Matrox planning any new gaming cards?

[RollWave]

I'm thinking about getting a matrox parhelia or some other such card as I only play warcraft 3 FT from time to time, with a side of FPSs like HL2 and BF2 (rarelyyy)...oh and I guess I may at some point in the future pick up WoW when that expansion comes out (or D&D Online if the mood strikes).

Anyone know if the parhelia could handle these games??

Anyone know if matrox is planning any newer cards?

 

[bunnyfubbles]

I should handle the Blizzard games, but the others it will struggle with if run at all.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

warcraft will be fine.....

it wont play BF since it doesnt support Pixel shader 1.4

and it might play HL2 in DX8 mode at the most (probably very slowly) probably better of in DX 7

 

[2Xtreme21]

Why get a Matrox card? Aren't they significantly more expensive? Just grab yourself a 6600gt or the like.

 

[RollWave]

Eh, I was just wondering how that pic qual would be. Currently I have a aiw x800xt but I might move it to another machine...I dont really need to make a move I was just thinking of seeing what all those 2-D freaks are talking about . Maybe I should just get my X800XTPE RMA'd and put that zalman on there when I get a functional one back...bought one of those refurbs and it artifacts just in windows even.

 

[Ronin]

I have a couple different Parhelias (128MB and 256MB), and I can actually play HL2 with them (albeit not at a stellar framerate), but haven't tried WC3, but I would imagine it would play just fine.

Plus you get triple-headed goodness on one card if you want it (to power 3 monitors, at a max resolution of 3840x1024).

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: rnp614
Eh, I was just wondering how that pic qual would be. Currently I have a aiw x800xt but I might move it to another machine...I dont really need to make a move I was just thinking of seeing what all those 2-D freaks are talking about . Maybe I should just get my X800XTPE RMA'd and put that zalman on there when I get a functional one back...bought one of those refurbs and it artifacts just in windows even.

Eh, Parhelia is slow and expensive. It was slower than a Geforce 3 (probably putting it on par with a Geforce FX 5200 Ultra), and supports only DX8 or 8.1. And matrox isn't a major company, so many games won't even support it.

As for 2d image quality...if you're using a monitor with DVI support then there is no difference. Otherwise, the latest ATI cards are practically on par with Matrox for 2d. (assuming ATI made at least, things might be different for other brands)