Matrox Parhelia

Game crashes after opponents screen

from GalCiv2 Forums
Hello Gamers,

I allready mailed the debug.err to scott(a)stardock.com so I suppose Stardock will have a looksie. But..

I wonder if there are any other people here that use a Parhelia and if the game works for them.. (I like the card, to bad it is DX8+ and not completely DX9 compliant (sp?)...)
7,051 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If it doesn't fully support DirectX 9 you are probably going to continue to have problems. If you check www.pricewatch.com you should be able to find a newer card that does support it for a low price.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yeah, I know, but I don't play much games and some of the features it provides are very welcome.

I do have a second PC, has less ram but a Geforce card (FX5200 IIRC, can't check at the moment) that runs the game OK.

Only thing, the Parhelia does run Doom 3 (some tweaking tho) and GTA San Andreas better then some people seem to believe. (Can run Doom 3 in high quality). I couldn't see from de debug file if it was GFX card related or not.

Matrox does have 2 set of drivers, DX8 and DX9 Beta, but it seems they have given up on full DX9 support, so I have the DX8 drivers installed. I'll try the beta drivers this weekend.

I will be buying a new PC in about 6 months tho, about the same time GC2 is ready.
Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top


Any reason for the DX9 requirement? GalCiv 1 could be played on almost anything. Like The Seer I don't play many games so my card (Matrox P750) was chosen because of other features (AGP card supporting Dual DVI at a reasonable price). Civ3 and SimCity 4 run fine on it so it'll be pretty disappointing if GalCiv 2 will have problems.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Any reason for the DX9 requirement? GalCiv 1 could be played on almost anything. Like The Seer I don't play many games so my card (Matrox P750) was chosen because of other features (AGP card supporting Dual DVI at a reasonable price). Civ3 and SimCity 4 run fine on it so it'll be pretty disappointing if GalCiv 2 will have problems.


GCII is using a modern 3D graphics engine, so will be taking advantage of new graphical features. GC1 was a 2D game and is now several years old. Civ3 and SimCity 4 are both knocking on a bit technologically too. At the end of the day GCII will look far smarter than GC1 and is reputedly playing faster the GC1 does on the same hardware.

The catch is it will need access to some higher end graphics options than GC1 asked for, so some cards probably aren't going to work. We wont need ninja PC's to run GCII, but we're going to need better 'equiped' graphics cards than GC1 needed. I think Stardock will keep the runnibng specs as modest as possible, but sooner or later I think GCII will need to use more powrful hardware than GC1.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Also, the 3D engine is not just for the graphics. The 3D engine makes it a lot easier and less memory intensive to add features like zooming, multiple resolutions, map rotation, and ship design, to name a few.  GC2 actually takes up less RAM than GC1 did, and it has the benefit of 3D hardware acceleration.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Ha ! It works !

Installed the DX9 Beta drivers and it works First time I had to "down grade" my drivers to a lower version..

Now.. to get it to run on 3 monitors (Yes yes, the config util does that easily)


Must admit, it does look a little better on the FX5200, but it's not about gfx it's gameplay that makes a game..
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
ewww Matrox Parhelia, bad card lol.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Must admit, it does look a little better on the FX5200, but it's not about gfx it's gameplay that makes a game..


Gameplay may be king, but you gotta love good looking gameplay.