Matrox announces RT.X10...realtime for $599

[Dr Mordrid]

VIA's chipset issues were theirs alone. Lots of products got burned by it, not just Matrox and their customers.

This problem continues to the point where Matrox Video has taken the step of putting them on a "not supported" list for the RT.X10/100 cards. VIA chipped mainboards are the only members of that list.

I agree MGA should have done this long ago, but with VIA constantly promising to fix the problem and failing to do so....

It's kinda like the uncle that keeps borrowing money but never pays it back. Do you keep inviting him to the family reunion or....?

As for the TV frequencies; it would be nice if the PAL regions did something about the broadcast frequency situation, wouldn't it? Consistant in the PAL world these frequencies are not.

I wish I had a nickle for every custom channel setup Matrox had the betas and friends of betas test for PAL regions & still they never could get 'em all during the products lifetime.

Dr. Mordrid

[Debbie]

So will the RT.X10 work with a VIA cipset with no problems ????

Debbie

[wkulecz]

I've got to agree with Debbie, G200 Marvel orphaned for lack of drivers for the current OS. Are these real-time boards going to have drivers for Longhorn (or what ever MS calls it)? Will drivers be updated for Premiere 6.5, 7, beyond?

Besides, I'm not 100% satisifed with any of the editing packages available now, being restricted to only Premiere is just not something I'm willing to buy in to.

I think Matrox is finally saying their hardware won't work right with Via chipsets. I wish they and others would do more of this to drive the substandard chipset stuff off the market!

--wally.

[RoGuE]

Originally posted by Debbie
So will the RT.X10 work with a VIA cipset with no problems ????

Debbie

Unlikely. The following quote is taken from Matrox's site:

VIA chipsets for Intel and AMD processors are not recommended for use with a Matrox RT.X system because they do not work well when performing realtime DV output, or when editing or playing back Timelines that contain complex effects, such as particle and blur effects. These chipsets have all demonstrated a PCI bandwidth limitation when reading from host memory (RAM). This is seen when heavy PCI bandwidth (such as for video, graphics, and effects) is required by several PCI devices at the same time.

[Elie]

Well folks here's the scoop...

I have the new MSI KT3 Ultra 333 based on the VIA 333 chipset. I have an RT2000 installed and it's running fine, I created many effects/ captured and exported without issues.

The RT2500 however refused to work with my board, no matter what I did!


If I get my hands on an RT.X10 I'll keep you posted with regards to how it works on a VIA chipset mobo.

Regards,
Elie

[Dr Mordrid]

And from my end;

I ran the RT.X100, the RT.X10's big brother which happens to have the same recommended systems qualifier, on a VIA system and it was an unmitigated disaster.

The mainboard was the Gigabyte GA-7VRX (VIA KT333), which by all accounts is one of the better VIA KT333 chipped mainboards around.

Basic captures worked, but realtime editing and export functionality was hopeless. As Matrox said: very poor PCI bandwidth at the chipset level.

Drop the RT.X100 into a $50 ECS K7S5A and it runs just fine. The difference: SiS's latest chipsets (SiS 735/745/746 for Athlon; SiS 645/645DX/648 for the P4) have gobs of PCI bandwidth and as a result they run the RT boards just great. It also helps that they're VERY stable.

Dr. Mordrid

[peterclifton]

A quick question

Doc

I have never built an Athlon based PC, not because of the processor, purely down to having to have a VIA chipset somewhere on the motherboard.

I'm not asking for a flatout recommendation, but if putting together a budget power system based around Windows 2000/XP have you come across any drawbacks using a NON VIA chipset motherboard like SIS and an Athlon ?

I was thinking of putting together a system based around a Parhelia 128 / Matrox RT X.10 and an Athlon for low end 3D and Video Editing in the home but only if the system can truly be made as stable as an Intel solution.

I have only used Intel processors and chipsets when building a PC after a poor experience with a VIA chipset based Pentium PC .

Finally, I think I saw an earlier comment about the X.10 not having realtime chroma/Luma key, does this mean that you can still chroma key if you wait for such effects to be rendered (not a problem) and if so would the results be as good as those from the hardware assisted X.100

Thanks

Peter

[Elie]

My quick report....!!

I had a MSI just a few hours ago which I tested the RT.X100 on, you wouldn't believe how this performed on the MSI which is based on the VIA 333 chipset.
Well basically I couldn't even get a transition to work properly!!!

So I went on the Matrox web site, looked at their current list of compatible motherboards and decided to buy the Asus A7S333 based on the SIS chipset.

I just finished building it and the RT.X100 worked like a charm no more problems with realtime effects no matter how complicated my timeline was.

So the moral to this whole test is VIA SUCKS PERIOD!!!!!

Even the onboard FT 133 in my MSI KT3 ultra suffered big time, I couldn't even capture to it!

note the Rt2000 did work ok because all of it's operation i.e transitions and effects are done in hardware, so the PCI bus wasn't been utilitied as heaviliy as the RT.X100.

My Asus now rocks even Parhelia performs so much better

Regards,
Elie

[Debbie]

Hi Doc.,

The set of drivers you sugested ,further up, for Wk2 worked almost perfectly. The only iterms that did'nt work are not all that important, these are the skins (the default is best anyways) and I when try to add frequencies it will cause an error and crash the OS. But apperently the rest is fine. Thans again.

Regards,

Debbie

[wkulecz]

Have you tried output back to tape with these drivers? Wihtout that you've got nothing from the $300 Marvel that you can't do with a <$50 BT848 "win/tv" card and $20 PICVIDEO MJPEG codec.

--wally.

[Dr Mordrid]

I use them with DualHead/DVDMAX....

PS on the SiS chipsets;

SiS is coming out with a new SouthBridge; the SiS 963. This S/B will double the speed of the NorthBridge/SouthBridge bus on SiS chipped mainboards from the current 533 MB/s to 1066 MB/s

Info here;

http://www.sis.com/products/chipsets/southbridge/96x.htm

At first is should be paried with the following NorthBridges;

Athlon: the SiS 746 (DDR)

P4: the SiS 648 (DDR) and SiS 658 (RDRAM)

Dr. Mordrid

[DrP]

We've got some real odd frequencies for channels here in Australia. I pointed this out to the guys at Matrox. Even gave them a link to a site with the actual frequencies used, created a registry clipping with the right frequencies in it for them to use, did this well before VT2.04 and VT2.10a were released. VT2.10a was released without the right frequencies for certain channels. I even saw another guy posting the same sort of info and refs in the Video Editing forum.

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you can't lead a horse to water.

[Debbie]

Hi Doc.,

I have EVERYTHING working OK. with "your" drivers
for the marvel on W2k, including TV. freguencies and also skins.
The odd "green flash" is still there with Matrox MJPEG but very occasionaly and if I change the fourCC or use software codec then all will be fine.

Thanks again for the tip Doc.

Debbie

[goldstein]

Looking at the comparison sheet among the 10;100;2500...it seems that one the main things the RTX10 lack is mpeg2 output - is this a big deal?...I mean are there decent aftermkt solutions for outputting to mpeg2 that are not an arm and a leg...and that being the case...is the 10 a "better" buy value/feature wise thatn than the 2500?

[Peter B]

After looking at this new offering I may have to consider upgrading my trusty Marvel G200! I do have a couple of questions though. They answers may not yet be know unless someone has a pre-release version or they are the same as the X100, but just in case...

Capture Questions:
As far as I can tell from the Matrox info analog input is captured with a DV codec and doesn't this format have an issue with keying?
Can the X10 capture other formats such as HuffYUV or is it limited to DV only? I usually use FAT32 drives and capture with AVI_IO in 2Gb files as these drives are faster. They seem to recommend only NTFS because of the avi file size issue, using the Matrox capture software and it therefore cannot seamlessly capture or can third party capture software be used?

Card specifics
Is the X10 DV codec a proprietary Matrox Codec?
Are the effects and keying attributes of the X100 are still possible with the X10, but require rendering or are they not possible? How does the quality of MPEG video output compare with TmpgEnc or Cinemacraft?

Premiere
I assume the realtime effects are only possible with DV source video, but can any other codecs be imported and used in the timeline and rendered as required? If it upsamples the video to 4:4:4 in Premiere does this overcome the keying issue with 4:2:0 DV. I would guess not if there is any stairstepping in the original capture this would be translated as well? Does the X10 make Premiere any more stable?