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Matrox's New Three-Head Video Card
This Anonymous Coward was one of many readers to point to sites with information on Matrox's upcoming Parhelia-512 graphics card: "It appears that some foreign hardware sites have violated NDA and posted some very juicy details on Matrox's next generation hardware. iXBT's review can be found here(1), and a MURC posting with some other pics from China can be found here (2).
It looks like the real deal. Will Matrox wake up from their long slumber in the 3D gaming market, or will this card be another stopgap like the G550 was?" Update: 05/12 14:07 GMT by T : Alexander Medvedev of ixbt.com points to the English version now online as well, and notes : "Please note, we can't violate NDA becouse we _do _not _sign _anything
with Matrox Graphics. And never receive any info from Matrox."
It seems this thing will kick major (major) major ass...
The thing works with 10 bit resolution
has 5 outputs, and 2 display controllers (dunno how they will have 3 monitors attached)
There is a glyph antialiasing unit (ahem...)
DVD/HDTV decoder (10 bits) and also a 10 bit video digital interface.
more info at
http://ixbt.com/video2/parhelia512/chip_diagr.jpg
It should be noted that the very act of taking a screenshot can stall the system.
try taking a screenshot of 3dmark using a utility that writes it to disk immediately, most likely the system will stutter, and it's DURING that stutter that the image is actually captured (hence the low fps readout)
the phenomenon occurs with Quake engined games as well. probably others...
I can't envision hooking up 3 CRTs
I can, it's about to be winter down here.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
The register has more details (and isn't dead):l
Go http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/25238.htm
DWR is Ajax for Java
80 million transistors
Technological standard 0.15 gm
Graphic nucleus/kernel and memory work with the clock frequency up to 350 MHz
Valuable is 256 bits (!) OF DDR the busbar/tire of the memory
The capacity of local memory on the order of 20 GB/sek
Capacity of local storage 64/128/256 MB.
AGP of 2kh/yakh/8kh including regimes/conditions SBA and FastShrites
4 piksel'nykh conveyors
4 textural blocks on each conveyor (!)
To fillrate:up to 1.4 gigas-peaktorrent and up to 5.6 gigas-flowtorrent
Apical sheydery of version 2.0 (Vertekh Syuader 2.0), four parallel fulfilling blocks
Piksel'nye sheydery of the version of 1.3 (Pikhel Of syuader 1.3), 4 textural + 5 combination stages on each piksel'nom conveyor, with the possibility of the association/unification of conveyors in pairs (we obtain 2 conveyors on 10 combination stages)
YEMBM and DOTE the imposition of the relief
Fixed/recorded T & L DKH8 (including the extended possibilities of matrix blendinga and skininga).Is actually special apical sheyder
Construction, storage in the local memory and conclusion/derivation to the monitor of image with the accuracy of 10 bits to the component of color (!). the technology of the 10- bits Of gigaCholor
Two built in the chip, 400 MHz, 10 bits to the channel RAMDACH, which use technology Of ultraSyuarp
Valuable of 10 bits.> 10 bits are tables for the arbitrary Gamma-korrekqii the concluded image
DVD and YUDTV of video decoder with the accuracy (at the output/yield) of 10 bits
Is supported the conclusion of image in the permissions/resolutions up to 20ya8khyshche'khe2bpp8shch Hz
Built-in the chip interface of TV -Out with 10 bit accuracy signal shaping
Two digital TDMS of interface for the digital outputs/yields or external RAMDACH.Is supported permission/resolution up to y920khy200khe2bpp
Two*** TRANSLATION ENDS HERE ***
There was also a mention of glyph antialiasing... And 64 / 128 bit per pixel colour...
L33t haxx0r: Notice the on-topic first post above.
Matrox Driver Problems: We are experiencing major driver difficulties with Matrox products under Windows XP. All of these are with the most recent Intel motherboards and Matrox G400, G450, and G550 adapters. We are using the latest Matrox drivers from the Matrox website. We have also tried the Microsoft certified drivers, which are much worse. We have tested with clean installations of Windows XP, as well as upgrades from Windows SE.
Our Win XP clean install test machine takes 18 seconds to display 97 items when doing a DIR directory listing. This appears to be caused by bad interactions between the Matrox drivers (with a new Matrox G550 adapter) and Windows XP. We are testing with a 2 GHz Pentium 4 and a new Intel motherboard.
We often see artifacts in DOS windows. Little colored vertical bars are left on the screen after some operations.
When we reported these things by telephone, the technical support representative, Bob Alionis, was very reluctant to deal with any matter that could not be solved quickly. He told us to try a video adapter from another manufacturer. This was difficult for us, since we have been building computers only with Matrox cards. Also, if an adapter from another manufacturer worked well, why would we go back to Matrox?
We tried an ATI Radeon card, and it worked better. We would be reluctant to switch to selling ATI cards because of our perception that ATI often has driver problems.
We haven't tried nVidia yet. Do nVidia chipset cards display business applications crisply? None of our customers run games, so sharpness at 1600 x 1200 resolution on 19" monitors is the most important criteria.
There is apparently no e-mail address for Matrox technical support. Matrox did not respond to e-mail sent to sales. Matrox did not respond to e-mail about technical problems sent to the RMA department.
Things have changed at Matrox. They are apparently trying to keep the number of tech support calls down by making it complicated to report a problem. The paragraph below is an exact quote from a message sent by a Matrox RMA department representative. The phone number mentioned is in Canada. Apparently Matrox does not have a U.S. number.
Jump through hoops RMA procedure:
"You can obtain an RMA for your board through Tech Support. Just make sure that you have registered your Matrox board on our web site http://www.matrox.com/mga/registration/home.cfm and have selected the option 'Obtain your tech support client id number...' at the Registration Menu. Once you obtain the client id number, just call 514-685-0270, then select option 1, followed by option 4, and then finally option 1 to reach the Tech Support queue to speak to a technician. For additional information on the RMA procedure, e-mail rma@matrox.com or call 514-822-6000 and ask for the RMA Department."
We wonder if Matrox is unable to fix its driver problems, and they are trying to avoid taking calls about them.
I hope they're getting ready to make an explosion at Siggraph this year. :)
But the big question is - where the hell did all this come from? Did they hire a few people away from nvidia? Did they run across some brand new wunderkind? Or is this what happens when you shelve new product development for a few years and focus on delivering a new product three years, not six months from now?
Is the architecture modular and well-designed enough that Matrox can continue to compete when the other guys catch up?
And is Matrox (I hope) back?
They have a few screenshots of different games which they've tricked into supporting it at the first link above. And I have to admit - it makes me a little drooly. :)
It's also a brilliant move for Matrox: If they keep throwing out 3 head cards at a premium price - after buying one Matrox 3-headed card, who's not going to keep purchasing Matrox cards? If you got this set-up, would you disable one or two of your gaming monitors just to get the new nvidia whizbang that might be 10-20% faster?
Neomagic, however, eventually learned the folly of having an anti-Linux policy, and were forced to leave the Laptop chipset market altogether; I am sure that the various laptop makers did not appreciate all of the returns from people who wanted to use Linux.
You want to back that up even just a little bit? I love Linux and I'm running it on this Compaq EVO N160 but to think that a video *chipset* manufacturer even sees laptop returns due to Linux is absurd. In fact if you look at the page you provided, the drivers are done by Precision Insight; Someone over there probably talked them down into allowing source release, not hordes of Linux users who demanded their money back from the laptop vendors, who got so upset that they called Neomagic.
"follow of having an anti-Linux policy" -- geez do you believe the crap you write? Yes Linux is great in servers and it's making headway (very great headway) in the desktop market but it hasn't got clout like you try to attribute to it.
"Neomagic, however, eventually learned the folly of having an anti-Linux policy, and were forced to leave the Laptop chipset market altogether; I am sure that the various laptop makers did not appreciate all of the returns from people who wanted to use Linux. "
No. It was ATI and nVidia making mobile editions of their chipsets that pushed NeoMagic out the door.
Linux is far less relevant than you desire it to be.
I'm not laughing. I own a Vax. There were some volcanologist graduate students, that were poking around the neighborhood last summer, they thought that they had discovered some unknown thermal vent on an obscure satellite heat map. They were disappointed when I explained it was just the trusty MicroVax. I felt kinda bad, to tell the truth.