Win2K and new G400 drivers

[paulcs]

I get the feeling there were bigger changes from RC2 to RC3 than certainly I was expecting. 3D issues, that I assumed were driver related, also appear to be OS related. RC1, Beta3, and RC3 users just seem to be having an easier time finding something that works than RC2 users.

I'm not just talking about Matrox here. Many people have found "NT solutions" for pre-RC2 releases, while RC3 just works a lot better with beta and recently leaked drivers. RC2 Professional seems to be very much the transitional OS, and the jump from Beta3/RC1 to RC3 was quite substantial.

I doubt there's much hardware manufacturers can do at this point to get RC2 users fully functional drivers without taking a step backwards. If my theory is correct, RC2 users might have accept our "monkey in the middle" status until W2K goes final.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[embedded]

mgleason:

I had exactly the same problem. The solution is to disable busmastering in the Options-section of Powerdesk.
I've got an Aopen AX59Pro MVP3 motherboard and an AMD K6-2 400 processor. Disabling the assign IRQ to VGA option in the BIOS improved stability further. Strange thing is that my machine hangs half-way in booting if I enable VGA IRQ and at the same time disable USB controller in the BIOS. Enabling the USB controller agian cures the hanging, but causes win2k not to allow IRQ-Steering. No I've disabled both the USB controller and the Assign IRQ to VGA in BIOS and I'm running without busmastering --> No craches or artefacts. The artefacts that occured when busmastering looked a lot like when the video-RAM is overclocked to much. It started out just fine after a reboot, then some icons got distorted and finally a screen full of rubbish.

I think this one is caused by the MVP3 compatibility of Win2k.

By the way: My video-card IRQ was 12

[SCompRacer]

With Win 2000, I have IRQ assignments which defy my hardware setup. With a P2B-LS, PCI slot 1 (SB Live) shares IRQ with AGP (G400 MAX), slot 2 (Hollywood +) should gets its own IRQ, slot 3 (empty) shares IRQ with LAN, slot 4 (empty) shares IRQ with SCSI and USB (no USB devices connected, but enabled).

Yet device manager reports G400, SCSI, LAN, SB Live and USB on IRQ 9. Hollywood + drivers caused lots of trouble with video drivers, so that device is disabled.

So I reportedly got alot of devices stuck on IRQ 9. Have not tried forcing any in BIOS yet as I tri-boot and need to work with this thing where Win 2000 is still experimental with me yet.

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P III 500 @ 560 via 112 FSB, ASUS P2B-LS w/1011 BIOS, 256 MB 8ns ECC RAM ECC Enabled, current 5.41 drivers, DX 7, Seagate 9 GB LVD Cheetah & 9 GB UW Barracuda, 10 GB IDE DiamondMax, Plextor Ultraplex 32 X/Plexwriter 8/2/20 RW, Hitachi GD 2000 IDE DVD CD ROM, SCSI ZIP Insider, G400 MAX, SB Live/Liveware 3.0, Sigma Hollywood + DVD decoder, US Robotics 56K Sportster, Sony GDM400PS, UMAX 2400S SCSI scanner, Soundworks 5.1, SCSI, LAN & USB enabled. SB Live shares IRQ w/MAX, bus mastering enabled, Win98 SE, NT 4.0 SP4 and Win 2000.




[This message has been edited by SCompRacer (edited 04 December 1999).]

[jeepman]

Well, I took the plunge too. I have dualhead working relatively well. It would be nice to have independant desktop sizes because my second monitor is only 15". I am also overdriving it at 70Hz refresh.

If you "right-click" the Tray icon, you will see the Multi-display controls. I used these to help use Dualhead, but when I picked MaxVIEW and chose "In the display containing the window" I could not launch Windows Explorer again. How annoying.

Now to a game. I thought Kingpin would be nice. When I move the mouse, it takes almost a second to move the perspective. Also, the weird colors on the walls are neat for a second, they are quite annoying now. I think I will start a seperate thread in the Gaming section for Win2K issues.

I also tried to run a DirectX game (Swedish Touring Car Championship). It would not even launch. I used the DirectX diagnostics and it totally locked when I tried to test Direct3D. Also, the diagnostics show several files out of date. I guess directX 7.0 is an overstatement on Matrox's part, or it is a Win3K issue and I need to clean up some files by hand.

Other than that, I like it. Dualhead works like under NT 4.0 and I am used to that.

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ABIT BP6, 192MB PC100 RAM, dual 366 Celerons oc'd to 550MHz, 3DFXCool GlobalWin FEP32 'Lil Mofo' h/s fans. G400 DH, 3COM 905B NIC, Buslogic FlashPoint LW Ultra-Wide SCSI, SBLive PCI 1024 (OEM SBLive Real Player). Segate Medalist PRO 9.1 GB UW SCSI 7200RPM, Maxtor 20.4GB ATA66 7200RPM 2MB Cache, 8GB tape b/u, IDE 32x CDROM, SCSI 4xwrite/8xread Panasonic CD writer, 4 more various 2GB SCSI drives.

[mgleason]

embedded: Thanks for the info! I'll give it a try tonight and post my results.

[Peter555]

John D, et all,
Sorry to take so long to reply, have to work on weekends.
Yes the dual head works. Have not tried any DVD stufff(hopefully tomorrow.) Did try the TV output and got it to work, but had to reboot to enable it and then the second display got stuck at 60 hz. Had to reboot 2-3 times to get it back to normal. How it works is very strange and subject to different, and so far unpreditable, behavior every time i mess around with it. The device manager shows only 2 monitors and 2 boards the G400 and the G200. The G400 is shown as 1 with the dual head stuff seems to be embedded into it. There seems to be no way to set the speed of the second monitor. It apparently is being picked up by the plug and play DDC channel. If i use an RGB connection, or don't have the monitor turned on - the G400 driver seems very confused. If i use a VGA connection with the monitors turned on prior to boot, things seem to be ok.
Do you have plug and play monitors with VGA connections? Ane were they both hooked up and turned on before trying to enable dual head?

One more thing, at first my system seemed very stable with all three monitors and both boards working. Then came these sudden and unpredictable black screen death crashes. Never a blue screen. The only cure i have found so far is to slow down the spped of the bus from 100 to 83. At this speed everything is stable. Can't figure out what is happening - cause under NT4.0 sp5 with all the same hardware i can run 103 no problems, go figure. Bus mastering is turned off. When i get some time i'll try turning it on and see what happens.

Wish i could enlighten more, but i'm very new to W2K and this G400 driver.

jeepman,
Thought i saw a setting in there somewhere with choices for the second monitor resolution? Or was that for the TV out? Don't remember.

[mgleason]

embedded: Thank you very much! Turning off bus mastering fixed the artifacts problem completely. One question for anyone: When using dual-head multi-display, is there any way to run 1 resolution on the primary monitor and a completely different resolution on the second monitor? And is there any way to get the secondary display on the left side (which is where it is physically) of the primary display? Thanks!

[mgleason]

Well, not all is good I suppose. D3D does work pretty well (at least in Messiah). However, OpenGl performance is horrible. I get very low frame rates (8 or so) and after less than a minute the whole computer locks up and I have to reboot. Anyone have these problems? Any fixes known? Thanks.

[Galvin]

mgleason: I know for me quake II will lock up solid and the only way is to hit reset. This is if you disable busmastering. Also check to see if AGP is enabled you can do this thru the dxdiag.

Also I found out if I disable AGP I don't get the 60's colors in quake II, but what ever way I try it the mouse/keyboard lag in the game, so basically quake II is not playable yet with these drivers.

Yes openGL has always been buggy even in NT4 it was buggy. I'll be suprised if matrox does any better with openGL in win2K

[jeepman]

Peter555,

Yes there is a setting on the Dualhead properties Tab that lets you set the max resolution for the second monitor. I set mine to 1024x768 and then I could choose a desktop size of 2048x768. But, since I was overdriving my second monitor, I went back to 1600x600.

I know these are not "final" drivers so I am hopeful. I really would like the ability to set the refresh rates independantly because I get the "scanline" effect when both monitors are sync'd at the same refresh. Quite annoying on the eyes after awhile.

Also, it is "nice" to see I am not the only one having issues with OGL. DirectX has problems too. Swat 3 won't even start. Rally 2K won't start. I can play F22 just fine. Time to try Half-life in D3D!

[Peter555]

jeepman,
I've seen that setting appear and disappear. If there is a plug and play connection then it seems to fix itself at the highest reported rate and size. If there is no P+P connection then the adjustable setting show up.
Seem like the existing NT4.0 rules are being followed for now. Meaning refresh rates and screen sizes must be identical for dual monitors.
"scanline" ? At least i'm not havng that problem, are your monitors parallel or angled away from each other in the rear? The Max seems to have about the best looking display i have ever seen, it's unbelievably sharp, and clear with vivid colors om my WinTV.
Looks like W2K and i a going to be spending a lot of time together.

[EricSH]

Personaly I am enjoying the new drivers quite a bit, and it solved a few problems that I was having with the 490 drivers, but thats not why I am writing.

From what I read over at btanews there are several people that have installed the new drivers that are also having problems, most of them have either a 16MB card or RC2. So aparently both of these restrictions can cause problems.

Hope that helps someone.