How to hurt matrox if your unhappy - suggestions

[borat]

A lot of people on these forums and elsewhere are very dissatisfied with the deception around buying a parhelia and its features. personally i would like to make matrox pay for this and the only way is through bad publicity so people stop buying their products. to do this we need to be able to broadcast what they have done in a place where hundreds od thousand PC customers will read it, magazines websites ect. anyone have any ideas on the best way of doing this, maybe if we got a petition and everybody put their name to it then we sent it to PC magazines detailing what the issues are they would be more likely to put it to print. anyone got any other suggestions or how to set up a petition? i could send it out to the UK magazines.

[Umfriend]

Do you really want to make them bleed? Think about this first.

It won't be easy, but it may be possible. Thing is, you will have to get attention from those that are read by those who do buy parhelias in volume, not retailer magazines. Then you have to see if the features what those people by Ps for can be put into a bad light.

Thing is, it might just be that for the people that actually buy Ps in volume, their targeted market, are fully satisfied with the features they get and that they do not give a hoot about what you think they did wrong with the product.

[borat]

i dont want to make them bleed, i want all the people who are considering buying a parhelia to know the facts about it which are covered up - banding, clock speeds, aniso, Faa problems, dx9 issues. i was mis sold my parhelia and it is not a nice feeling, i would like any one considering buying it to know exactly what they are getting and the practices of the company they are buying from - pulling support for previously listed features and selling cards with know bugs - banding.
i have prepared this letter for anyone wishing to send it to websites, magazines or wherever you wish, if you dont agree then dont send it, if you like matrox send good press, i am just voicing my opinion in a world of free choice and free expression where private companies are rewarded for inovation and customer care.
here is the letter - all references were correct when it was drawn up:


dear sir/madam,
I would like to bring it to your attention that matrox has been using false and deceptive tactics whilst marketing its parhelia graphics card and feel the issue is newsworthy.
the issues are:
False advertising concerning partial directx 9 support. - originally when I bought parhelia it was advertised as having a DirectX 9 Quad Vertex Shader Array. here is an archive of this (note the mention of directx 9)

page:http://web.archive.org/web/200302022...uad_shader.cfm

Since purchasing parhelia matrox has since said that it will not provide an implementation for the DirectX 9 Quad Vertex Shader Array on the parhelia and amended its advertising page so that it no longer says directx9 or vertex shader2.0!see here - (note no directx9 mention now)

http://www.matrox.com/mga/products/parhelia512/technology/quad_shader.cfm

this is misadvertising and dissatisfied customers are posting here about it:
matrox own forum:http://forum.matrox.com/mga/viewtopic.php?t=4305
MURC forum: http://www.murc.ws/forums/showthread.php?threadid=44846
and also:http://www.murc.ws/forums/showthread...hreadid=44954.

On top of this parhelia was advertised as having a core/memory clock of 220/550mhz for the retail and 200/500mhz for the bulk version here:

http://web.archive.org/web/20020804222852/http://www.matrox.com/mga/products/parhelia/series.cfm

notice there is no star above core or memorey clock.

after people started to receive cards with clock speeds slower than advertised the page was amended to the following:

http://www.matrox.com/mga/products/parhelia/series.cfm

notice the star and now apparently clock speeds may vary by 10%!!
this is an awful deception to the customers who bought underclocked parhelia and is discussed here:

http://www.murc.ws/forums/showthread.php?threadid=44893

there is also a bug with parhelia in that when using a 3D overlay the card is defective in that it produces interference that causes bands which move up the screen leading to eyestrain. matrox first denied the problem existed and then said it could not be fixed:

http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?s=&threadid=36666

and

http://forum.matrox.com/mga/viewtopic.php?t=1652&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=banding&start=15.

finally they also deceived customers with there anisotropic filtering claims:

http://www.matrox.com/mga/products/parhelia512/technology/supersample.cfm

is says 64 Super Sample Texture Filtering which although technically correct is deceptive as it equates to 2x filtering if using the same advertising as other companies like ati whereas many matrox customers thought it was 16x anisotrpic filtering.here:

http://www.murc.ws/forums/showthread.php?threadid=42437&highlight=aniso

add this to Linux drivers that were delivered way after advertised and lacking support for openGL as well as Fragmented Anti Aliasing which was broken and did not work on all edges and produced strange artifacts(it has now been fixed on later card releases such as the P750 and P650 but still not on parhelia) and you have a company policy which is to deceive and abuse its loyal customers. i believe that this should be brought to the attention of all graphics buyers in the market to make them aware of the strategies of the companies they are purchasing from

many thanks for your time

[bERNIE]

Are you all on something? This whole situation with you guys wanting revenge and threatening legal action is completely and utterly pathetic.

I hope this thread doesn't turn into a bashing thread much like the others did with the guys taking the brunt of the crap being the two people who post here regularly from Matrox. Soupy was evening beginning to hint about forthcoming products and allowing us to know some of his personal thoughts on things. I wouldn't be surprised or blame either him or Haig if they don't bother coming here in the future.

John.

[gt40]

Take a Midol folks.
I'm sure if enough ppl let them know they are unhappy, they may decide to implement some of these features.
Trying to 'hurt' them isn't going to help anyone.

[Maggi]

it would be a start if it was posted on MURC's own newspage ....

Where are the Ants when you need 'em ?

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


bERNIE,

we didn't start the fire, but we were the ones that got burned !

Of course, this is not an attempt to bash anybody in person, but rather an attempt to wake up the ones in charge who decided to give a rat's a$$ about what the said yesterday, read: changing advertisements more than a year after a product's launch etc.

[Maggi]

Originally posted by gt40
Take a Midol folks.
I'm sure if enough ppl let them know they are unhappy, they may decide to implement some of these features.
Trying to 'hurt' them isn't going to help anyone.

how long are we supposed to continue begging for features that were advertised since product launch ?
especially now, that they took 'em down off their pages ?

[borat]

well i sent the letter to anandtech, toms,[H], and a UK magazine.It remains to be seen if its important enough to report.

[Admiral]

Originally posted by borat
i dont want to make them bleed, i want all the people who are considering buying a parhelia to know the facts about it which are covered up - banding, clock speeds, aniso, Faa problems, dx9 issues.

Not many people today are considering the Parhelia and those who still do are "connoisseurs", as Matrox actually defined its traget market for the P.
I'd say that the majority of them would either drop by MURC first and get an idea or they simply won't care about the lacking advertised (gaming) features, maybe they'll care about the banding.

What Matrox cares about is the OEM contracts, as Umfriend implied.

[TdB]

as well as Fragmented Anti Aliasing which was broken and did not work on all edges and produced strange artifacts(it has now been fixed on later card releases such as the P750 and P650 but still not on parhelia) and you have a company policy which is to deceive and abuse its loyal customers

they were completely honest from the beginning about the limitations of 16xfaa...

I agree with all the other points though.

[Mikko]

Maybe the Parhelia-512 core supported some of the DX9 features, maybe it didn't. I don't care. AFAIK, the actual Parhelia 128MB and 256MB video cards were advertised to support DX8.1 only, right from the beginning.

Now that I look back the time when Parhelia-512 technology was revealed, maybe it would have been better, if Matrox would have kept all of those extra features secret and maybe let their customers to be positively surprised later via driver updates.


Btw, I'm still VERY happy Parhelia user. It is the only card that supports Surround Gaming, in case you haven't noticed!

[borat]

Originally posted by Mikko
Maybe the Parhelia-512 core supported some of the DX9 features, maybe it didn't. I don't care. AFAIK, the actual Parhelia 128MB and 256MB video cards were advertised to support DX8.1 only, right from the beginning.

Now that I look back the time when Parhelia-512 technology was revealed, maybe it would have been better, if Matrox would have kept all of those extra features secret and maybe let their customers to be positively surprised later via driver updates.


Btw, I'm still VERY happy Parhelia user. It is the only card that supports Surround Gaming, in case you haven't noticed!

what you say is true, surround gaming is great and i cant change my parhelia because of it, however in order to enjoy surround gaming i have to endure banding of 2 screens, and i have to endure the fact that it wont run the game with the hardware they origionally stated(vertex shader2.0).

i also have to endure the fact that i own a card from a company who has "removed" features from my card in now saying it does not have vertex shader 2.0 and i also bear in mind they are a company who mislead customers on the aniso spec and clock speeds.

surround gaming is immense, i am not arguing with that, it is all the other mishaps that really annoy me.

[sparky001]

This is like drawing blood from a stone.
They don't care!


If I ever upgrade my current workstation system (Duel cele 433/BP6) then I will put a P750 in it. If Matrox treats me badly then the other canadian will get all my bussiness. - They listen.

Reasently they spent the entire weekend testing the cat3.8's to see if this monitor think could be recreated even though it was an obvious hoax. There is commitment to your customers for you.

Matrox would call it a feature. 'Matrox Monitor Upgrade' - Your monitor has been detected as old, starting matrox kill utility now for your convience.

[GNEP]

Where's Amiga Blitter when you need him?

[bsdgeek]

GNEP: ROTFL!