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  • E3 Impressions of Parhelia SurroundGaming

    First a bit of background on my experience and other caveats so you can take my opinion for what it is worth:

    I've been a *hardcore* PC gamer since back in the Apple ][ days. My two primary areas of "expertise" are FPS's (Original Doom, Quake, UT, etc.) and flight sims (mainly mil sims like Falcon 4, IL-2, F/A-18 etc.). I bought the first 3dfx Voodoo card when they came out, and quickly added a second for SLI. I graduated from there, eventually, to a TNT2 card, and from there to the GeForce2 GTS. Recently I bought a GeForce4 Ti4600 which I currently run on my P3-1gig 512meg rig with an Apple 22" Cinema display.

    When I read about the Parhelia's offering for SurroundGaming, I was, quite simply, blown away. I was in the middle of doing some research for a new high-end display as I am building a custom office/PC gaming room. Up until I heard about the Parhelia, I was close to getting a 42" plasma strictly for gaming (would be mounted above my PC on the wall while using an LCD for "work".

    Once I realized the potential of SurroundGaming, I quickly changed from plasma to a three-LCD configuration and had settled on a single unit, three panel display from 9XMedia (www.9xmedia.com) to go with my new Parhelia card as soon as it is released.

    It is with this background that I ventured today to E3Expo in L.A. to see the card in action.

    Now, I'm *well* aware that what I saw was a beta version, and that the drivers are *far* from complete. So.... *PLEASE* don't take this for anything more than it is: an eyewitness account of the current version of the card.


    I first saw the card at the Auran booth. They were running their program Trainz on the Parhelia displayed on the Panoram PV230 DSK (www.panoram.com). Trainz, for those who do not know, is a slick program that lets one build a 3D world populated with, well, trains. It is to model railroading what SimCity is to urban development (well.. kinda...). Anyway.... they were running it in 3072x768 and the panoramic effect was nothing short of stunning! Seeing the train span the screen from edge-to-edge was a real treat. The out-the-window-view made you feel like you were really sitting in the cab of a locomotive. I really think I saw the future of gaming....

    Which leads me to the downside: framerate. When panning around, there was a *noticable* framerate hit. I neglected, unfortunately, to find out what processor they were running it on, but as they only had two machines in the booth, I will assume that they were using a newer generation system.

    Still pleased with the effect, I eventually made it across the street to see what I had *really* come to see: the Parhelia running UT2003 in SurroundGaming mode. Before I did, I went to the Infogrammes booth to play UT2003 on a plasma widescreen and a GeForce4 Ti4600. All I can say is *UN-FLIPPIN-BELIEVABLE*!!! The graphics are simply jaw-dropping. Colors are vivid, framerate is fluid, and it was being rendered in 1280x1024. It was the highlight of the show for me (well... Doom III is awesome too... ). When you see UT2003 in action you will be floored.

    Anyway... so I made my way across the street to the "Dome"; literally a dome wherein a Soldier of Fortune II Tournament was being run on high-end machines running GeForce4's (funny... considering the Matrox guys were a partner in this). However, my attention was drawn to the SurroundGaming on 3 projectors of UT2003. I was, unfortunately, disappointed.

    Now first, I realize that comparing how a program looks on a 42" plasma display to that on somewhat washed-outed projectors with not the best lighting in the world is a bit unfair. However, the display was good enough to draw a reasonable opinion on two aspects: framerate and overall "look".

    First framerate. The Matrox rep (not the most informed fellow in the world), told me they were running at 3072x768. I'm a *very* accomplished UT player, so I know a playable framerate when I see one. This was not really playable for a serious player. Most concerning was when I asked the rep about rendering at 3840x1024 (i.e. 1280x1024*3), he himmed and hawwed and said that it really was not good. I asked him if the choke point was the processor and he said no; the card handles most of it and thus not really that CPU sensitive. The systems they were running on there were fast Athlons (Alienware computers was a co-sponsor).

    Picture quality, although clearly subjective, did not compare to the GeForce4. Again, I believe I'm taking into account the projector issue.... but it just did not look nearly as rich.

    Now I know that the Matrox view is that the Parhelia is not about rendering 200 fps's in Quake (a line parroted by the rep I spoke with). However, let's be real: As a flight simmer and FPS nut, framerate is king. While I agree that a card that pushes 200 fps vs. 120 ain't got any huge advantage, there *is* a baseline for framerate that *must* be met. IMHO, this card, in its current incarnation, is not there.

    Most concerning to me is that while clearly beta is, well beta, I saw noticable coughing on the Trainz engine; a renderer that does not come *close* to the engine used in UT2003. So my concern is that if the Parhelia is having some problems rendering 3072x768 on an older, "plain vanilla" 3D engine, how will it be able to handle the UT2003's and the DoomIII's of the world when they are released?

    Maybe the drivers will fix all this and it will be as smooth and beautiful as what I saw on the GF4 (and yes... I *know* that the GF4 was not being asked to render 3027x768... but then again... I didn't buy the GF4 to do SurroundGaming). But until then, I'm gonna take a wait and see approach.

    This is one gamer who, having seen the potential of 3 head gaming, is *praying* that these issues get resolved.

    Wazoo
    Last edited by wazoo; 23 May 2002, 20:22.

  • #2
    Thank you for your(what seems like) unbiased opinion. Reading your review worries me a little. Although I truely enjoy stable drivers, superior image quality, and the Matrox name, I really enjoy a great game over anything else. It's very interesting reading your views and I will be very anxious to see this card in action for myself. Something I don't know is, does running a game at 3840x1024 cuase a frame drop more than say 1280x1024 or do you get the other 2 monitors for free? Also, were these games running with FAA or do you know the answer to this? What about the 10-bit coler, could you see a diference?

    Thanks,

    Dave
    Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice, pull down your pants and slide on the ice.

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by Helevitia
      Thank you for your(what seems like) unbiased opinion. Reading your review worries me a little. Although I truely enjoy stable drivers, superior image quality, and the Matrox name, I really enjoy a great game over anything else. It's very interesting reading your views and I will be very anxious to see this card in action for myself. Something I don't know is, does running a game at 3840x1024 cuase a frame drop more than say 1280x1024 or do you get the other 2 monitors for free? Also, were these games running with FAA or do you know the answer to this? What about the 10-bit coler, could you see a diference?

      Thanks,

      Dave
      Unfortunately the individual who was the Matrox rep was, well... let's just say not too informed. Thus I have no idea if FAA or 10bit color was enabled. I also asked a few people the question about whether it is the rendering *itself* at such a high resolution that is the main workload or splitting it up once it is rendered. No one I spoke with had an answer.

      Overall, I must say that I was disappointed in the Matrox showing at E3. The guy at the *very* small Auran (i.e. Trainz) booth was not a Matrox guy but an Auran guy. He said they had to make very minor adjustments to Trainz to get it to work which, I'm hopeful, is a good sign that other developers might do the same.

      At the "Dome" across from the main conference, as I said, I only saw that one guy.

      I *did* try to go to speak with more people at the Matrox booth.... but what I discovered was that they were not in the main hall... and when I tracked them down, it was not a "booth" at all but a small room with no windows and the door closed.

      Compare that to Nvidia who's name was everywhere.

      I would have thought that Matrox would have had a really nice setup showing the card playing multiple games. Thus I'm concerned that is was either a financial decision to go low profile.... or the card is just not really ready for prime time yet.

      I'm also hopeful that maybe the Matrox people were really working the back channels at the show. I know *I* was...

      I asked just about every game company that was making a new game whether or not they planned to support the 3 head gaming. Most stared at me blankly.... and the few who had heard about the card said just that... they had heard about the card.

      Again.... not sure what to draw by way of conclusions on any of this.... but I thought I'd pass along whatever info I had and let everyone draw their own; if any.


      Wazoo

      Comment


      • #4
        Thanks for your insights, wazoo
        I do not think we should worry too much about UT2003 looking bad on the Parhelia... But TripleHead performance considerations are a different matter altogether.
        Originally posted by Helevitia
        Something I don't know is, does running a game at 3840x1024 cuase a frame drop more than say 1280x1024 or do you get the other 2 monitors for free?
        I think Surround Gaming with 3 displays in First Person Shooters equals to rendering 1 frame with three times the width, it doesn't take quite 3x as long as rendering one frame because per-frame overhead (whatever that is) and such is introduced only once... But then we have these "true" Surround Gaming titles R0M was also talking about (I think Imperial Galactica 3 is one of them) which should stress the card/system even more because they create 3 completely different views, one for each monitor.

        Comment


        • #5
          You don't have only alpha drivers ,but you have also an alpha board which proberly isn't running at full speed yet
          Hey! You're talking to me all wrong! It's the wrong tone! Do it again...and I'll stab you in the face with a soldering iron

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          • #6
            does anyone have any pics of matrox at e3???
            Dell Inspiron 8200
            Pentium4m 1.6
            640mb pc2100
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            15" uxga ultrasharp
            40gb 5400rpm hdd 16mb cache

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by CaineTanathos
              You don't have only alpha drivers ,but you have also an alpha board which proberly isn't running at full speed yet
              How do you know they have alpha board/drivers? In fact I saw your post in Matrox.com forums where you asked if they where alpha, but no one has answered yet.
              Well let's just hope that they really are alpha and not showing their full capacity in E3.

              And Tempest, what did you mean by: "I do not think we should worry too much about UT2003 looking bad on the Parhelia..."???
              I really am worried. Why did it look bad? Did they have to turn some eye candy off to make it run? If that's so and game still ran "choppy" I reaaally am worried.
              "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home."
              Ken Olson, President, Digital Equipment, 1977

              Comment


              • #8
                The boards had to be either alpha/alpha or beta/alpha. In either case not what you could expect from a production board.

                Also: about anything looks bad on a projector IMHO.

                Dr. Mordrid
                Dr. Mordrid
                ----------------------------
                An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications.

                I carry a gun because I can't throw a rock 1,250 fps

                Comment


                • #9
                  although this "review" doesn't sound good i hope matrox will have everything sorted out when the card is shown to the world.

                  however i cannot leave the framerate obessions uncommented. if you ask me it is all about penis size. some years ago people were more than happy with 30FPS and it was considered smooth, a few years later that was increased to 60FPS and nowadays it is 120FPS? is 240FPS next?
                  no matrox, no matroxusers.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Plus to anyone who has worked with projectors will know that they tend to have problems displaying graphics when they are connected to a graphics source that tries to push them beyond their limits. Also we have to remember that this is a totally new architecture requiring a building from the ground up of the drivers, which sometimes can't get into full swing until engineering has finalized the card, so I'm sure driver performance will improve. Whereas the Ti4600 is build upon an older design with already established drivers that probably required very few changes. Also with the Ti4600 once you turn on 4XFSAA and anistorphic filtering it will incure about a 40-50% performance hit. If you don't believe me just read some of the reviews on the web. That is those that tested that. Whereas I have heard that 'P' even with all the eye candy turned on (16XFAA, DM, 10bit color, etc) will only incure about a 20% performance hit. Let's just not fret over it so much at this point and see how things progress. I saw another post saying that they won't be available to the public until about the end of June, begining of July. That's over a month away and alot of improvements can occur in that time frame.

                    Let's look at someone else's point of view which both for the most part are purely subjective.



                    Joel
                    Libertarian is still the way to go if we truly want a real change.

                    www.lp.org

                    ******************************

                    System Specs: AMD XP2000+ @1.68GHz(12.5x133), ASUS A7V133-C, 512MB PC133, Matrox Parhelia 128MB, SB Live! 5.1.
                    OS: Windows XP Pro.
                    Monitor: Cornerstone c1025 @ 1280x960 @85Hz.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by thop
                      although this "review" doesn't sound good i hope matrox will have everything sorted out when the card is shown to the world.

                      however i cannot leave the framerate obessions uncommented. if you ask me it is all about penis size. some years ago people were more than happy with 30FPS and it was considered smooth, a few years later that was increased to 60FPS and nowadays it is 120FPS? is 240FPS next?
                      Hmmmm... "penis size"?? Ok.... but... if you play FPS's competively, or if you are a flight sim junky, framerate *is* king. Sorry. But it is true.

                      If this card does 60 fps (equal to my LCD refresh rate) when fully taxed (either 6 or so multiplayer opponents on screen all trying to kill each other in UT2003 or flying down in the weeds on a bombing mission with CAP trying to take me out on a flight sim) with all the goodies turned on and running in triple-head at 1280x1024.... you won't hear *me* complaining that I'm not getting 200 fps.

                      But... you cannot deny that a high benchmark FPS rating often translates to how a card will perform when heavily taxed.

                      Maybe some equate it to "manliness", but I have found in my experience that FPS scores are a pretty good indication of how a card functions.

                      Now, again.... I'm not talking about 202 vs 207 and thus 207 is a better card. THAT type of argument really is all about bragging rights IMHO. But if a card does 75 vs. 21..... well.... at least for me, that is *great* information to have.

                      Wazoo

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Maybe some equate it to "manliness", but I have found in my experience that FPS scores are a pretty good indication of how a card functions.
                        That is complete BS. FPS scores are a pretty good indication of skill not card function. Just ask Kruzin and a few others around here who are still using their G400s for on-line gaming and beating the crap out of others.

                        Joel
                        Libertarian is still the way to go if we truly want a real change.

                        www.lp.org

                        ******************************

                        System Specs: AMD XP2000+ @1.68GHz(12.5x133), ASUS A7V133-C, 512MB PC133, Matrox Parhelia 128MB, SB Live! 5.1.
                        OS: Windows XP Pro.
                        Monitor: Cornerstone c1025 @ 1280x960 @85Hz.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          was there a framerate counter on the screen, or was it your own observation based on your trained fps-eyes, that it didn´t ran fluid?
                          do you have any idea how the card will perform in singlehead?
                          This sig is a shameless atempt to make my post look bigger.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Joel


                            That is complete BS. FPS scores are a pretty good indication of skill not card function. Just ask Kruzin and a few others around here who are still using their G400s for on-line gaming and beating the crap out of others.

                            Joel
                            Ok... let me see if I understand you correctly. Are you saying that if we are equally matched UT players, and you get 15 fps and I get 200 fps, that we will split our games 50/50?

                            If so, you are entitled to your opinion, but I must respectfully disagree.

                            Wazoo

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by TDB
                              was there a framerate counter on the screen, or was it your own observation based on your trained fps-eyes, that it didn´t ran fluid?
                              do you have any idea how the card will perform in singlehead?
                              I could not figure out how to get the FPS counter running. It was a completely subjective view based upon experience.

                              Wazoo

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