Appian versus Matrox

[Baron]

p2,

Appian cards are fully supported under Win2k. In fact, Win2k comes with the native drivers for appian cards. So techinically, you don't even have to install the drivers from the CD or disk that comes with the card.




Lancer,

I don't know of a specific review comparing the two companies' products but I can give you a brief overview of Colorgraphic.

Colorgraphic is a small, privately-owned company with limited resources. Their cards use outdated S3-based chips, which were abandoned by Appian and other manufacturers for faster Permedia III techonology several years ago.

Their products do not support 3D technologies like DirectX or OpenGL, which are typically used with many processor-intensive applications.

From a software standpoint, Colorgraphic has a display management product, but it lacks several of the features of Appian's Hydravision.

Another thing to consider is that Colorgraphic products have never been offered as an OEM option by any of the large computer manufacturers such as DELL, HP, Compaq, etc.

 

[mjt]

I will back up Baron's comment on the service at Appian. I have two computers each with multi monitor cards. I started out with one computer and Win 98. Not being a computer expert, I had a little difficulty setting up my first adapter card. Then I switched to Win 2000; then I attempted to switch to Win NT (unsuccessfully). Then I bought a new computer with a 2-port card, and switched it with the 4-port card on my older computer. All in all, because of all these changes, I ran into problems with my card(s) in each of these situations.

Each time I ran into a problem, the service guys were of tremendous help. I thought they would give me a hard time because I contacted them about 5 times within the period of a couple months (they had my service record in front of them each time), but they were very cordial. One guy even stayed late one time until my problem was solved. These guys really know their stuff.