PLEASE tell me it isn't so.

[Reverend Maynard]

Howdy all. I put a Geforce 3 Ti200 in my system a few months back, and for gaming it's a peach. Problem is, DVD/divx sucks, and I have no dual monitor/tv-output support. I have been on the look out for a G450 pci card to take care of these things, but now it doesn't look like I can use one.

I just read that DVD max and Opengl are disabled on the G450 when it is used on non-intel chipsets, because of a bus-mastering issue. Which means, if true, that I am pretty much screwed in the tv-out/dual monitor area.

About the last thing in the world I want to do is count on an Ati card for all this, so I am hoping y'all know if there is any way around the G450 problem.

Ideas/thoughts/suggestions?

[Gurm]

Que?

First I've heard of this.

- Gurm the skeptic

[MetalCartman]

Reverend is right about that one, the G450PCI is designed for intel-chipsets and so the driver disables most of the DualHead functionality, if installed on a VIA-board for example...

[Reverend Maynard]

I was really hoping to hear from someone who is succesfully running a G450 as a secondary card on a non-intel chipset.

Another thing for consideration, did they make a G400 pci card? I'm sure it would be damn near impossible to get at this point, but it's worth a shot.

Oh, I was pointed to the Matrox store this morning, says:

Important:
* G450 PCI is recommended for systems based on Intel chipsets. Feature and performance support for systems based on non-Intel chipsets is limited. Please visit the FAQ on the Matrox Graphics Incorporated website for more details.

Unfortunately the link to the FAQ isn't working for me, I'll try a bit later when I get back from school.

[KeiFront]

I just read that DVD max and Opengl are disabled on the G450 when it is used on non-intel chipsets, because of a bus-mastering issue. Which means, if true, that I am pretty much screwed in the tv-out/dual monitor area

I know it's a big minus , it's the only thing that holds me back of buying one It's an ideal PCI card, but I hope that the newer http://www.matrox.com/mga/media_cent...50pci_32mb.cfm G450 hasn't got this minor flaw .

[foft]

Surprised that there are problems on non-Intel chipsets. The G450 PCI is pretty much the AGP one behind a PCI bridge. AFAIK the PCI bridge is standard, so I don't see why bus-masting would not work.

DVD max especially is interesting since this can be done without bus mastering. I thought that was just playing with the overlay. Maybe it does a system to card blit to get the video?

I'll have to give it a try on my Via Apollo Pro 133A (if I can dig out some of my DMA test code...). Or simpler still, run it on windows! I'll post here to let you know how it runs.

[Reverend Maynard]

So it's possible, perhaps, that the 32 meg version will work properly with non-intel cheipsets? An extra 16 megs of memory certainly couldn't hurt anything eh.

[Kruzin]

The 32meg PCI G450 has the same notice about non-intel chipsets as the 16 meg does...

http://shopmatrox.com/usa/products/datasheet.asp?ID=279

[KeiFront]

Ok I can keep my 115$

[Reverend Maynard]

Ack. That's horrible. I just can't believe they would do that.

[Maggi]

Hi Reverend,

don't blame Matrox for not supporting those chipsets, but rather ask those manufacturers why they can't avoid busnoise so that Matrox would not need to disable busmastering when running on those chipsets ...

[Reverend Maynard]

I dunno...Could it be that every single non-intel chipset out there is hopelessly flawed? I would understand if it was something like all via 686(a)(b) chipsets or something, but not having support for anything non-intel seems almost like poor planning.

I understand that Matrox caters to the business setting with the G450, and most businsses do you use intel chipsets, but it still seems a little close minded to me.

[Greebe]

RM... and how would YOU like for M to change what they don't make?

[KeiFront]

Greebe I can understand Matrox point, they can possible only make workarounds if they encounter a problem with a chipset and this cost resources.

But there are many other chipsets than Intel ones, VIA, AMD, SIS, ALI, nVidia, Serverworks, so that's a lot off marketshare that isn't covered.

But I can understand that most PCI card are used to replace an onboard graphic chip and there aren't many non-intel chipset with an onboard graphic chip. Altough some people use a PCI card as a second graphic card.

[Greebe]

I believe the resourses used and thus cost of making whatever neccessary changes greatly outweighs the market demand. When put into a business prespective this all makes sense.