i miss matrox

ElFenix

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Mar 20, 2000
102,395
8,558
126
the millenium and G400 were great cards, competitive with and, after a couple driver revisions, the fastest cards at what they did.

unfortunately, parhelia spent all its transistors on 4 texture units per pipe (rather than 2, which was standard) and not on Z culling operations, so it was horrifically inefficient. maybe some drivers could have helped (with AA and AF turned up it was pretty competitive with cards at the time on release drivers), but the release of the 9700 pro a month later basically killed any chance it had. if matrox had cash like ATi and nvidia did, maybe they could have released a Z culling hardware revision in 6 months and been competitive, but it was not to be.

and with DVI, there is almost no point to their acclaimed signal quality.

a new investment group with some money to spend might be able to turn things around, i imagine the brand is worth something (certainly more than, say, XGI). but we're probably talking about tens of millions of dollars, if not more.

/me wonders where he put his millenium
 

sisq0kidd

Lifer
Apr 27, 2004
17,043
1
81
To Matrox :(
rose.gif


RIP




for now...
 

Matt2

Diamond Member
Jul 28, 2001
4,762
0
0
G400 was ok. A lot slower than my TNT2 32mb @ Ultra, but the image quality was :thumbsup:
 

CP5670

Diamond Member
Jun 24, 2004
5,660
762
126
heh, that brings back some memories. I wish we still had that many different GPU companies.
 

BFG10K

Lifer
Aug 14, 2000
22,709
3,002
126
with AA and AF turned up it was pretty competitive with cards at the time on release drivers
Perhelia is hardware limited to just 2xAF, a far cry from competing 8x/16x solutions at the time.

Also fragment AA has known problems in a range of games.
 

larciel

Diamond Member
May 23, 2001
4,590
8
81
still have g series card. those DH was a nice toy to have back then. still is , although lack of DVI is hurting it :eek:
 

Stumps

Diamond Member
Jun 18, 2001
7,125
0
0
mmm, I still have my old Millienium 4mb somewhere in a box, that was a great old card:D
 

jwalker46

Member
Feb 5, 2006
54
0
0
Before burying them too deep.... If you want to run 4 to 6 monitors at 1600x1200 or higher (not for gaminig), what is a better solution than a pair of Millennium P650 PCIe or Parhelia 256 cards? (I'm not arguing, just asking for a non-gaming setup that can handle that many displays.) Thanks for any suggestions!
 

Steelski

Senior member
Feb 16, 2005
700
0
0
those chats and the resolution just goes to show how greed driven and vain we have all become. max this, max that. eyecandy at 1600x1200. I wonder what a GTX512 can run Q3 at......?