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Anand's Review of Parhelia is up!

beat me to it!!! Reading now. I'm glad he used Catalyst for the Radeon's, and it shows just as I've suspected all along, the Radeon's are still sadly behind by a good margin the Gf4 Ti 4200.
 
beat me to it!!! Reading now. I'm glad he used Catalyst for the Radeon's, and it shows just as I've suspected all along, the Radeon's are still sadly behind by a good margin the Gf4 Ti 4200.
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The little advantage the Ti4200 has over the 8500 is evened out by the image quality that Ati has over Nvidia cards, so I think they are about even. Now they both spank Matrox around.
 
The little advantage the Ti4200 has over the 8500 is evened out by the image quality that Ati has over Nvidia cards, so I think they are about even. Now they both spank Matrox around.
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I disagree that the difference between the 4200 and 8500 is small. In UT 2003, the Ti 4200 was 20%+ ahead of the R8500 in the first demo (no AA/Aniso, Anand didn't test the Ti 4200 in the AA/Aniso), 30%+ ahead in the 2nd UT 2003 Demo, and 20%+ in Serious Sam 2. Now in non-GPU intensive Q3A, RTCW, and JN2, the difference is very small yes, but they already get way high fps. I agree that the R8500 at $100 is a good value and I would get it cause of its superior 2D, but for gamers, the difference between the Ti 4200 and R8500 is definately signficiant, even with Caltalyst.
 
like i said earlier... if its a die shrink that gets occlusion and full programmability into the card, then matrox needs a die shrink big time. that card would fly. perhaps a crossbar memory controller as well, if thats not implemented. from the preview it seemed as if matrox had those things on paper but decided not to implement them in favor of fragment AA and other features.

who is their foundry? TSMC?
 
So much for Parhelia beating geforce4 in "complex" games like unreal tournament 2.

And so much for Perhelia beating geforce4 in "simple" games with AA enabled...

Lots of people are going to get knocked off the bandwagon with these pathetic results.
 
Well, at least Matrox is consistent. Every card they've ever put out has sucked for 3D, and the Parhelia is no exception. 😛
 
My G400 is holding up just fine.
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This is what I'm dying to know about this amazing G400. What games, resolution, color depth and texture quality are you using? How fast is your processor. I had a G400, when it was released and used it on the top of the line processor when it was out and the performance was nothing close to the TNT that replaced it. How could a G400, stand up to even the budget cards of today for games? You must be playing at the lowest resolution, 16bit color and in single player mode. In any Q3 based games, that card is going to hold you back in DM, it simply will not allow you to move around fast enough to be competitive.

Maybe you don't play FPS games much, or online, or at all, but that G400 you have must be on crack, or massively OC'd.

vash

 
The review neglects to recognize problems in Matrox 16X FSAA: some edges don't get antialiased at all, as seen in Anandtech's own screenshot (notice the tent roof's edge, just above the image center). As I found later, Tom's Hardware mentions this problem:

"Parhelia´s 16x FAA mode does not find all of the edges in this game. Good ol' "Max" is indeed freed of his rougher edges, but the objects surrounding him, such as the ticket scanner, for instance, are rendered without anti-aliasing." (link)

Unless Matrox fixes this issue, they cannot claim to have "the best" FSAA. It looks terrific in most of the picture, but the leftover jagged edges can be quite noticeable for some people.

Otherwise, Anandtech has a great review!
 
Originally posted by: vash
My G400 is holding up just fine.
Click to expand...
This is what I'm dying to know about this amazing G400. What games, resolution, color depth and texture quality are you using? How fast is your processor. I had a G400, when it was released and used it on the top of the line processor when it was out and the performance was nothing close to the TNT that replaced it. How could a G400, stand up to even the budget cards of today for games? You must be playing at the lowest resolution, 16bit color and in single player mode. In any Q3 based games, that card is going to hold you back in DM, it simply will not allow you to move around fast enough to be competitive.

Maybe you don't play FPS games much, or online, or at all, but that G400 you have must be on crack, or massively OC'd.

vash
Click to expand...

UT- 1024x768x32bit medium detail (online and LAN)
Nascar 2000- 1152x864x32bit (I don't remember the other settings at the moment)
Asheron's Call- 1280x1024 (no 32-bit option)
Dungeon Siege- 1024x768x32bit all available settings maxed
Ghost Recon- 1024x768x32bit medium-low details

The card is stock speed, not even a MAX. My processor is an Athlon XP 1700+ running Win2k.

amish
 
UT- 1024x768x32bit medium detail (online and LAN)
Nascar 2000- 1152x864x32bit (I don't remember the other settings at the moment)
Asheron's Call- 1280x1024 (no 32-bit option)
Dungeon Siege- 1024x768x32bit all available settings maxed
Ghost Recon- 1024x768x32bit medium-low details

The card is stock speed, not even a MAX. My processor is an Athlon XP 1700+ running Win2k.
Click to expand...
What are the average framerates for UT Ghost Recon? Ghost Recon, at that color depth and resolution is a massive hit on any non DX8 cards, I'm surprised you consider it playable at sub-30fps. For me, I didn't consider my GF2 GTS playable on that game without 800x600x32bit with medium details. A G400 with the same settings has got to be mucho slower.

No matter, you have a DX8 card now, it'll be much more playable by your standards.

vash

 
Originally posted by: vash
UT- 1024x768x32bit medium detail (online and LAN)
Nascar 2000- 1152x864x32bit (I don't remember the other settings at the moment)
Asheron's Call- 1280x1024 (no 32-bit option)
Dungeon Siege- 1024x768x32bit all available settings maxed
Ghost Recon- 1024x768x32bit medium-low details

The card is stock speed, not even a MAX. My processor is an Athlon XP 1700+ running Win2k.
Click to expand...
What are the average framerates for UT Ghost Recon? Ghost Recon, at that color depth and resolution is a massive hit on any non DX8 cards, I'm surprised you consider it playable at sub-30fps. For me, I didn't consider my GF2 GTS playable on that game without 800x600x32bit with medium details. A G400 with the same settings has got to be mucho slower.

No matter, you have a DX8 card now, it'll be much more playable by your standards.

vash
Click to expand...

I've never looked at the framerates.

I was looking at the frames in Dungeon Siege last night. I was getting between 11-25 fps which shocked me because it played so smoothly.

amish
 
This release reminds me a lot of the Radeon 8500 when it first came out. It looked great on paper, but was somewhat dissapointing in real life performance. The one thing that it had going for it was the price. That's one thing that the Radeon 8500 and Parhelia don't share. Matrox released an underclocked, underperforming, and overpriced video card to the market. That's not a very good combination. I will, however, cut them a little slack. I understand that they haven't released a new graphics card in years, and have never released a competitive 3D graphics card. Then to make it even worse, this is probably the most competitive 3D market ever. In the last year, I saw ATI finally reach its potential, and I wouldn't be suprised if Matrox is up there with the big dogs, fighting for the 3D performance crown this time next year. I think that, in order to succeed, they need to spend extra effort on their drivers and have more agressive product cycles. It's almost impossible to stay on top these days without a 6 month product cycle. Even if it's only a higher clocked version of their current card.
 
Amish your FPS standards must be ridiculously low...The G400's 3d performance is comparable to a TNT!!! A TNT2 smokes it...do you know how old and crappy those cards are now? Hell even the Voodoo2 smoked it.
 
Amish i would love to see your fps in Nascar 2000 with that card @ your settings....how many cars do you race against before it locks up? 1152x864x32 bit sounds like an extremely ambitious res to run that monster game on w/ a g400...(I'm thinking somewhere around 9 fps w/a 25 car field?) BTW I just got Nascar 2002 season...so much fun 🙂
 
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