Is anybody using the Parhelia? If so, does it drive three monitors / FS 2004 views pretty well?I am trying to decide between the ATI Radeon 9800 and the Parhelia? Would like to use it for multiple views. The 9800 supports two monitors. I would like to have three, Right view, Center View, and Left view.Anybody out there using the Parhelia in this type of configuration?If so, what is the performance like? FPS, etc.I have a P4 2.5 GHZ with 768 MB RAM.I would really like the feedback.Thanks!Barry

Well, you must consider that with three monitors, the field of view is increased which means that not only the resolution is increased, but also more objects, textures etc. are displayed. Plus, the Parhilia is probably not the fastest card around. However, the Parhelia features "intelligent" antialiasing, so that's a plus for lower resolutions (only the edges are filtered, up to 16x, up to 64x AF I believe). I guess 2400x600 would have to do lol. Also, the 10bit color feature might be neat - Matrox has always been innovative regarding image quality. I think I would buy the Matrox, because I always liked their cards, but I couldn't say if it will give you satisfactory performance.-Daniel

Just bumping up in thread for more feedback...Thanks!Barry

Hi Barry,My Parhelia card should be arriving by the end of the week. If no one else posts the info, I'll put my results here. I'll be using a 3Ghz pc with 1Gb ram, so not far off your spec.Paul

Hi Paul,Which card did you order 128 or 256MB?Thanks!Barry

>Is anybody using the Parhelia? If so, does it drive three>monitors / FS 2004 views pretty well?[snip]>I would really like the feedback.I do not have a Parhelia. Every benchmark and review I have seen indicates that it is nowhere near Ati 9800 or Nvidia performance. Not even close. Absymal performance. The card was a real disappointment from what pre-release lead people to expect. It is a relatively expensive card too. What it does have going for it is outstanding 2D quality and the multiple monitor support. I ran a Matrox card in my home work station when I used the multimonitors for work. For that it was great. For gaming, I would pass on it unless it fit into your needs otherwise.Here is a useful link:http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20031...-charts-01.html

I'm getting the 128 version. The price difference between the two is not insignificant and the posts I have read say there is no benefit to be had in using the 256Mb version with FS9. One bloke tested both in the same PC and saw no difference.This is the thread on the WideVieW support forumhttp://www.flightsim.no/cockpit/forum/viewtopic.php?t=244Actually there's a few posts on that board about the Parhelia cards.Here's the URL to the main board.http://www.flightsim.no/cockpit/forum/viewforum.php?f=3Anyway, I'll keep you posted.Paul

Well, there were some people who argued that while the parhelia didn't offer the highest framerates, it did offer the most constant fps. Of course, it isn't new anymore.I can only say that I used a Matrox G400 (from 1999 I believe) first in my PII 350 and then in my Athlon 1500+, and it offered acceptable performance in both systems - I used it until 2003. And that's although it didn't get any great reviews in most magazines. It even ran FS2002 fairly well. THe drivers and funtionality where always top-notch - first cards with dual-head, first cards with bump mapping, first cards with triple-head ... that's Matrox!I dunno, Matrox cards have longer production cycles, and maybe there's a reason for it - I can't image that the average ATI or NVIDIA card lasts that long. But maybe that's just me.-Daniel

Hi, I got a Parhelia and I'm very satisfied with it.If you're expecting fps like 50+, forget it. This isn't the card for you.On the other hand if you can take the benefit of having 3 monitors, this is the card for you.I've got a Duron 1Ghz and my frames are between 10-25 depending of the location and weather settings, even at 10fps the cards delivers a pretty smooth view. You've to see it to believe.Best regards,Pedro

I think its going to be real slow