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**Questor** · 3 January 2000, 16:52

I for one am happy that Matrox even released a beta driver for w2k. It has helped tremendously in my development efforts. Sure it is not 100% complete, but this is more than many others have put out so far.

[This message has been edited by Questor (edited 03 January 2000).]

**Rob M.** · 3 January 2000, 16:59

I don't know where that came from, I find that most games that don't work for me under win2k are the ones that don't work no matter what video card you run.
There are exceptions of course, halflife has had problems with the opengl ICD in win98 and apparently also does in win2000, and performance in win2000 is slower than in win98, but these are still beta drivers, it's to be expected.
And tell us what DVD program you're running, maybe we can help you get it going.
I got cyberlink powerdvd running great in win2000, even looks better than in win98 when running at 1600x1200

**Kruzin** · 3 January 2000, 17:00

Hi-ho, hi-ho,
It's off to the Soapbox forum we go...

**paulcs** · 3 January 2000, 17:35

It seems to me that it isn't only Matrox that hates W2K. In fact, with the exception of 3DLabs, a company that specializes in workstation videoboards, Matrox has been better about this than the other major board manufacturers. When all is said and done, Matrox just might like W2K.

As far as I know, nVidia still hasn't posted an official release and the beta versions released by some GeForce manufacturers are a disaster. Like 3dfx users, nVidia users are still getting by with hacks. And just getting by at that. The newest is a fusion of driver build 3.53 and 3.64 (I think). They work with some systems and have trashed others.

I'm curious. What build of W2K are you using? If it's 2195, I know a number of people have had some successes with it. Maybe there's something that can be done. I had a bunch of problems with RC2 and, eventually, had to replace my G400 with a TNT2. I then hacked my own drivers, using the mysterious Ver. 3.53 and an older Leadtek ICD.

My point is, this hasn't been easy on anyone. It appears Microsoft made big changes from Beta 3 to RC2, and then made more changes after moving to RC3 and the current build. I suspect videoboard manufacturers have been playing catch-up for the last several months and, probably on more than one occasion, have been forced to go back to the drawing board.

To make matters worse, NT has not been a Matrox strong suit for quite some time. Many of us were quite happy to see Matrox release the beta drivers. There was a lot of complaining here beforehand. Many people argued that they preferred to have buggy beta drivers than nothing at all and "we have the right to blow up our computers," etc., etc.

I know it's frustrating, but we kind of agreed as a group that we would limit the whining about the beta drivers, give Matrox the opportunity to impress or depress us when the dust is finally cleared, and keep our comments in a tech support context.

Right now, the only software DVD player I know of that anyone has gotten to work in W2K is WinDVD 2000, and even it has problems. This really isn't a Matrox problem. Assuming your using the software that shipped with the board, it is most likely a Cinemaster issue, not a buggy beta driver issue.

(It's funny. A couple of weeks ago, someone posted some difficulties in getting certain WinDVD functions to work properly in W2K, and many of us posted back and asked how he got it working at all!)

Also, I believe forum rules dictate that this sort of post be limited to the Soap Box. You are taking a position, not asking for help. So this is Holly's department. Sure, she'll probably yell at you, unless someone beats her to it, but that's what the Soap Box is for.

I just got my copy of the evaluation version of Build 2195 today. I'm expecting a stressful couple of days.

Good luck.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

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Matrox's Hate for Win2k

Matrox's Hate for Win2k

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