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I just picked up a Gainward 5900nu as a replacement for my Parhelia.
I've got a 5900nu and a GF2MX200 pci running 3 screens, and ran into some serious trouble with NV's current drivers. Basically enabling or disabling displays crashed my system, as did running 3DMark03 with all 3 monitors enabled. Games might crash it too, but I'm not sure.
Fortunately I managed to solve my problem. MS includes a driver for the GF2 (and maybe newer cards... no clue) with XP sp1a. To avoid my crashing problems I had to configure my system to use the Microsoft driver on the GF2MX. Apparently NV's driver does a shitty job of controlling 2 cards. I just went into device manager and manually selected the MS driver for the GF2. After a reboot my 5900 wasn't working, so I manually set the 5900 to use NV's driver. Now all appears to be happy. Now I just have to try configuring Linux on these two cards to make sure it works properly.
I'd have to run more (expensive due card buying and won't happen) experiments, but based on this bit of "fun" and playing around w/ the 9600 pro I got my dad for x-mas, I have to say my impression is that Matrox Drivers > *. OTOH I haven't tried 2 Matrox cards in one rig. Still, the Matrox control panels definately own ATI & NV. It's really too bad they can't keep up on the hardware. Maybe someday they'll cave in and start making NV or ATI based cards w/ custom drivers & great analog 2D quality & become out favorite gfx card vendor. Oh, and figure out how to hack surround gaming onto a top of the line ATI or NV card. One can only wish...
Summary: If you're having trouble w/ 2 NV cards in your system, try using the MS driver for the PCI card.
I've got a 5900nu and a GF2MX200 pci running 3 screens, and ran into some serious trouble with NV's current drivers. Basically enabling or disabling displays crashed my system, as did running 3DMark03 with all 3 monitors enabled. Games might crash it too, but I'm not sure.
Fortunately I managed to solve my problem. MS includes a driver for the GF2 (and maybe newer cards... no clue) with XP sp1a. To avoid my crashing problems I had to configure my system to use the Microsoft driver on the GF2MX. Apparently NV's driver does a shitty job of controlling 2 cards. I just went into device manager and manually selected the MS driver for the GF2. After a reboot my 5900 wasn't working, so I manually set the 5900 to use NV's driver. Now all appears to be happy. Now I just have to try configuring Linux on these two cards to make sure it works properly.
I'd have to run more (expensive due card buying and won't happen) experiments, but based on this bit of "fun" and playing around w/ the 9600 pro I got my dad for x-mas, I have to say my impression is that Matrox Drivers > *. OTOH I haven't tried 2 Matrox cards in one rig. Still, the Matrox control panels definately own ATI & NV. It's really too bad they can't keep up on the hardware. Maybe someday they'll cave in and start making NV or ATI based cards w/ custom drivers & great analog 2D quality & become out favorite gfx card vendor. Oh, and figure out how to hack surround gaming onto a top of the line ATI or NV card. One can only wish...
Summary: If you're having trouble w/ 2 NV cards in your system, try using the MS driver for the PCI card.