I solved my "dropped frames" problem - Win98 sux...

[Flying dutchman]

My Matrox Marvel G-200 has caused me weeks of headaches because
I just couldn't reliably PLAYBACK video at the highest PAL
quality level without dropping lots of frames.
For some reason, RECORDING always works fine without dropping
a single frame, proving that the hard disk is fast enough to sustain the
required data rate.

Matrox' PC-VCR remote always worked fine in any version (I
tried them all), but the programs that I really want to use,
AvidCinema and MSPRO 5.2, just won't reliably playback
video in this format. AvidCinema sometimes works after two or
three re-tries, but MSPRO is completely useless to me -
I have never EVER succeeded in playing back video at the
highest resolution and quality without dropping frames.

My system details : Gigabyte SG-100 board (SIS 5595/5591 chipset),
64 mb ram, AMD K6-300 processor running on windows 98 (and later
under Windows 98 SE), Hard drives: IBM Dhea 6.4 Gb, IBM DJNA
15.2 Gb. Both drives support UDMA-33 reliably.


These are the attempts I undertook to get the system working under
Windows 98:

1-

I did a clean re-install of Windows 98, Matrox and MediaStudio Pro
stuff. I used driver 4.33. IDE Busmastering is enabled on all
drives (This is not the same as UDMA-33!). AGP speed is 2x.
No improvement whatsoever- tons of frames dropped in MSPRO during
playback. AvidCinema plays back correctly about once in three times.

2-

I manipulated the VCACHE settings in the system.ini (minfilecache=2048,
Maxfilecache=8192). No noticeable change in behaviour.

3-

I checked the hard disk speed with HDTACH. Throughput is roughly
10 mb/sec constant which is basically OK. Burst speed is also 10
mb/sec, so I guess the DMA transfer speed limits I/O in this case.
I installed the SIS UDMA-33 driver (allthough SIS recommends against
it). HDTACH says the burst speed is now 18 mb/sec, and drive
throughput is about 13 mb/sec. I feel happy! Is the problem now
solved? NO! Playback deteriorates enormously.... I removed the
driver again....

5-

I setup a hardware profile called "video" which has every hardware
disabled that I don't absolutely need for video. No improvement
noticeable...


6-

I remove my Soundblaster PCI 64 sound card, and swapped it for a
Soundblaster 16 P&P (isa). This brought noticable improvement in
AvidCinema !!! But still MSPro couldn't playback without dropping
frames...

7-

I give up on Windows 98. I suspect that Windows 98 just can't sustain
the I/O throughput required for video playback at the highest resolution.
So I formatted an old IBM DHEA 4.3 Gb hard drive and installed Windows 95
(OSR 2.1). I then installed Matrox drivers 4.33 and MSPro 5.2, and the
SIS UDMA-33 driver. Nothing more, just a "lean and mean" system.


Presto !!! The result is AMAZING. Video recording is perfectly SMOOTH
in all programs! I can record and playback video at the highest resolution
and lowest compression factor without dropping a single frame !!!!
Media Studio Pro is going to be a useful program after all !!


I don't really know why Windows 98 is unable to cope with this high
data rate. I don't believe it has anything to do with processor speed or
hard drive speed - I have read similar complaints of other people who
have a LOT faster hardware than I have.
It may have something to do with memory size, but I wouldn't count
on it - my Windows 98 shows I have 16 mb free memory AFTER loading
Media Studio Pro. Anyway, I'm going to keep this extra hard disk
just for video editing purposes. It's a MUCH better solution than
investing in faster hardware just because Microsoft can't get their
stuff worked out... If windows 98 is in any way representative
for Windows 2000, I can tell you already that it SUCKS and that
video editing is going to be a major problem. Keep your Windows95
CD's in a secure place !!!!

--
Arthur Hoornweg

[Robert@MZ3.Net]

"the great reinstall of (fill in the blank)" been a running joke with a friend of mine for a long long time. It seems that no matter how stable we think our systems are, no matter how many or few updates we apply we've always noticed a speed increase associated with a reformat and freash install of windows (noticed it in 3.0, 3.1, windows 95 and windows 98).

You may not have needed to revert back to Windows 95, a freash reinstall of Win98 might have also cured the problem.

[DrMordrid]

Agreed. I've had no problems getting full speed playbacks with Win98 or Win98SE HOWEVER:

Win95 and Win95/OSR2 do have better disk performance than Win98 of any stripe.

It varies somewhat but I've seen anywhere from 15-20% difference on my systems. This has NOTHING to do with FAT32, just with the version of Windows I'm running.

WinNT4 and Win95/OSR2 both run about the same. I use Winternals FAT32 filesystem for NT4 to give it access to the FAT32 partitions.

Dr. Mordrid

[Rick6612]

Hi Arthur,

FWIW, my Matrox Marvel G-200 works perfectly fine on my system running Windows 98 and now 98SE. I capture and playback NTSC 29.97 fps, 704x480 frame size, CD-quality audio, "best quality" compression setting, etc.

So... it is not just Windows 98 itself that is to blame for the problems you experienced.

Rick

[This_Idiot]

Try taking out the busmastering drivers and allow Windows to manage BM itself. I have had no end of trouble in the past with both W95 and W98 when installing the BM drivers that came with my mobo's.

[Flying dutchman]

To: Mordred

A "clean install" of windows98 is what I started with in the first place! Just win98, Matrox and Media Studio pro, absolutely nothing else...
Not a chance to get it to work properly on my PC. No way.

Can you please specify your motherboard, processor and drive ? if your setup runs without problems, I'll consider buying something similar.

[Grigory]

Chris,

As far as I know, built-in bus-mastering (DMA) drivers of Win9.x work only for Intel chipsets.

Once I tried several bus mastering drivers from Intel and others - all brought a lot of troubles with Intel chipeset motherboards. However, with other chipsets, the owners have no way except using their own drivers.

Grigory.

P.S. It was fun to compare replies with original post. Seems not only me have language problems

[Filmgeek]

I'm fairly certain that's not true, Grigory. At least not with Windows 98 (Windows 95 might require VIA drivers, I don't know). I have an AOpen AX59Pro (VIA Chipset) board and the built in Windows 98 DMA/Busmaster drivers definitely work, and I actually prefer them to the latest VIA Busmaster drivers, performance and stability wise.

Filmgeek

[Cut ter]

I agree,

Win 95 runs much more stable and faster than 98'. I tryied and tryied configuring 98 then finally gave up and reinstalled 95/b everything ran faster and better.
I have a question.
I recently upgraded my MSP 2.5 VE to 5.2 and I'm loving it. Running on a 200MMX Sony VAio 64MB 6Gb system drive, Atlass II 9Gb A/V(wich Win reports as 8.45 GB !@$@? using Fat 32) and RR studio combo Mystic 220 4mb + Voodo 2 12MB>
Timeline playback is almost Realtime even when 2 clips are stiched together (704x480)MJPEG. When I Apply transition it renders Transitions only. It's awesome I'm very happy with my Investment, but when I preview the file between trans - effect or clips it seems as if it where skiping frames?. anyone with comprable system experience this.
Is it b/c of Ram + Processor speed?.
It sort of slows down a bit in playback.
Ereyes8377@aol.com
Thanks
Cut ter

[DrMordrid]

I've had no problems with the Marvel G200 or the Marvel G400 with the following combinations:

Asus P3B-F w/Celeron 300a, 333, 466 or PII 400
Abit BH6 w/Celeron 300a, 333, 466 or PII 400
FIC PA-2013r2 w/K6-2/300, K6-2/350, K6-3/450

Memory configs:

64, 128, 256 megs PC-100

Drive configs:

Fasttrak RAID0 (40gigs) w/4-Maxtor 10g 7,200 rpm ATA33's

Fasttrak66 RAID0 (36gigs) w/2-IBM 18g 7,200rpm ATA66's

Maxtor 8.4g 5,400rpm ATA33

Maxtor 10g 7,200rpm ATA33

IBM 18g 7,200rpm ATA66

OS's:

Win95, Win95-OSR2, Win98, Win98SE, WinNT4-SP3, SP4 & SP5.

I've used all of these sucessfully in just about any combination you care to come up with.

There is one thing they have all shared though: I NEVER use busmaster drivers other than Microsofts.

The VIA, Intel and any other non-Microsoft BM drivers you can think of suck. This is one thing Microcrap does right.

Dr. Mordrid



[This message has been edited by DrMordrid (edited 02 November 1999).]

[Grigory]

Filmgeek,

I have not too much experience with non-intel chipsets. However, latest SIS chipset IDE controller on Asus me99 was not recognized by both 95 and 98 as DMA capable.

Cut ter,

The drive size is correct. It is 9,000,000,000 bytes or slightly more.

1 K is 1024 bytes,
1 M is 1024 K,
1 G is 1024 M

9,000,000,000/1024/1024/1024=8.38

That is the way hard drive manufacturers count drive capacity, but all byte-based operating systems use 1024 instead of 1000.


Grigory

[This_Idiot]

Hi Grigory,

Just to confirm, using my AX59Pro (VIA chipset) and AMDk6-2/300, I had dreadful problems after installing the BM drivers that came with the motherboard. I tried all sorts of suggestions on superior drivers, and eventually rebuilt the system from scratch using W95 drivers. The system worked like magic after that.

I remember having more problems going to 98 (which I only used as a trial for G200 Marvel) - I can't remember how I got round that one.

Since then I have stuck with the W95 drivers with both my PII and Celeron systems and haven't had HD speed problems since

[Keith Wiebe]

I'm running Win 95 osr2 with it's busmaster drivers and a SIS chipset board but I have to mention I never did get perfectly good playback from my RR although it reported no dropped frames but my Raptor has been perfect in that respect so far.

[tony]

Please don't acuse me of defending a Microsoft upgrade, but...

I upgraded from Windows 95 OSR2.1 to Windows 98 SE and my hard drive performance is better (consistently .5-1 MB/s better benchmark using Matrox HD Benchmark -> 11-12 MB/s). No problems with dropped frames when recording with Avid Cinema.

Tony

System Config: FIC PA-2013 v.2.0, AMD K6-2 450 @500, SB PCI 512, Promise ATA66, 2x 7200 RPM Drives, 128 MB PC100 RAM, Matrox Marvel G200 AGP, Win98 SE.