a bit more about the situation I'm discussing.

I think Matrox's PC product division is in big trouble and being horribly mismanaged.  Only time will tell if they are able to regain the trust of their former proponents.

You haven't upset me and I hope I'm not too bothersome to you.  It's just that you seem so out of the loop for a Matrox user that I find it hard to believe you haven't seen all these complaints before.  It seems like you're only hearing about these for the first time in this thread.

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.

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.

[BlackMonk]

matrox's are pretty useless now... dual monitor support isnt a problem these days...nor is displaying 32bit color ... their gigacolor technology is junk as it strips the alpha to 1bit...worthless...

Actually, it has 2-bit alpha.  10+10+10+2 = 32bit.  However, considering all current graphics cards (on the PC at least, also probably Macintosh and consumer-level *nix cards) don't even USE the alpha channel in 2D, who cares?  In that case you're getting only 24 bits of visible color for your vaunted "32-bit color mode".  Pffft.

Gigacolor does NOT come into affect in 3D mode, if I recall correctly.  So yes, there you can still use the regular 8-bit alpha that all other modern 3D cards use.

For being useless, Matrox still has the best 2D quality (barring random lines appearing on some defective Parhelia cards) and STILL gets kudos from all kinds of computer publications for their multi-monitor support and multi-monitor software.

ATI and nvidia are decent but about the same level of refinement as Matrox had about 1.5 to 2 years ago.  If you don't need a high level of quality for multiple monitor support, hey, they work just fine.  

And the surround gaming is really cool, I just wish it were on a cheaper card as I think it would be a great feature/selling point.  As it is, only the elitist can afford it.  Bumping up the FOV is NOT the same thing--unless you like looking at warped images through a fish-eye type camera perspective.  If that's how you like playing games, eh, more power to ya.

The Matrox G100 and G200 (and now G550s?) come in quad-monitor configurations for what seems to be primarily financial applications.  Somewhat pricey but not too bad, they have had quad monitor support for years now.  And have been in use in professional applications.  I think the cost is around $600 or so for the G200MMS... is that what is was called?  My memory is foggy and I'm too lazy to look it up.

Matrox has some nice features but they don't know how to market them or which features to market.  That's the real shame.

Despite how much I'm ragging on Matrox, I really do like what they are doing.  Environmental bumpmapping got good exposure mainly due to Matrox.  Their multiple monitor support is second to none--period.  Check the web for comparitive reviews, they all point to Matrox being on top in that category though falling behind on performance.  And displacement mapping?  Matrox is trying to come up with some stuff that's actually original rather than just following what MS wants in DirectX 9.x or what nvidia is doing.  That takes guts but unfortunately I don't know if these nifty features will ever be used.

::sigh::

Dangit, Matrox, why are you screwing up your execution so much?  You've got so much promise!