The other Canadians...

keegdsb

Newcomer
Yes, that's right, Matrox. Just for a change of pace around here, this is what those wacky guys in Montreal are up to:

- The return of the Marvel (Video capture/TV tuning cards). I'm not sure which chip they'll use, but I would say it's most likely going to be P-Series.

- Parhelia 8x (Parhelia: Parhelia 8x::NV20:NV25)
This has been ready for a very long time, it could have been released for Christmas 2002. It hasn't completely gone to waste as it was chopped in half for the Millennium P-Series.

There are a few possible reasons for the long wait:
1. The original Parhelia stock has taken 2 years to sell. Obviously it was a complete failure in the retail/consumer/enthusiast/whatever market, but supposedly had been selling well in their niches. Hopefully this was not the case.
2. They didn't want to pay for a new mask.
3. The management there is, frankly, weird sometimes, so it could have been something completely different.

The improvements:
1. Flip chip packaging.
2. New memory controller(s).
3. Various bugfixes, (Parhelia was seemingly rushed, at least near the end) including the infamous:
4. Banding, removed.
5. FAA is tweaked a bit, I think it just artifacts less now (See: P-Series).
6. Core clock able to be upped into the 250+ range (Again, see: P-Series). I say able to be upped, because Matrox will likely not release the clockspeeds and who knows what they'll clock it at.

IMO, it's what Parhelia should have been, 2 years ago.

By the way, as I know some (most?) will be uninterested, can we just keep the "Parhelia is slow" "jokes" to a minimum. ;)
 
Evildeus said:
When will it come out?
The P8x has already shown up for pre-order in some obscure Norwegian store for April 17th. It has been confirmed as accurate by Haig in the Matrox Tech Support Forums. Though he won't say when it will become "official."

As for the Marvels, I would guess the traditional Matrox April/May-June release.
 
Regarding the Marvels, will they be stand-alone PCI boards or AGP cards with a tuner bolted on to them?
 
Guden Oden said:
Regarding the Marvels, will they be stand-alone PCI boards or AGP cards with a tuner bolted on to them?
AGP cards complete with tuner bolt-on, like an AIW.
 
sounds like Pitou...but I thought that refresh Project was cancled..??
But maybe they just took a bit more time...[/i]
 
Robbitop said:
sounds like Pitou...but I thought that refresh Project was cancled..??
But maybe they just took a bit more time...[/i]
Not quite, Pitou wasn't the refresh project, it was the next gen chip. It was cancelled. We (I) also thought that P8x (which is the refresh) was cancelled as well, since it had been waiting so long. Yet now it's coming.
 
i just read the thread over at the matrox forums and haig talking about 'summer' ( the nextgen release ) made some allusions to bugs , then another person
mentioned

I was thinking maybe the bug comment was a sneaky way of saying RAID, as in the bug spray. Obviously, RAID refers to disks, but maybe Matrox will redefine RAID as:

Really fast
Array of
Inexpensive
Display Adapters


then haig said My god man, you actually think like me You're very close with your 1st paragraph.
and then said something about cad/dcc , i'm thinking distributed accelerated hardware rendering ( i hope they spent more time working on their opengl drivers if this is the case )

i don't know ... guess we'll see in a few months
 
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