Microcode Update Hack for Parhelia: Poll, Interested?

[3dfxfan]

Originally posted by Leoncatz
Scratch that idea. We just ripped open the drivers with W32Dasm8.93. It's much easier to work with and see exactly what the card is doing. There is also a really nice trace feature.

As for what the team will be capable of churning out, well the decision has been made to open a Website dedicated to the project.

I'll keep you abreast of our travail.

Interesting. I very much dount the Microchip update would change much, but I am looking forward to see what you can do.
I think most of the power can be unlocked through new drivers

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by SnakeEyes
I'm not so sure that there aren't things that the Parhelia could do that aren't disabled in the current setup. Matrox has targeted their products primarily at a business audience, both for low-end multimonitor professional rendering as well as just higher end multi-monitor uses. Due to that narrowed focus, if the hardware supports functions A, B, and C or functions X, Y, and Z, but not both due to the resources physically available, Matrox may have picked the functionality that best benefited the area of focus chosen for the card. This may not be the best thing for the rest of the possible customers out there (read: general home users and gaming enthusiasts, among others), but would help the card remain competitive in the area they want it placed.

AFAIK support for DX9 has not been exposed for Parhelia even though Parhelia partly supports it.

[euan]

Apart from a few interesting registry switches I fail to see what "magic" lives inside the driver that isn't already available.

[SnakeEyes]

Originally posted by StealthHawk
AFAIK support for DX9 has not been exposed for Parhelia even though Parhelia partly supports it.
That's along the lines of what I meant. (I just reread my first sentence from that post, and with all of the negatives, it was a pain, lol. Sorry about that, but at least it seems that everyone understood anyway.)

[Leoncatz]

For anyone interested in seeing why I'm so interested in the Parhelia and don't want it to become extinct, follow this sentence. (http://chr79.free.fr/matrox)

Some Matrox officials have stated that Matrox has no plan of letting Surround Gaming die. But the reality is that Matrox will not be pursuing any more Gaming cards.

It's fun while it lasts!

[kyleb]

well bf1942 looks kinda cool, but all the other games just have the aspect ratio streached to hell.

[Leoncatz]

those are user created fixes for games. so they aren't actually done by the developers using the Suround Gaming Dev Kit that Matrox sends out to Game Devs along with the Cards. I won't go into too much detail about the kit, but let's just say that it's relativly easy to implement. It's unfortunate that more games don't support it. But mark my words, even in 10 years, Suround Gaming will be even more relevant in the gaming industry than it currently is. #2 after Gameplay is Immersion.

It's only going to get better the more we understand the games being user-fixed for SG.

Still the aspect ratio is not so noticeable when it's actually accross all three screens. What you're noticing is the HUD being all stupid looking for some games. That's because the HUD features present in the Driver are only for OGL. The DX implementation as well as many other DX things are missing, as we all know. (along with 8xAGP) It's just BIG.. really BIG... Youl feel 'right' about your peripheral vision being there when playing... if you know what I mean. :)

[NickSpolec]

Just what the hell do you think you can accomplish?

Or maybe the question should be, just what are you trying to accomplish?

Rewrite the microcode... for what?

[Leoncatz]

To answer you honestly Nick, that's exactly what we wish to determine with this experiment.

We're going to try something. How difficult it is and what it represents is not clear. Just know that we are working over this seemingly obdurate card. lol

A few simple goals are to favorably improve it's performance, and to uncover ALL of the currently available/supported features of the Parhelia.

If all goes well, I will be hosting a site all about it. It is doesn't go well, I'll be trashing the cards we abused and then apologize to everyone here for A) not listening and then B) wasting this precious Forum Webspace.

It's not much of an answer, but it's the best I can give rightnow.

I'd rather be :zzzz: right now.

[3dfxfan]

Originally posted by Leoncatz
A few simple goals are to favorably improve it's performance, and to uncover ALL of the currently available/supported features of the Parhelia.

Even if you succeed in unlocking the Vertex Shaders 2.0 units and other DX9 features, what would it bring? You need a driver which exposes the features of the card so that games can recognize them. The driver doesn't auto-detect what the card is capable of after all. A graphics card is not like a motherboard where no driver is required

[poursoul]

Just thought about something, what about turning 9500s into 9700s and 9800nps into 9800xts. This could be something. Say that matrox engineers decided to just disable some fetures to save them for the next itiration of the parhelia.

Weren't there different versions of the parhelia released? What if you could unlock the cheaper version? Suround gaming on a $100 card anyone?

[3dfxfan]

Yes, actually i'm pretty sure that it is possible to unlock some features of the parhelia.
Problem is current parhelia drivers won't expose any of the new features, so the new features unlocked will just remain unnoticed.
The difference is that when you turn a 9800 into an XT, there are drivers for it exposing the new features (Smoothvision, etc.) whereas it is not the case for the parhelia.

[bsdgeek]

Originally posted by poursoul
Just thought about something, what about turning 9500s into 9700s and 9800nps into 9800xts. This could be something. Say that matrox engineers decided to just disable some fetures to save them for the next itiration of the parhelia.

Weren't there different versions of the parhelia released? What if you could unlock the cheaper version? Suround gaming on a $100 card anyone?
No, the cheaper Parhelias you are talking about (P650 and P750) have their "missing" pipes physically removed. Oh, and you can have surround gaming on the P750, but it will be very slow on anything recent.

I don't believe Matrox has locked any Parhelia features, there is just no driver support for them. (Except in maybe a few cases where extra hardware is required)

Leoncatz - Why don't you get a P650 and hack it to enable the third head?

[poursoul]

Originally posted by bsdgeek
No, the cheaper Parhelias you are talking about (P650 and P750) have their "missing" pipes physically removed. Oh, and you can have surround gaming on the P750, but it will be very slow on anything recent.

That's what I'm talking about. How do you know the pipes aren't there. I mean weren't you shocked when you heard the 9500 had disabled pipes?

[Leoncatz]

To BSDGeek,

That's a great idea. Unfortunatly our bundle came with Parhelias only.

The company I'm partner of is going to be renewing contracts with several vid card makers come spring. I'll see what's available to us at that time. Can't do much more than that right now I'm affraid.

P.S. - My personal website is going up soon. I'll be featuring Parhelia hacks there once we get further along. Not much time to dedicate to much right now as my company is expanding into several subsidiaries under our parent company and is taking a toll on my free time. That said, I am thinking that March is going to be really good for me.

:zzzz:

[edit]

P.S.S. - We will be working the Parhelia drivers too. But we're all tired these days it seems. I just love Winter, and shoveling my car out of the snow every morning. heh