My Review is up

[typedef enum]

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.

[K6-III]

Although you're painting the Parhelia in a good light, it'd still be good to compare more to the competition...

[Greebe]

I think we've all had our share of Q3 esque fps comparisons...

[Guru]

Why is this btw posted in the gaming forum?

Oh and is it not DirectX 8.1 compliant and not 8 as you stated on your site?

[drslump]

hi,

nice review, in fact is one of the most clear hardware review I've seen. I like a lot the part about the drivers UI, I think most times it's not covered in detail on the reviews but it's a very important aspect of a device.

anyway there are some things I was missing from the review :

- the fact that there is no Win9x drivers doesn't seem to be commented. I know it's not a huge concern for most people, but it's still a quite important thing to place in a review.

- I would imagine that since you're using LCDs, you are not getting the infamous banding effect with 3d apps. I develop 3d applications as a hobbie and usually I have the IDE/debugger in one monitor and a window with the current development running in the other, and it's quite anoying since you can easily notice the banding effect in both monitors.

- I've tried and I agree that surround gaming is an awesome feature, which really tranforms the gaming experience but so does the stereoscopic glasses, and you can find them for a 1/3 of the price of a monitor. Unfortunatly Matrox doesn't provide stereo drivers, and I would've like to see this comment in the review.


btw as someone mentioned parhelia supports DX8.1, and since the were some important improvements over 8.0b it'll be important to correct it.

impressive review.

cheers, Ivan

[ElDonAntonio]

damn, that has to be the most complete review I ever read!!! Great job, so many details it feels like owning a Parhelia!

I'm still curious about Beyond 3D's upcoming review that'll compare the performance delta with various drivers. We only have Darkcrow as a reference to date.

[typedef enum]

Thanks for the comments...

I have taken note in wanting some sort of comparison, and I have slapped in my GF4 an hour or so ago...

I have nearly benchmarked all of the games, but I'm doing something that's a little bit different. I want to compare the performance between Surround + FAA vs. eqiv. resolution + 4xAA.

So, take Quake3...In my estimation, running the game in 2400x600 + FAA is equal to running it @ 1600x900 + 4AA...so on, and so forth.

There are a couple of games which will preclude me from doing this experiment, but I can do it for most of them. The results are, shall we say, interesting

I'm going to try and update it by tomorrow.

[ElDonAntonio]

great idea, can't wait

[typedef enum]

Just an update....I have completed the comparison, and I think it will be rather interesting to see the feedback

Anyhow, a few more modifications are being made by our Webmaster, so I'll wait until then to give you the URL...

[Mikko]

Good job, man!

I think this is the best Parhelia review out there so far!

[Admiral]

You've pretty much hit the nail on the head with AF.

"We feel that Parhelia's 2-tap anisotropic filtering is a significant improvement over both bilinear and trilinear filtering and by us enabling any higher setting we would effectively hit that law of diminishing returns in terms of quality improvement / performance reduction"

Let me restate my position on this issue: Matrox needs to completely rethink this, due to the fact that it's not competitive with other accelerators. What's the point of limiting the capability of the hardware? Why not give the consumer a choice? Quite frankly, this has been one of the very few sore spots with this product since I installed it.

What does Matrox mean ?
So, ummm, we won't give you higher AF settings because it will make the P crawl ?
My GF3 can do up to 8x, with quite a performance drop but still, it's there. Give the user a choice.

[Kastuvas]

Very good review and on a nVidia site as well. However it seems there is no link to the review from the websites main page, is ti because you are still working on the review?

[103er-Fan]

Admiral,
I agree on that issue. When the first Parhelia reviews have been released, I remember that I've read something about a german Matrox spokesman who said that the AF level will get higher with new drivers. But to see now that Matrox says we don't need this, is sad, I really hope they are working on AF, especially performancewise.

About the review:
I really enjoyed it, you covered all the features of the card, especially surround gaming, I can't remember another review which cared that much about SG. I am really looking forward to your updated review with Ti4600 comparisions.

[Admiral]

I really hope they are working on AF, especially performancewise.

Don't think they could do much AF performance wise with the current Parhelia, they could just give you the higher settings with the performance hit it takes.
With the revised Parhelia and the Parhelia 2 it migh be another issue.

[TdB]

thats a very well written review!

your SG screenshots illustrated quite well, why you love that feature so much.

maybe your review will help eliminate the common misconception, that the parhehelia sucks for gaming.