WIN XP + Marvel G400, please post here.

[mikiem]

Hi All!

Been involved with a bunch of projects lately, the latest being to try and learn a bit about XP, and maybe get the @#**#!!! matrox stuff working with it. While I haven't been really successful so far, I'm hoping some small pieces of the puzzle I've stumbled across might help someone smarter then I to solve this mess. There's also the possibility that something in my system, or the g400 itself is preventing whatever from working, so maybe it'll work for someone else.

Like everyone else I've been unable to get the msi-type video tools install to work. I have come across a small app at: http://www.linkcad.com/msi2xml/msi2x...ml/msi2xml.htm that tells a lot about the msi install program itself. It basically creates an xml file that diagrams everything in tables -- maybe this will be of use to someone, but unfortunately I couldn't come up with anything really useful.

Another promising avenue (I thought) was the compatibility apps from Microsoft. I found these by following the 1st tips link off the M/Soft XP site (I think it was: http://wxperience.com/tips.php). They include an applet that lets you control how any app interacts with XP, returning false OS info etc... I tried all the 100+ options, though I confess often several at a time, but didn't get anywhere -- the logs all ended with the installation program querying the OS version several times.

Running the administrative tool included in the later of the 2 compatibility apps, it lists a fix that if I read it correctly, has been installed to make Installshield 6 more compatible with XP. Perhaps that's why the install worked with earlier versions of XP. I did try deleting the installshield sub-folder in the program files\common folder, and the VT install replaced it with an older version but still didn't work.

The version listed in the compatibility apps was newer then anything I had though -- Perhaps someone might find a newer version of the installshield kernel & that will work? You can also apply to download a demo version of their apps at the installshield site -- maybe one of those might be able to disassemble the install enough to see what's going on.

I attempted installation using the msi file in the temp folder (left over from a previous failed install) from the command line using MS documented switches. This failed too, but I did get an error message that the needed directx was not installed. I attempted to install DX8 for win2k, but this had no effect, other then I never got that error message again.

So far the only other info I've gotten is that there seems to be a problem with the ISscript portion. One of several logs showed it had a problem registering, and the uninstall applet in XP's Control Panel lists this as an installed app after trying the install. I know turning off most all processes/services didn't help, and it doesn't seem to be a permissions thing. I did find it amusing (in a dark sort of way) that Matrox reverted to standard installation with their newest VTools released for the etv.

The easiest way around this problem may be if someone would be kind enough to post the files themselves from a successful win2k install. Comparing version numbers at least, there seems little change within the Matrox Video Tools NT folder from the original beta from last year and the latest version just released for the etv, so perhaps the files in question can be limited to rrapi.dll (the remaining files in windows\system32 have been released already as patches). The files in the windows\system32\drivers folder: rr2ctrl.sys -- rr2iomod.sys -- rr2mjpeg.sys -- rr2vbi.sys may actually not have changed (the latest etv files have the same version numbers at least as last years vtools) but with the installs failing, I have had no way to compare them accurately.

At any rate, it may turn out the easiest way to get vtools working in XP is to install the original win2k beta tools, then update a few system files.

It also may turn out that one or more of the .AX files in the video tools folder also need updating, but I haven't gotten far enough to tell other then to say the vin.ax that comes with the latest etv tools is incompatible with rrapi.dll files earlier then the included 2.2... version.

The original drivers included in XP for the marvel g400 install a wdm crossbar driver or device -- something I found with the leaked beta in win98 SE also. This works along with the regular vidcap drivers in win98SE, though the capture size is restricted to 320 x 240 NTSC in a 352 x 240 window. Also in win98 SE, I found that I needed wdm compatible drivers for my sound card before the wdm capture portion would work.

In XP (before vtool installation) wdm capture did work, though not as well, nor with as many controls as in win98SE. Thinking this might be part of the problem, I did get some small improvement by installing a later Matrox driver without the wdm crossbar stuff, and then removing all the references in the registry to mtxvideo (mtxvideo.sys in the windows\system32\drivers folder is the file in question).

So far, my BIG problem has been that any avi file previously encoded with the matrox hardware mjpeg would either not work, or crash the system. In some cases, using the rrapi.dll from the etv vtools for example, right clicking on such a file would crash windows explorer. I found that using media player 2 for such testing worked much better, since when it failed stopping it through the task manager does not crash the system as with the included media player 8. Using either player the task mgr shows cpu usage in the high 90% range for the failed process -- I believe now that the problem is with the filter.

I was finally able to get either media player working with these avi files by turning off direct x for the g400, though the frame drops on playback make this an unacceptable solution. Even then, checking the properties for the matrox vidcap driver in device mgr failed, so there still is/was a problem obviously. Anything other then watching tv doesn't, can't work if XP can't or won't access the zoran part of the card.

For now I've just deleted my XP install, so I can start over and see what happens with an un-modified, clean installation, hopefully without the movie maker this time in case that is part of the problem. I also want to try installing Vtools using the compatibility tool, in case earlier installations have failed to insert whatever into the registry or neglected needed files. might try 2600 too after that last post.

BTW, anyone interested in reinstalling the original drivers that come with XP RC2 will find the needed files on the installation CD cut from the download, but they aren't in the cab files, instead being in compressed format individually, as with Mga.sy_ for example; winzip expands these nicely. The files themselves start with mga and mtx, and are enough for XP to go with.

Maybe this will provide some clues for other folks working on this too.

Thanks
mikie

[mikiem]

I've finally been able to get my marvel g400 tv working in winxp, with it appears all functions available. I wanted to share with everyone the process that ultimately proved successful as well as the dead ends, since I know others are or will be working on this.

I do think better ways will be found to get all of these matrox video cards working in XP with all functions enabled -- the stuff I've found, figured out, is only at the very basic level. I do think that the problems can probably be isolated to the registry entries themselves, and would be happy to send whatever exported registry files etc. from my xp install if someone wanted to work on this. I do think it important that more then one PC be involved if a more universal solution is going to be found to try and eliminate extra hardware issues. Anyone interested can either post here, &/or send email to micm_@excite.com.

I'll start with what didn't work. Installing build 2526 or 2600 did not work. I tried importing registry settings from win2k (many, many reg keys :-b ), which did not work. I also tried installing vtools released before and after the 204 versions, hoping their installation programs would insert the correct registry settings -- didn't work.

Both 204 versions of vtools use isscript within their msi installation routines, and both refuse to install in XP. I was unable to modify them or have any success using the compatibility tools from M/Soft. I don't know if this is because the install routines themselves are buggy &/or broken, or if the later builds of XP specifically block isscript.

It was posted by someone from M/Soft in the beta forum that one of the main differences between builds 2526 & 2600 is more application blocking -- blocking stuff that is known not to work (usually ;-) ). This would explain reports that these builds of vtools did install in earlier versions of the XP beta. It might turn out that it works better to install one of these earlier builds and then upgrade to current, rather then installing win2k & then upgrading, which itself in my experience was not a cure.

I did install win2k, install the marvel & vtools, then upgrade to builds 2526 & alternatively 2600 of XP. It did come closer to working, but by itself was not a success. In all these cases, upgrading and clean install, XP used, installed it's own drivers for the marvel. These include the WDM Crossbar driver the leaked beta installs in win98 & win98 SE (& I assume ME) -- I feel this is a big part of the problem.

When the crossbar stuff installs, it also sets XP up to use WDM video capture. From then on, when ever you want to use the matrox vidcap, I guess you could say XP doesn't want to -- it wants to use WDM. I couldn't remove the crossbar driver using device mgr., but was successful (I think) going through the registry at length -- at least it didn't show up anywhere in Device Mgr etc. However, I was unable to find every registry entry &/or file itself concerning wdm capture, and this route proved unsuccessful.

FWIW, the crossbar driver does in fact work after a fresh XP install. The problem is that you get a 320 x 240 frame, period, and it's within what appears a 352 x 240 window with very heavy black bars on each side.

RE: specific problems:
In all cases I could not get XP to fully recognize the matrox vidcap. Choosing properties for this driver in device mgr never showed it working, and often either crashed device mgr or XP. I also had trouble playing back existing avi files compressed with the matrox hardware mjpeg, crashing media player. In those situations it appeared to be an error(s) related to the media player video filters, & after media player was closed, the process was still listed in task mgr as consuming 95% + of resources. Ending the process normally crashed XP.

I did find some interesting stuff related to this. Using media player 2 instead of 8, the same crashes happened, but it was *usually* possible to close the process in task mgr after the fact without crashing XP. At times I was able to get these matrox encoded clips playing in media player 2 after disabling DX support for the marvel through the troubleshooting tab of powerdesk. Now this is an interesting part: Once I got a clip to play, I could re-enable DX and it would continue to work, in media player 8 as well.

Rebooting everything went back to abnormal ;-b -- but disabling DX initially worked as before. I believe that the card had to be initialized, that XP had to be shown where to look basically, to matrox vidcap instead of the WDM crossbar. This led me to the strategy that ultimately was successful -- keep the wdm stuff from getting installed initially.

To accomplish this there was a bit of trial and error, as I focussed on modifying the XP install CD I cut. I tried removing the "[drive]:\I386\Mtxvideo.in_ file", as the mtxvideo.sys file is basically the crossbar driver, and had all sorts of problems during an upgrade install from win2k, resulting in an install that wouldn't boot. I decided to leave it in place, but cut the guts out of the Mgau.in_ file (removing all entries but the headings) -- that turned out to be unnecessary, not mattering one way or the other as XP still recognized the card during install.

I then focussed on the driver.cab file in the same i386 folder... I tried decompressing this file using winzip, and eliminating the XP g400 driver files, then using cabarc.exe to recompress the drivers. This gave me two problems... The XP install didn't like it when it couldn't find drivers that were supposed to be there, and every driver was reported as unsigned as well. I solved this by expanding the original driver.cab file with cabarc instead of winzip, and replacing the XP included g400 drivers with those from the matrox fact. 539 release. I then recompressed these files with cabarc, using this modified driver.cab file on the XP install CD I cut.

An additional, trivial note, since I was worried about driver signing I tried creating a driver.cab file leaving room for signing, then copied the signing portion as best I could determine in a hex editor. I found this didn't work, and was unnecessary anyway.

I had found that playing with the registry settings in XP often resulted in reduced functionality, whether they were imported from win2k &/or inserted by installation programs designed for win2k. Because of this I went the upgrade route once again, wiping everything XP related & doing a fresh win2k install that I updated with sp2 & DX8. I then installed the latest factory driver and vidtools for the g400 of course, making sure briefly that everything seemed to work. Then I upgraded to XP using my modified CD.

Aside from the expected unsigned warning with the inserted g400 drivers, installation went better then ever. Starting up XP, no wdm crossbar stuff was found, and device mgr showed the capture driver working.

Problem one, while pc-vcr did work, I couldn't open any of the older matrox mjpeg files on disk. Using the patch (RRIcm.dll, RRMjpeg.ax, Rrvcap32.dll, MJPEG.reg) I regained this ability. Problem 2, none of the advanced tabs were working in display properties, and attempts to insert p/desk reg entries exported from win2k didn't solve this. Since I wanted the dualhead control, I reinstalled the factory 539 drivers which solved this problem.

On another, trivial note, I originally had dualhead disabled... Using the radio button to enable dualhead switched it on, but also caused display properties to crash -- dualhead was shown as enabled when display properties was restarted. It's possible (& hopeful :-) ) a way will be found to fully enable dualhead properties as in win98 SE, but in the meantime the checkbox to use DVDMax will likely suffice.

After re-installing the drivers in XP, pc-vcr then refused to start. Again an example of incorrect registry settings, importing some of those saved from my win2k install got pc-vcr working again. I then copied in the individual files I had saved from a win2k install of the leaked beta vtools -- this resulted in what appears to be full pc-vcr function. Matrox mjpeg files play back in media player 8, and avi_io seems to work, though so far I can't get it to accept the setting to capture rgb uncompressed.

The built-in movie maker app seemed to work initially in all modes. After driver reinstallation however only rgb worked, and perhaps worse (if you wanted to try using this app), the matrox drivers have to be set to rgb in another app such as avi_io before movie maker is started (if the drivers were set to another mode, such as yuv or mpeg). Otherwise it'll crash XP.

Hopefully I'll be able to isolate the reg entries from my reinstall of the matrox drivers in order to get the powerdesk working, eliminating the need for reinstallation. Another possibility is to try other versions of powerdesk, and yet another is to try various compatibility settings on the powerdesk applet itself, which could lead to a patch using the MSoft compatibility tools.

Thanks
mike

[sergiovalentino]

I really don't understand why many people are not able to install vtools over drivers 5.39 with Marvel G400 in XP.
Why this setup refuse to complete?
I have no problems installing in this way.
Another question:
why this crossbar driver doesn't work? Avi_io lock, and no chance in Movie Maker for me.

[mikiem]

Hi

I wish I had more answers...

Myself, I've had several installations of XP, both 2526 & 2600, finally settling on 2526 as a testbed in case there's more app blocking etc. in 2600.

I'm definitely having problems with the matrox registry entries -- some are missing and others perhaps shouldn't be there after any matrox software installation in XP. In win2k, some of the matrox registry entries seem like they might be missplaced, don't follow the patttern of other software installed, "H K E Y _ C U R R E N T _ U S E R \ S o f t w a r e \ C l a s s e s \" for example.

Then, with pc-vcr working after upgrading a win2k install to XP, I did a 539 driver install to get the dual head tab back in display properties. This lost pc-vcr, which would not start until I merged some win2k matrox entries. It seems the 539 install must have over written something &/or inserted keys it shouldn't have.

I suspect I've had more success upgrading from a win2k install, because perhaps some reg entries are moved to their proper locations in XP, while others are removed by the install routine.

I'd rather be able to get a fresh install to work, since upgrading from win2k leaves some win2k files intact. This is a plus for some folks I imagine, as not all applets available in win2k are present in XP. In my situation, not using it as a server of any sort, some of the files left behind deal with IIS. I haven't done more then note these, but I fear there is the potential for increased security holes going the upgrade route.

One thing that occurs to me just now after re-reading earlier posts in this thread, is that it sounds as if you had the slider on the troubleshooting tab of display properties moved back a notch before you tried the vtools install, the one that never completes -- something that hadn't occured to me.

Another potential difference *I think* might be the matrox card itself. After my card was replaced, I received one of those cards using a g450 -- I seem to remember posts a year back that matrox used some of these g450 cards/chips that had failed tests as a g450, but passed those for a g400. I don't know if the cards report the same things to windows plug and play queries.

I didn't think the different chipsets would make any difference, but perhaps I'm wrong -- I use an old Asus p2b with the intel bx chipset.

As you're running a triple boot system, I wouldn't think there were any problems related to drive letters during vtools install.

I wouldn't think it a problem, but perhaps folks are using different *releases* of 2600... Other then the potential for small differences there, I've read that there was a 2nd 2600 release with bug fixes a short time after the initial 2600.

All my installs have been on my 2nd drive I normally use for captureing, so no interferance with existing win98 SE stuff, & I've wiped everything in between installs. [Once I find I can get everything working I'll move the XP installation]

I've written about yet another possibility down below that's related to the wdm drivers used for multimedia.

Depending on how much time I can devote to this over the weekend, I want to collect the reg entries for powerdesk, restore XP from a backup made before I did the 539 install, and see if I can get that working by merging some of those reg entries. There's no question that it worked better after upgrading from win2k before that 539 install in XP, but that was the only way I could get the dualhead tab to appear. I also want to try the various powerdesk files and compatibility stuff if working with the registry doesn't help.
----------------------------
RE: the crossbar driver, I really am uncertain how big a role it plays in my problems with the marvel in XP. *IF* I had everything else working properly, and the reg entries as they should be, then it's quite possible I could use both as I can in win98 SE.

What I've found, being able to playback matrox mpeg files with DX off, then being able to play the same files with it turned back on afterwards, to me says that XP needs first to initialize the marvel, that it doesn't automatically look at the mjpeg portion, maybe even recognize it when it should.

I can turn off the crossbar driver, remove it from the registry and all that, and things still won't work, which tells me that maybe it's not the driver itself, but something else that's installed, maybe in support of the crossbar driver. Making sure it isn't installed in the first place eliminates that support from being installed, and sure enough, the marvel's mjpeg support seems to work without playing with, reducing the DX settings.

I don't know why the wdm &/or crossbar stuff doesn't work on my system and does on others. Here's the only explanation I can come up with so far:...

In win98 SE I originally found that the crossbar driver did not work properly, even with video only capture. Then I upgraded my soundcard to a Live! MP3+, and with the creative wdm drivers in place, the crossbar associated wdm capture did work, suggesting that both audio and video wdm drivers were or are required, and that they work in tandem.

XP includes it's own drivers for the live with wdm support, & installs files etc to support wdm audio as well. I think what I'm experiencing could be the result of that wdm audio support Plus the wdm video support, both working together. WDM capture could be more fully enabled in your system, or vice versa. Or there could be a problem with XP's wdm driver support for the live, or anywhere in the chain of associated hardware and drivers.

Oh well, any help and/or suggestions are more then welcome -- Thanks in advance!

As long as someone at leasts reads this stuff, I'll post any new info and results as I slowly progress.

Thanks
mike

[hapz]

Mike, I am carefully following your every move

As you might know from my earlier postings, I have the same VT install problem with G400DH+RRG on any of the XP versions.

I have been able to overcome only one of the obstacles. Initially I could not play my old mjpeg avi files under XP. Installing the PIC codecs resolved that issue.

[magician]

Re: WinXP; G400 MAX & Rainbow Runner G

Originally posted by [GDI]Raptor
I use Windows XP RC2, An Matrox G400 MAX, with a Rainbow Runner G series. Everyting works good. Both TV and video capture.... I have not activated MJPEG suport yet.....

Any other experiences??????

Can you please tell us what exactly did you do, and what version of drivers/video tools you are using? Can you capture YUY2 or Huffyuv?

Does anybody have update on this subject?