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After advice from Vicken at the Matrox forum to ask at MURC forum, here goes, the original thread is at : http://forum.matrox.com/mga/viewtopic.php?p=28306
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I still had my old Matrox G450-eTV card lying around so decided to buildt a dedicated TiVo box out of it.
The problem is that I planned to use the TV as a monitor as well. To do this, I configured the system to use 'DualHead Multi-Display' and configured the TV as main monitor. This works, I can see and control the TiVo box via the TV screen.
However, when playing movies, such as MPEG-1 files or AVI files, the speed is horrible. CPU usage barely gets above 10%, so it's purely the graphics card.
So I was forced to switch the setup back to 'DualHead DVDMax', but now I can't control the TiVo via the TV anymore, because the TV has become 2ndairy monitor for DVDMax to work and shows black screen when no movie is playing.
I compensate for that by controlling the TiVo with another computer via a WiFi connection to the TiVo box.
This works, but I still would prefer my original idea to work.
So am I asking too much? Or is there a way to make it work, like is there some sort of utility I can start that will switch between the two modes quick, because I could start such a util via the ATI Remote Wonder control then? Or am I missing something to speed up the playback in 'DualHead Multi-Display' mode?
Tech specs:
Windows XP Home (with SP1 and all other updates)
ASRock Mainboard GE Pro-HT with DIMM/SDRAM slots
Intel P4 Celeron 2.0Ghz
128MB PC133 Kingston (tried it with 512MB as well, makes no difference)
Western Digital 80GB, 7200rpm, Matrox HD Benchmark shows 43.00 MB/s
802.11b WiFi card
and of course the Matrox G450-eTV with the following specs:
- 32MB DDR
- RAMDAC speed = 360Mhz
- Matrox Driver Package 5.82.018
- Display Driver: 5.12.01.1820 (1.82.017)
- Kernel Driver: 5.12.01.1820 (1.82.017)
- DirectDraw/Direct3D driver: 5.12.01.1820 (1.82.017)
- OpenGL ICD: 2.52.049 (2.52.049)
- Matrox PowerDesk: 6.82.016
- Graphics BIOS: 2.0 b36
- Microsoft DirectX: 9.0 (doesn't show I installed lattest 9.0b version)
DXDiag also gives me this added info:
Main Driver: G400DHD.dll
Version: 5.12.0001.1820
WHQL Logo'd: No
Mini VDD: g400dhm.sys
VDD: n/a
DDI Version: 7
Resolution is set at 800x600 for both monitor and TV (which is no longer connected), tried both 16 bits and 32bits.
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I still had my old Matrox G450-eTV card lying around so decided to buildt a dedicated TiVo box out of it.
The problem is that I planned to use the TV as a monitor as well. To do this, I configured the system to use 'DualHead Multi-Display' and configured the TV as main monitor. This works, I can see and control the TiVo box via the TV screen.
However, when playing movies, such as MPEG-1 files or AVI files, the speed is horrible. CPU usage barely gets above 10%, so it's purely the graphics card.
So I was forced to switch the setup back to 'DualHead DVDMax', but now I can't control the TiVo via the TV anymore, because the TV has become 2ndairy monitor for DVDMax to work and shows black screen when no movie is playing.
I compensate for that by controlling the TiVo with another computer via a WiFi connection to the TiVo box.
This works, but I still would prefer my original idea to work.
So am I asking too much? Or is there a way to make it work, like is there some sort of utility I can start that will switch between the two modes quick, because I could start such a util via the ATI Remote Wonder control then? Or am I missing something to speed up the playback in 'DualHead Multi-Display' mode?
Tech specs:
Windows XP Home (with SP1 and all other updates)
ASRock Mainboard GE Pro-HT with DIMM/SDRAM slots
Intel P4 Celeron 2.0Ghz
128MB PC133 Kingston (tried it with 512MB as well, makes no difference)
Western Digital 80GB, 7200rpm, Matrox HD Benchmark shows 43.00 MB/s
802.11b WiFi card
and of course the Matrox G450-eTV with the following specs:
- 32MB DDR
- RAMDAC speed = 360Mhz
- Matrox Driver Package 5.82.018
- Display Driver: 5.12.01.1820 (1.82.017)
- Kernel Driver: 5.12.01.1820 (1.82.017)
- DirectDraw/Direct3D driver: 5.12.01.1820 (1.82.017)
- OpenGL ICD: 2.52.049 (2.52.049)
- Matrox PowerDesk: 6.82.016
- Graphics BIOS: 2.0 b36
- Microsoft DirectX: 9.0 (doesn't show I installed lattest 9.0b version)
DXDiag also gives me this added info:
Main Driver: G400DHD.dll
Version: 5.12.0001.1820
WHQL Logo'd: No
Mini VDD: g400dhm.sys
VDD: n/a
DDI Version: 7
Resolution is set at 800x600 for both monitor and TV (which is no longer connected), tried both 16 bits and 32bits.
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