Two Mystiques & a RR studio - does it work?

[deanf]

I've used a mystique 220 & Rainbow runner combo for quite a while now without problems.
However - I have just bought another mystique 220 and configured this in win 98 with a second monitor.

The 2nd monitor works fine in win 98 - but matrox powerdesk won't - & I can't play mjpeg files now - no codec - which I assume is as a result of powerdesk not running. Powerdesk gives a message to to say multi-monitors must be disabled and doesn't fire up.

I thought I read a message on this board a while ago where someone said it was possible to use a second mystique card with an existing mystique & RR combo (however - I can't find it now).

I have the latest (jan 99) drivers for the RR & the video card.

Anyone out there know if this is possible & any ideas of what to do to get it working?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers
Deanf

[Patrick]

Dean, sorry for the late response, but...

I have an 8 Mb PCI Mill2 with the RR-S attached and a 4 Mb AGP Mill2 to use with a second monitor. I believe you would use the same combination of drivers as I have.

Display driver version:_____________4.11.01.4310
VDD version:____________________4.11.01.4310
Matrox PowerDesk version:_________4.31.041
DirectDraw/Direct3D driver version:__4.11.01.4310
Microsoft DirectX version:__________Unknown

I'm not sure why the Microsoft DirectX version is listed as Unknown, but I've been suffering through a Win98 meltdown.

I don't currently have two monitors hooked up. However, when I did, I had no access to the Matrox Display Properties. Is this what you meant by "powerdesk"? (I find this all very confusing myself.)

In answer to your original question though, yes, it does work.

In your computer's bios, have you chosen the Mystique with the RR-S attached to be your primary display card? That is important. In my setup, I instruct the bios to use the PCI Mill2 (with the RR-S) as the primary display card as opposed to using the AGP card. I'm not quite sure what you would do in a situation with two PCI video cards, but I suspect there's a solution.

[kenobi]

yes deanf you are telling your computer that your primary display is the matrox card without the rr attached. so it cant recognize any of the rr special harware. switch it around probably in the advanced tab in display properies, or bios(but that might just be agp pci) read microsoft multiple diplay adaptor info at their site for step by step. yes it works(done it)

[Patrick]

Ummmm...... so how did you make out Dean?

[Patrick]

Hey, you're welcome Dean.

********

Yes, this is my pet peeve about internet forums. Occasionally people turn up and ask a question, then don't even have the common decency to acknowledge that someone else has spent their time trying to help them out. All it would take is a couple of seconds to say "Thanks".

However, most people who come here are great, and that's why this forum has been such a success.

Ok, I'll get off my soapbox now...

[areia]

Well, we don't need to stop here, I'm also looking for info and this is an issue already covered but not totally clear. Tomorrow I will try to add a mystique/rrs to win98se with a G200-tv agp. From what was said and from this post http://forums.gagames.com/forums/For...ML/001336.html I assume that with multimonitor enabled and having G200 as primary display I won't be able to capture and output video; my question is, and without multimonitor feature enabled, can I acess rrs? Thanks.

------------------
areia

[kenobi]

ya you can. Switch to pci as primary in bios. Make sure you disable your g200 when you install mystique rrs drivers. then enable when your done. then just switch between the two card in bios

------------------
Damnit Jim I'm a film maker, not a systems tech!

[areia]

Tell me one thing, with pci card as primary display, allowing me to use rr features, can I have my main(and only) monitor connected to agp card and at the same time use rr video output to feed a video recorder - the problem is I want bth things, the speed of the G200 and the video capacities of rrs. Is it possible?

[deanf]

Hi Patrick & Kenobi,
Thanks very much for your help.
Sorry I didn't respond sooner, but I have been working out of the country for the last week - no internet access.

I cannot find anything in Bios to specify primary/secondary on a particular pci slot, however, in display properties, the monitor attached to the card with the RR is designated '1' and the other as '2'.

Am I missing something?

All suggestions gratefully (if sometimes a little slowly!) received

Dean

[Patrick]

Dean, sorry if I seemed a little touchy, but the fact that you've returned means that my last post does NOT apply to you after all.

I don't have my AGP card in at the moment, so I can't double check what I'm about to tell you. However, if memory serves me well, the Integrated Peripherals of my computer's bios lists something called Init AGP Display First. It is Enabled for the AGP card to be the primary display unit and Disabled for the PCI card to be the primary display unit.

In your situation with two PCI cards, if you install the ONE card first that has the RR-S attached and get it working properly, and then install the other, everything should work fine after enabling multiple monitors. I'm pretty sure with my arrangement that I was able to specify which monitors were to be designated 1 or 2 within the mutiple monitor setup. I suppose there's a chance that certain PCI slots have priority over others with some motherboards. You may have to experiment by putting the display cards in different slots.

I don't believe there's any other trick to it. The only minor drawback is that the video from the RR-S will only play back through the display card that it is attached to, and not through the second card. It's not really a problem as everything else (timeline, clip library, etc) will display on the second monitor.

[deanf]

Hi Patrick,
I had a look in the bios and found a setting which was boot from pci or agp slot, however as both cards were pci - no difference. So I played around unistalling an re-installing - still no joy.

So, I took the second mystique back & swapped it for a 4Mg G100 AGP (plus got £9 back) installed that with bios set as boot from pci and all my problems were solved.

The matrox display properties don't run - but I'm not getting errors reported on boot-up now - and I never used matrox display utils (powerdesk) anyway.

So - maybe two mystiques & a RR don't work on some H/ware combinations (like mine).

The irony is that I'd been looking for a mystique PCI card for ages - thinking it was the only card that would probably work with my existing mystique & RR.

Anyway thanks again for your help & advice - I would have probably abandoned it if you hadn't said it was possible.

Cheers
Dean

[Patrick]

You're more than welcome Dean. That's what this forum is all about.