Matrox G400 series questions

[englishpremier]

I'm thinking of building a HTPC around a matrox card. This mainly as i've heard their tv out quality is fantastic but also as i want use an RGB connector.

I know that the G400 will work with a custom made cable.

I would like to know do G400MAX and the Matrox G400 - TV (16mb sgram) have support for RGB.


Which one i'm i best off buying? And are they likely to work in moderm motherboards?

[dZeus]

all G400 models except the SingleHead support SCART-RGB output.

All work in modern mainboards, some just need some convincing before the motherboard wants to boot (soldering R68 when the mobo AGP voltage detection goes haywire resulting in no successfull boot).

here's the schema for the SCART-RGB cable:

http://forum.matrox.com/mga/viewtopic.php?t=4380

I suppose the G400TV doesn't have a second DB15/DSUB output, right? If it does, then it's best to solder a cable that goes directly from DB15 to SCART.

I'd go for the G400 TV as it is passively cooled, and has an onboard tuner which you might be able to get working in Linux/Win2k/XP if you are lucky. (the driver for linux is reported to work better with the Marvel/TV than the RRG which you can use with a G400MAX for example).

[englishpremier]

how much would you expect to pay for a G400 series card?

[dZeus]

you can get them cheap on ebay.
Unless you pay much more than 30-40 quid, it's worth every penny.

[greinedo]

It's also possible to connect a newer card P650/750 and Parhelia with RGB to your TV.

But with the lack of support in the driver you have to build an special converter, see my post :

http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?postid=462737#post462737

I agree you must be very motivated to achieve this, but the result is also fantastic.

Over my older G400 (also in RGB) , it has the advantage of even better colors (because of the use of VMR9 rendering, and not overlay rendering), and a not over/underscaled windows desktop that makes working only with the TV, and without PC monitor very easy.

The DVDMax feature was certainly a great option, but when using only the TV in a HTPC dedicated system, it's better, in my opinion, to have the desktop and the video surface on the same screen.

The newer cards have also additionnal functionalities you may want.

[dZeus]

how is having the windows desktop in overscan an advantage? I see the fact that you can adjust the underscan to fit the visible part of the screen perfectly as an advantage over full overscan that for example ATI cards do for the desktop.

further more, does the tv-out keep field order properly with interlaced contents without DVDMAX? that's what DVDMAX is all about.

[greinedo]

you don't understand me :

- with the G400, the windows desktop was visible in clone mode on my TV. There was a downscaling from 1024x768 or 800x600 to the Pal res. 720x576.

- now with the direct RGB connection from the P750 to the TV, the windows desktop res. is directly the final Pal res. 720x576. There is no need of downscaling. I notice better sharpness of the windows desktop as in clone mode of the G400.

- I honestly never watch interlaced contents, but when it comes to, I use the deinterlacing feature of FFDSHOW. I know and we spoke about together in another post, the P750 in not so good for interlaced contents.

- I gave up using overlay video (and DVDMax), and prefer now VMR9 rendering because I saw a huge improvement in color precision and dynamic (the blacks are darker and the whites are brighter). I found this and had later the confirmation on AVSForum (you can find there a lot of things speaking about that).

- the DVDMax needs (I think) 2 screens, and this could be an issue if you plan a HTPC connected only to the TV.

- there is also a hidden reason why I'm using VMR9 : I suspect a Matrox driver bug when scaling an overlay video on an interlaced display (not interlaced contents). When not touching the video stream, the overlay works on my my TV. But when scaling, you see strange things.

But I just discovered the new HTPC forum and I think there is room there to speak about all these things

[dZeus]

Originally posted by greinedo
you don't understand me :

- with the G400, the windows desktop was visible in clone mode on my TV. There was a downscaling from 1024x768 or 800x600 to the Pal res. 720x576.

- now with the direct RGB connection from the P750 to the TV, the windows desktop res. is directly the final Pal res. 720x576. There is no need of downscaling. I notice better sharpness of the windows desktop as in clone mode of the G400.

Don't forget that you get a lot better sharpness with the Matrox cards by disabling flicker-filter. Which will appear as you see it directly hooked up. However, the text is more stable by using a flicker filter. With the Matrox cards, you at least have the choice to disable it or not. I think the sharpness difference from scaling 800x600 to PAL vs. native res will be minimal compared to the difference when disabling flicker-filter.

- I honestly never watch interlaced contents, but when it comes to, I use the deinterlacing feature of FFDSHOW. I know and we spoke about together in another post, the P750 in not so good for interlaced contents.

deinterlacing interlaced video will downgrade the image quality a lot when you compare it to 'raw' interlaced output to TV (when that is possible with the videocard/drivers).

- I gave up using overlay video (and DVDMax), and prefer now VMR9 rendering because I saw a huge improvement in color precision and dynamic (the blacks are darker and the whites are brighter). I found this and had later the confirmation on AVSForum (you can find there a lot of things speaking about that).

- the DVDMax needs (I think) 2 screens, and this could be an issue if you plan a HTPC connected only to the TV.

afaik, on the Parhelia/P-series, DVDMAX will work with VMR surfaces too.

I never had a problem with only the tv hooked up to my G400 (no monitor on the primary output). The driver won't complain at all and work fine.

- there is also a hidden reason why I'm using VMR9 : I suspect a Matrox driver bug when scaling an overlay video on an interlaced display (not interlaced contents). When not touching the video stream, the overlay works on my my TV. But when scaling, you see strange things.

the driver doesn't know the overlay surface is interlaced, so the fields will 'bleed' into eachother. In ffdshow you can scale interlaced contents without breaking the interlace (there's a checkbox).

But I just discovered the new HTPC forum and I think there is room there to speak about all these things

true.

[greinedo]

Thanks a lot for all these great infos. I must try that FFDSHOW checkbox in order to see if the scaling works better in overlay.

But until now and with all the tests I made with my favorite movies, VMR9 is an improvement over overlay when it comes to color fidelity.

And with the Matrox P750 I have a real smooth playback in VMR9. That was not the case with my Radeon, wich gave jerky playback in VMR9 mode. I suppose it's because of the better 2D engine of the Matrox...

[englishpremier]

what code am i looking for, inorder for it to work in modern motherboards without any mods?

What sorts of mods are we talking about to make an older one work with current AGP stanards?

[dZeus]

If you do a search on G400 and voltage on these bards, you'll find it. It is only a matter of soldering 2 points on the card with a conducting piece of wire.

You only need to do this if the G400 doesn't boot on the motherboard. I don't think there are many motherboard models that have this problem with the G400, so there's a good chance it will just work fine without any mod needed.