G400 running tv-out

[firehawk2]

i havent recieved my card yet but i wanna know can i boot my pc thru tv-out without plugging in my monitor to enable tv-out?? please lmk.
if theres a new bios can u please gimme taht link???


Thanks

[Mike D]

I know after you enable dual head you can unplug the monitor(with computer off)and boot up with just the TV. You wont see anything until you get to windows desktop. As for installing the G400 and all with the TV only im not sure. I dont think you would want to.

You can get the latest bios and drivers here. http://www.matrox.com/mga/home.htm

[This message has been edited by Mike D (edited 22 December 1999).]

[firehawk2]

thanks dude. i will try taht. i will install the card thru the monitor first. then i'll take it to my living room and hook it up to my WEGA!!!! heh i have a 36in sony wega and i wanted to know what res can it go??

[Maggi]

Hi Firehawk,

with that bios utility you can reprogramm the bios to 'DOS to TVout'.
You need to do so to get a picture on your TV while the system is booting and not in the moment windows is completly loaded.

The TVout has a max resolution of 1024x768x32bpp.

Make sure you use S-VHS connectors instead of composite.

Make sure your TV is attached to the 2ndary VGA output.

Set DualHead options to Clone mode and if needed also enable DVDmax.

Have fun - it's gorgeous ...

Cheers,
Maggi

[JazZyB]

Warning... without primary monitor attatched windows defaults to 640 x 480 on the second head for tv-out. You can't change res to 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768, stuck with 640x480 yuck! Yet DVD seems to work ok fullscreen which is 750 x 500 (or something like this pixels). You also get corruption on the post screen when you enable tv-out bios.

I'd say after using both a rage fury and 6400 for soley tv-out, the fury is the much simpler to get working, just plug it in and go, with the g400 you have flash the bios to enable tv-out and configure the dual head setting then it still doesn't work satifactorily for me. There are also other issues such as stuttering every few seconds when playing DVD out to PAL TV. Also the inability to enable v-sync when using turbo-gl games just plain sucks on a 50Hz PAL, i get tearing of textures even with triple buffering on.

Don't get me wrong the G400 is an excellent card if you're hooked up to a monitor, but if you're looking for a home theatre/games pc that sits next to your telly (without a monitor, lets face it who wants a monitor in their lounge!) I'd say at the present time the Fury is the better option until matrox sort out their drivers.

[birdy]

Your tv resolution is pretty well fixed.

If it's a pal tv then you have 625 lines. If you have an ntsc i think it's 525 lines. Normally the most yo'll get from either is 500 lines even from DVD. The display when used instead of a monitor is always crappy because the tv just does not have the control of a monitor. That's why a tv is so much cheaper than a monitor.

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p3 450@600. bx6 ver 2. 128mb unbranded pc100. iwill 2930u scsi, diamond pro pci modem, advansys 1505 isa scsi, SB Live!, pioneer dvd103s, hollywood plus dvd card, plextor 40x cd rom, ricoh 1420 cdr, ibm 13.5gb @ 7200rpm, G400 @ max settings. All wrapped up in a big case with loads of fans. Belinea 10 30 40 17" monitor

[firehawk2]

one thing more WHERE do i get this bios??? can somebody please gimme direct link??? i will really appreciate ur help. here is what i get it. first i set option for DVD MAX or Clone so i can view on TV. so i shutdown teh computer and then i plug it in to my tv. i can wait for a min till it loads in win98 desktop. but how do i get it in 800x600??? please somebody help me.

Thanks

[JazZyB]

You can't get 800 x 600 on the TV without a monitor attached as well. you'll be stuck at 640 x 480, you'll also get black borders top and bottom as I do on my Sony when using PAL
I've tried everything to try and stop windows defaulting back to 640 x 480. Countles diffrent monitor profiles, disable plug and play monitor. edit msconfig and system.ini files and trawling thru the registry with regedit. Have not worked for me I guess Matrox will have program it into drivers, please Matrox can we have a tv-out only with no monitor attached option in the dualhead section of powerdesk drivers, after all ATI got it right several years ago with their expert@play range of card that support 800x600 PAL TV with no monitor attached?