multimonitor: occasional slowdown

[VJ]

Hello,

At work, I'm running a multimonitor setup with the following video cards:
AGP: MS-StarForce GeForce4 MX 440 (AGP8x) Series (Nvidia)
PCI: S3 Trio64 V2/DX

The S3 is set in the bios as the primary card, but for XP Pro the GeForce is the primary card. The system works and is stable.

However, occasionally, the system stutters: screen build up slows down, mouse cursor jumps (as if the cursor can't keep up with the movement, and occasionally jumps to the positions).
This is most noticable when resuming after the screensaver has kicked it (slightly less now that I have disabled in on the S3 based monitor). But it also occurs at random - or it least, it looks at random to me.

It isn't a very big deal, but do you guys have any idea what is causing this? And if possible how I could solve it?

The videocards appear to be on the same IRQ (16, but no conflict is indicated). I cannot assign them a different resource (the option 'use automatic settings' is checked and greyed out).

Thanks!


Jörg

[Dr Mordrid]

For non gaming: want multimonitor support that really works? Get a Matrox P-750/Parhelia/APVe (PCIe + multi + analog capture + HDTV). Multimonitor is much easier when a single card can have 3 heads and multiple overlays

While I have an AIW in this system it's the last ATI or NVIDIA I'll get for these systems until they learn to do multimonitors correctly.

Dr. Mordrid

[VJ]

I know... but I put this together from old hardware we had lying around. It will be difficult to convince my employees to buy new videocards if they can't see the added benefit.

So I was wondering if I could improve on it without changing the hardware. Apart from the stuttering, everything works suprisingly well (the GeForce drivers offer specific features for dealing with multi monitor solutions, even though the second monitor is not driven by a GeForce card).


Jörg

[Nowhere]

Get some old used G400/450 cheaply and use it instead? Not only they're dirt cheap...you can always take it when you'll want to quit this job...

[Dr Mordrid]

I totally agree. They aren't worth crap for games, but for productivity related multimonitor use you still can't beat 'em short of a P-card.

You have no idea of how many multimedia, business etc. users are still running 'em happily, and Matrox has come out with a PCIe 1x G-550 (and a low profile version)....probably because that market wants to upgrade to PCIe systems.

http://matrox.com/mga/workstation/cre_pro/products/gseries/g550_PCIe.cfm

Dr. Mordrid

[Chucky Cheese]

...have you tried setting the agp speed to 2 or 1x?

...is there overlapping on the cache lines for both cards??(..msinfo32)

cc

[Marshmallowman]

apic on intel works well, apic on socket A athlons kinda sucks and should be turned off. eg if its a socket A board and it says it using irq 16 chances are its shareing with something (APIC just remaps the IRQ's)

another suggestion look into your bios and turn of shadow bios for video, and maybe turn off caching for video card memory, or it least try a few different settings (write combining...etc)

And of cours make sure assign IRQ for VGA is on.

[VJ]

Chucky Cheese:
- there is no AGP speed setting in the bios...
- the only things that overlaps (in msinfo32) are some memory addresses (it is indicated OK)

Marshmallowman:
- it is an Intel CPU on a Sis based board (APIC is enabled, IRQ16 is shared)
- now shadow bios or chaching setting in the bios

The only things in bios that have anything to do with video cards is:
- AGP fast write (was disabled, I enabled it)
- VGA Palette snoop (is disabled)


Jörg

[UtwigMU]

Well, as soon as you do something on both screens (overlapping window), it has to go through PCI.

I recommend getting single AGP dual card, a GF2MX/GF4MX or Matrox G400/G450/G550 would do the job a lot better.