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
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
