58 Million Windows 98 Users -- No Windows 98se Driver for Parhelia

[Zanna]

The ONLY reason I had not purchased the Parhelia was the lack of Win98se drivers.

Now I have a dual boot configuration, with W98se an W2kPro. (I need W98se), running on my good-old AGP4 Modded G400Max.

Reading this article from eWeek:
Microsoft Bows to Pressure, Extends Support for Older Windows Versions

.. sound very interesting for me !!!

some sentences from the article:
.. more than 80 percent of companies are still using some Windows 98 and/or Windows 95 ...
.. 58 Million Windows 98 Users ..
.. Microsoft .... announced that it would now continue extended support for Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition and for Windows Millennium Edition (ME) until June 30, 2006 ..

At last Microsoft have joined the customers needs, too.

Why Matrox doesn't have meet those needs?

I am only one potential Parhelia user that do not have buyed them.

If my memory is good, when Matrox announced the Parhelia, the web pages have shown into the minimum Parhelia OS specifications just Windows 98 SE (then removed), same thing happened tho the DirectX shaders...

How much potential customers Matrox have losed with this lack of support?

[Peter Aragon]

I think Matrox expects that high-end users won't accept/put up with the poor stability of Win'98. At least I don't put up with the poor stability of Win'98, and I'm not even a high-end user

[Sasq]

How many PC's running win 98 actually meet the system requirements of a P card?

I sacraficially burnt my win98 cd long ago, and you don't even want to know what I did with my winME cd.

[borat]

parhelia = enthusiast market = highest end kit = latest OS = XP, if you are going to buy a parhelia, then why would you put up with '98? well done matrox for allocating scarce driver resources to the right places!

[Mikko]

Now that Microsoft has dropped their support for Win98 almost completely, there won't be much security updates etc for this OS.
Therefore you should not use it anymore, if you're spending your time online...

[Tomasz]

I wouldn't use 98se or me as my primary OS, but I do like to keep a dualboot option because some games and legacy hardware simply will not function correctly on an NT based OS.

Matrox's competition provides 98se and me drivers... so this is just another area in which Matrox is not competitive...

[KvHagedorn]

The point is.. how hard would it be? They already have win32 drivers for w2k.. shouldn't be too much modding needed to adapt them for 98SE. But then, they should have done that when the P came out.. it was a much more salient issue at the time, and it definitely cost them a few sales. The reason M has fallen behind the others is very simple. nV and ATI realize they are in business to make money, and they will attempt to be competitive wherever they can. Matrox decides it will do what it wants to, and customers can come along for the ride if they feel like it.

[borat]

Originally posted by KvHagedorn
The point is.. how hard would it be? They already have win32 drivers for w2k.. shouldn't be too much modding needed to adapt them for 98SE. But then, they should have done that when the P came out.. it was a much more salient issue at the time, and it definitely cost them a few sales. The reason M has fallen behind the others is very simple. nV and ATI realize they are in business to make money, and they will attempt to be competitive wherever they can. Matrox decides it will do what it wants to, and customers can come along for the ride if they feel like it.

Agreed on all counts.

[Sr17]

Oh yes,

Matrox don't expected that there are crazy heads that wanted to buy an high end $450 card and use it with Windows 3.1

Maybe Matrox have prefferd to use it's developper time better to add Windows XP support for all the G400. In my opinion it's a better choice.

For the Vertex Shader 2.0, yes Matrox will not support it. What interest ? The Vertex Shader 2.0 have no utility unless full Direct X 9.0 support.
The gamming world have manifested absolutely no interest in the Parhelia. And no developper have manifested a little interest to support the "Vertex Shader 2.0 only" of the Parhelia.
It appears that if Matrox would have done a driver to support Vertex Shader 2.0 it would be completely and fully useless : No application would support it.

In conclusion, i think Matrox use it's developper time wisely to do what client needs realy.

[albatorsk]

Originally posted by Sr17
Oh yes,

Matrox don't expected that there are crazy heads that wanted to buy an high end $450 card and use it with Windows 3.1

Are there? I have seen a lot of requests for drivers for Windows 98, and none what so ever for Windows 3.11. Maybe that is because Windows 98 is an operating system with oon of the largest userbases in the world. Just maybe.

Maybe Matrox have prefferd to use it's developper time better to add Windows XP support for all the G400. In my opinion it's a better choice.

Well, the G400 already had Windows2000 drivers long before the Parhelia was released, so I'd be thoroughly suprised if the same drivers wouldn't work with XP.

From what I've gathered the Matrox driver team has managed to, since the release of the Parhelia:

1. Remove overlay from the second and third head since the initial driver release
2. Not implement Vertex Shader 2.0
3. Not delivered on the "professional quality support for Linux" by releasing a driver that supports OpenGL
4. Not implement OpenGL 1.4 compliant drivers for Windows (nVidia's and ATI's are 1.5 compliant)

For the Vertex Shader 2.0, yes Matrox will not support it. What interest ? The Vertex Shader 2.0 have no utility unless full Direct X 9.0 support.

Which is unfortunate, since it was one of the sellingpoints of the Parhelia. Great to have a company advertise a feature and then do a 180* and more or less deny its existence.

The gamming world have manifested absolutely no interest in the Parhelia. And no developper have manifested a little interest to support the "Vertex Shader 2.0 only" of the Parhelia.
It appears that if Matrox would have done a driver to support Vertex Shader 2.0 it would be completely and fully useless : No application would support it.

Well, we'll never know this, since it isn't supported.

In conclusion, i think Matrox use it's developper time wisely to do what client needs realy.

The way they're acting, they won't have many clients left soon.

[Jon P. Inghram]

I seem to remember one "reason" for the lack of Win(98 SE|ME) drivers was that they needed .NET to make it work and .NET didn't exist on those platforms at the time. Too bad that even after MS released .NET for 98SE/ME they still didn't come out with a driver.

[Sr17]

Originally posted by albatorsk
Are there? I have seen a lot of requests for drivers for Windows 98, and none what so ever for Windows 3.11. Maybe that is because Windows 98 is an operating system with oon of the largest userbases in the world. Just maybe.

You know, there are also A LOT of users that remains using Windows 3.1.

Windows 98 remains in use in many computers only because some old computers remain in use. NOBODY will buy a new spanking new computer to use Windows 98 to work with. Or maybe some crazy man.
Windows 98 is a so crappy operating system that it wouldnt be suitable for a serious computer.

Parhelia is an high end card. It costs a lot of money and is made to be used on a workstation. To buy this card for a new workstation with this crappy buggy windows 98 is just a crazy idea.

For compatibility with old software that requires these older OS, just use an old computer rather than multi boot. An old computer is Really really cheap now and if you has the money to buy a Parhelia, i expect you can consider it.

In reality, in a recent high end workstation, there are a lot of hardware that just don't work very well with Windows 98. Multiboot is just a bad idea.

Developper time costs a lot. And Windows 98 is a realy different os for driver developpement. I'm a developper and a know that. Just remember the time where nearly NO drivers was availlable for Windows NT because nobody wanted to spend the time(money) to do it.

Well, the G400 already had Windows2000 drivers long before the Parhelia was released, so I'd be thoroughly suprised if the same drivers wouldn't work with XP.

Yes, it's true. But they done it anyway. And what about the old millenium I. Matrox released XP drivers for it.

Yes, the millenium I remains a good card that can be used whith new harware. And it's a PCI card...

From what I've gathered the Matrox driver team has managed to, since the release of the Parhelia:

1. Remove overlay from the second and third head since the initial driver release

Are you sure of that ? In a recent driver, they annonced the dual overlay support. And when i tested, it worked.

2. Not implement Vertex Shader 2.0

Utility ?

3. Not delivered on the "professional quality support for Linux" by releasing a driver that supports OpenGL

Have they promised to do 3D for linux ?

4. Not implement OpenGL 1.4 compliant drivers for Windows (nVidia's and ATI's are 1.5 compliant)

Where it's said they will not do it ?

Making a good developping job is a long work. And proffessionnal users like me don't like bugs at all, you know.

Which is unfortunate, since it was (Vs 2.0) one of the sellingpoints of the Parhelia. Great to have a company advertise a feature and then do a 180* and more or less deny its existence.

Buying a Parhelia for VS2.0 support is just a noob idea. And i hope that nobody is crazy enough to have bought Parhelia for that reason. Everybody may know that ATI made some very better card for that. The radeon 9700 was released nearly in same time than Parhelia with full (and fully usefull) Direct X 9 support.

The way they're acting, they won't have many clients left soon.

You said that there are 58 millions of Windows 98 users. But you forget to say how many of these would buy a Parhelia for their older Windows 98 computer. The response is : Probably nobody will.

In fact, you are right in the fact that they certainly loss a lot of client because they are moving from the gaming market.

But remember, i am a company manager and you must know that SELLING isn't alway making profits. You can sell and loose a lot of money.
There a too much competition for the gamming market. It's simply too dangerous for a company to expect to live of it.

Despite they never done very competitive 3D by the past, Matrox remains really alive. 3DFX, the pionner and the first leader of gaming 3D market is definitively DEAD, killed by NVIDIA... and maybe NVidia will dies in it's turn if they can't do competitive enough boards compared with ATI products.

Matrox has decided to move on alternative markets ? Maybe they are right.

[Sr17]

Originally posted by Jon P. Inghram
I seem to remember one "reason" for the lack of Win(98 SE|ME) drivers was that they needed .NET to make it work and .NET didn't exist on those platforms at the time. Too bad that even after MS released .NET for 98SE/ME they still didn't come out with a driver.

Making Windows 98 drivers requires an incredible huge work.

Yes, for application, the Win32 api is nearly the same for programming. For drivers, it's very different.

[Chucky Cheese]

Upgrading

IMHO if your to cheap/unwilling to upgrade your OS then your probably not going to buy a P: and M knows that better than anybody else...

cc

[rylan]

If Matrox actually had much of a driver development team left they probably would've done a Win98 driver. Hard to do that when they barely have enough people to support one OS.