Matrox Parhelia Review

[Typedef Enum]

(Oops...I put this in the wrong forum before)

http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/Parhelia/index.shtml

Well, after all is said and done, it's finally done. My work schedule has been the biggest reason this thing took as long as it did to complete.

However, I think (at least I hope) a lot of people enjoy it, and see the positive side of this product.

Let me know what you guys think.

[John Reynolds]

Excellent job, Scott. Was one of the few reviews lately that I actually enjoyed reading (Wavy's articles being of course an exception <g>).

[Typedef Enum]

Thanks John.

The thing took me a while to complete, mainly due to ridiculous work schedule. Once I had the time to put into the article, it wasn't too bad.

I'm in the process of putting some GF4 numbers in the article, for comparison purposes...but it's kinda hard to do, due to the some of the odd resolutions that I used on the Parhelia.

In the end, if nothing else, I hope it just makes people aware of the fact that not everything is what it may seem. There are a lot of things the Parhelia does well, and a lot of these points are never covered in mainstream reviews.

Hell, the fact that TV-Out worked as advertised seems like a major accomplishment, based on what I have seen, and what I have read. No kidding.

I'm very serious though...I really wish it were possibly for people to experience Surround Gaming. If anybody were to give it a whirl, I have no doubt that most would jump on the bandwagon in a heartbeat.

[PC-Engine]

Surround gaming like the arcade version of F355 would be awesome.

[archie4oz]

Indeed, I'd also like to try it with F12002...

[Reverend]

Hardcore folks who would not think twice about forking out $600 for the latest-and-greatest video card may, however, think twice about forking extra for two additional monitors (and, no, these hardcore folks ain't going to game with three 15inchers). That is simply the toughest "hurdle".

Having said that, now on to reading the review :).

[nggalai]

Excellent review, type. Well done. Your article makes me look forward to the Parhelia8x and Parhelia2 even more than I did before. ;)

One thing I'm particularly happy with is that you didn't provide any numbers for SS:SE /patched. This sort of . . . integrity is getting sparse in the industry.

ta,
-Sascha.rb

[Typedef Enum]

I have added another page, as a result of some feedback asking for some comparison numbers. The page is complete, but I'm going to wait until the modifications have been made to the layout of the pages (Mike is doing them for me).

Should be even more interesting :)

[rubank]

I appreciate your effort and your approach,

but the scale of some of the graphs is ridiculous.

I also think the fontsize is overkill.

[MikeC]

I appreciate your effort and your approach,

but the scale of some of the graphs is ridiculous.

I also think the fontsize is overkill.

The review wasn't supposed to be announced until I was finished formatting it. So I've taken it off-line until it's ready. Should be back up in a day or so.

[SirPauly]

It was an outstanding review over-all and the kind I like to read. Surround gaming seems very immersive and the author tried to express this the best way he knew how to his readers. There wasn't any digs or cheapshots for the most part on other hardware companies and stayed on target on the product at hand. Raised pros and cons of the product and very informative to boot. Great Read!!

[Typedef Enum]

Thanks for the kind words. Still waiting for Mike to wrap up some work...

But in the meantime, I decided to post some numbers that won't be added to the review. After I made the initial post, I received several requests for some comparison numbers. I really wasn't going to do it, but I decided to in the end.

Some of the resolutions seem funky, and they are. I wanted to run the Parhelia in, say, 2400x600...and then compare the GF4 using a resolution that would be comparable, though obviously different...such as 1600x900.

Lastly, all of these involved Antialiasing. For the GF4, I used 4xS/4x in D3D, and 4x in OGL. I think everything else is pretty self-explanatory.
I used the absolute latest available drivers for each board.

Note: I'm not very crazy about the way I went about charting these numbers...I put them together rather quickly...

Quake3

http://home.attbi.com/~typedef.enum/Parhelia/image002.gif

Yes, I know...However, this game is a blast in Surround Gaming, and I was curious how it stacked up. As you can see, the Parhelia outperforms the GF4 across the board, to include Anisotropic Filtering.

Battlefield1942

http://home.attbi.com/~typedef.enum/Parhelia/image003.gif

This was a very interesting one...The stuttering that I had heard about, which is absent on the Parhelia, was all over the GF4. I wouldn't even consider this very playable on the GF4. Anyhow, the Parhelia did a pretty darn good job here.

UT2003

http://home.attbi.com/~typedef.enum/Parhelia/image004.gif

I think this was, perhaps, the single biggest surprise. Again, the Parhelia outperformed the GF4 across the board. 2400x600 is the normal Surround resolution used, but I wanted to see what difference going to a comparable resolution would be...which is 1600x900. As you can see, by and large, it's roughly equiv. to 2400x600.

Aliens vs. Predators 2

http://home.attbi.com/~typedef.enum/Parhelia/image006.gif

This one was equally surprising. No matter how hard I tried, I achieved the same results. I simply used FRAPS to continue a single player level, and I played the level the same way across both the GF4/Parhelia. It's hard to imagine the GF4 sucking wind this badly, but it did.

-----------------------------------------

Anyhow, I did a bunch of other as well, but I thought I would cut it off there. When you're talking about high-resolution gaming + Antialiasing, the Parhelia beat the GF4 in every single game/benchmark I threw at it, save Nascar 2002...clearly, a CPU-limited game, and the difference was a mere 2 FPS.

In conclusion, I think it's safe to say that Matrox has done quite a job with their drivers. They're to the point where they can now concentrate on tweaking them for performance, as there are very few bugs that I know about.

Going forward, I think Matrox is definitely on the right track...FAA is a pretty awesome feature, and will definitely be even better in the near future.

[Dave Baumann]

In conclusion, I think it's safe to say that Matrox has done quite a job with their drivers.

Drivers are a mixed bag. Comparing the earlier drivers from the CD to the latest sones shows a few performance increases in some cases, but almost as many drops in others. Their DX performance has increased while OGL has decreased.

[Typedef Enum]

Dave...

I've had this board for...I think it's been about 6-7 weeks now...during this timeframe, I cannot tell you how many things have been squished as far as bugs. Heck, some of them were as a result of me filing the bug report.

In some ways, I have seen this thing mature a bit...but clearly, there's a lot of room for growth. The Shader performance is really beyond curious. The Parhelia, IMHO, seems to have very unoptimized Shader performance. It doesn't matter if you're talking Aquanox/Aquamark, 3DMark2001...the performance is way too low, and I suspect that you will begin to see these numbers get larger.

The very early drivers were rough around the edges, so to speak...and I'm NOT talking just about 3D! I mean the whole shebang....TV-Out, etc. I think the next set of drivers should include some good optimizations.

[Typedef Enum]

One other thing...

On the OGL front, you have to be very careful in saying that OGL perf. has dropped. In fact, take a good look @ CAD performance between these drivers and the original ones. It's a massive difference.

I never used to absolute original drivers, so I would only be speculating on what other have said/claimed...But to a man, every single Parhelia owner claims (MatroxUsers) that the original drivers were "crap."

I also know that the next driver release is going to be more focused on optimizations...this past one focused on getting CAD perf. up, and the next one will (hopefully) address some of the other things like Shader performance (man, it needs serious tweaking).

On a different note...Mike got all the edits/changes in place, and I was finally able to post this review last night. It was never actually posted per-se, because it had been taken offline within an hour or so of me making the initial announcement.

[Dave Baumann]

On the OGL front, you have to be very careful in saying that OGL perf. has dropped. In fact, take a good look @ CAD performance between these drivers and the original ones. It's a massive difference.

Ummmm. With SPECviewperf and the 1.0.0.233 and 1.2.0.42 drivers three tests are down and three are up.