Matrox Parhelia, 128MB Multiple Monitor Graphics Board

Vendor:
Matrox Graphics Inc.
1055 St-Regis Blvd
Dorval, Quebec, Canada
Tel (514) 822-6000
FAX (514) 822-6363
http://www.matroxcad.com

Introduction
The Matrox Parhelia board is a high-resolution video board with outstanding color rendering, and supports very fast 3-D display as well as multiple monitors.

In today’s computing environment, with IM, email and everyone having several applications open at once, more than one monitor really makes sense. The Matrox Parhelia board will support up to three monitors in various combinations and configurations. This can include CRTs, LCDs and even a TV.

The three LCDs are the optimum from this card, as your work appears to wrap around you, forming a panoramic view of what you are doing. The board is not brand specific and supported all the monitors I used in this review. I even tried a 13-inch television set (just to see if it worked).

Outside of business geographics, many other disciplines have increased the performance of their computers by adding graphics boards. This board is directed at GIS, CAD and other 2D and 3D users (they have other multi-display products for the financial market) who need to see more, when one monitor just isn’t enough. Naturally fast video performance is a must for gamers.

For me, it seemed to improve overall performance by at least 20%. Images snap up on the screen and 3-D rotation happens immediately, smoothly without pauses or jerking and tiles of aerial photography almost splash on the screen.

Product Scope
This board is designed to render 2D and 3D imagery, very fast, in a multiple monitor environment. It is an AGP 4X board with a 512-bit GPU, supporting up to 1 billion colors. It has a single monitor maximum resolution of 2048 by 1536 analog (and 1920x1200 digital). It runs under Windows 2000 or Windows XP. It can be used in commercial 2D or 3D environments or in surround gaming (multiple monitors, one game). Three monitors can be supported at a resolution of 1280 by 1024 each.

Supplied Software (in addition to drivers for Windows 2000 and Windows XP)

AEC|VIZ™ and Meka|VIZ™ for Parhelia are specially bundled 3D visualization and communication tools that are designed to function with Autodesk® AutoCAD® Architectural Desktop and AutoCAD Mechanical Desktop, respectively. They improve performance and enable rapid collaboration of even the most complex 3D models.

These are a set of plug-ins for Adobeâ After Effects®, Adobe Photoshop®, NewTek Lightwave 3D® and Discreet™ 3ds max™.

This software allows you to calibrate your monitor(s) color rendering and for accurate web colors. It also allows you to manage colors across several monitor configurations – CRT, LCD, etc.

This is a plug-in for Adobe® Photoshop®, which allows for extremely high color TIFF and PNG files for rendering 1 billions simultaneous colors. When was the last time you saw 1 billion colors?

You can see this demo on their web site at http://www.matrox.com/mga/archive_story/jul2002/parhelia_reeftech.cfm

When running on the board, these are outstanding graphics showing the capability of the card, the smoothness of graphic transitions, shading and lighting.

Usability

I have used the board on two separate computers and several monitors. These include three 17-inch monitors (NEC, Envision and Gateway) a SVGA 14 inch monitor. I have seen the board on large LCD monitors, but didn’t have any for this review. I also used a very small (13-inch) TV set. All of the monitors used were in different combinations and sizes. I also used different resolutions on different monitors at the same time. Changing monitor configurations was easy and worked first time, every time without any problems.

Installation was simple and easy, there was absolutely no problems getting the board working.

As soon as the board was installed, things snapped upon the screen much faster than with my original 32MB video board (single monitor board) that I had been using, making the computer noticeably faster.

As part of the software that comes with the board, there is a control program (Matrox PowerDesk®) that allows you to set multiple monitor configurations, performance and some interesting tools for screen capture and even zoom level. The PowerDesk dialog box lets you configure the monitor(s), colors and settings

The dialog box (shown at right) lets you configure the monitor resolution, set performance and do general maintenance. One of the interesting choices contained on the main dialog is Matrox tools. This allows for several different types of screen captures. Screen capture uses the familiar rectangle capture and you can save to the clipboard or to a file. Those tools were used capture all the images for this review.

Multiple-monitor setup

Monitors can be set to display one monitor plus a feature display – this is used for video editing – one or two monitors and one TV. You can choose displays that are independent, or stretch the display across all the monitors or displays that clone each other. From this dialog, you can also switch the monitors from left to right (by dragging). This lets you set up, left to right, the way you actually view the displays.

For business GIS use, I found that the independent and stretch modes to be the most useful. Here is why:

In the independent mode, it was easy to run more than one application and have the primary application I was working on take up all of one monitor (this can also be done in stretched mode as well). Independent mode enables the monitors to be run independently of each other, at different refresh rates and resolutions.

If you are moving files from Excel or Access into a mapping application, you can see each program at up at full screen size. If you are using the mapping program as a source of graphics for a Word document and a graphics program to edit the graphics, you can allocate the right screen space to for application.

I used BusinessMAP on one monitor and Excel on the other. I had a handy data set of stores points in Excel to be plotted in BusinessMAP. The combination looked like this.

Two monitors, independent mode – two applications – each monitor at 1024 x 768 pixels

BusinessMAP with stores as points on left and Excel store point source file on right

In the stretch mode, both monitors, (or all three, if you have them connected,) can contain an entire mapping program with all the map and data windows spread across all the monitors. This means that you have the space to see several views of the graphics and data windows at the same time. Remember that most Windows-based mapping programs use one master window that has all the tool bars, etc., and inside of that window is where all of the map, data, chart and layout window must reside. So the stretch mode works very well if you are running one program with lots of windows open.

For the stretch mode, I used ArcView, opening several map windows as well as their related dataviews, all open at the same time. These views were spread across both monitors making all them easily visible. They looked like this.

Two monitors, stretch mode – one application – 2048 x 768 pixels

ArcView left monitor and ArcView right monitor

I continued changing and adding views and the display continued to be fast. Drawing ZIP code boundaries across the entire US took seconds the first time – initiating a redraw, it was almost instantaneous.

Performance is always one of the reasons for having this level of video board. As an example of performance, I thought I would draw all the roads, highways and streets at the state level. Not something that you would normally do, but this would not take an unreasonable of time and the results would be easy to measure.

This is the basic map, with Interstates, boundaries and some highways.

This is the same map with all the highways, roads and streets in this state.

The drawing time using my original video board was 42 seconds. The drawing time for the same map, using the Matrox board was 27 seconds, drawing on both monitors.

Note that with this level of graphics board, the mistakes you made in the past, such as asking the ZIP code boundaries or block groups to draw at the national level (escape, escape, escape!) are no longer an issue.

Now, just in case you think this sort of board is only useful for GIS, CAD, high end 3-D and video editing, let me give you a couple of examples that occurred while I was reviewing the board.

Other practical uses - My wife, who teaches 8th grade science, took immediately to the multiple monitors and multiple applications. She found that while using one monitor for her web-based grading program, the other could be used for MS Word while she designed a test. At the same time, she was IM-ing my two kids in college and still had screen real estate available. She didn’t want to go back to a single monitor.

Of course, my youngest son (age 14) discovered that several of his games ran dramatically faster. 3-D rendering was better and 3-D rotation was actually faster and smoother that he could use. He was no longer impressed that his computer, which ran faster than the ones used in this review, could not match the color rendering and the overall visual smoothness of the Matrox card. He didn’t know that his game could be played that fast prior to using the card.

Conclusion
The Matrox graphics board expands the way you use your computer. First of all, the graphics are much faster than what you are probably using. Second, the reality of multiple monitors is easy to set up and experience. If you use multiple monitors for a short while, it is hard to return to just one. Because it can display so many colors, (1 billion,) the nuances of an image come through and make the visualization experience much richer. Since it is fast, viewing large files becomes a real pleasure. If you are a 3-D user, this is the sort of resource you need.

Most of us accept new computers as a complete entity, not questioning much beyond processor speed, hard drive and memory size. If you are using your computer for mapping, this card and at least a second monitor of decent size and resolution, can make you more productive. Because you can see more colors and richer rendering, the maps you create will be much better too.

Techno Talk