dawg don't wrote:
Matrox video cards are not considered gaming cards by anyone who
plays alot of current games.

I play a lot of games, and I consider the Parhelia a very fine gaming
card -- especially the games that can take advantage of three monitors
(of which there are several dozen). Having multiple PCs and cards from
both nVidia, ATI and Matrox, I think I'm qualified to voice my opinion.
:-)

I'd say "Matrox video cards are not considered gaming cards by people
who don't own one and want to justify *their* purchase".

They are fine for Tetris ,2D, and games
more than three or four years old.

Make that "one or two years old", and even then it's not entirely
true -- many newer games specifically list the Parhelia as supported
(although you won't get DX9 features if the games support that).
Flight Simulator 2004, for example, runs quite well on three monitors
with a Parhelia, and so do many other newer games. Of single-monitor
games, well GTA San Andreas works well, and Half-Life 2 too.
Some games I run on my nVidia 6800GT, which is _much_ faster and
supports advanced pixel shaders, while others run better on the Parhelia
with triple monitors and/or 16xFAA. If a game /requires/ pixel shaders
1.4 or higher, they won't run on a Parhelia (nor on a GF4 card, for that
matter).

No, you won't get top frame rates on a Matrox Parhelia compared to newer
cards (it's comparable to a GeForce Ti 4400 in speed -- slower for
low-res/noAA, and faster for high-res/full AA), and it doesn't support
DX9-only features. The Parhelia is still very much a gamer's card, for
games where 3 monitors is a distinct advantage compared to frame rates,
or where you combine gaming with multi-monitor work. Is it worth the
high price? Probably not, unless you also use it for video work or
Photoshop, where it definitely is a good card for the price.

Regards,
--
*Art