5.52 drivers REALLY slowed me down?

[Dentaku]

Yesterday I decided to try out the newest drivers on my Millennium G200 (Win98 original, DX7):
-2000.02.21
-Matrox PowerDesk for Windows 95/98
-Revision 5.52.015

This is the first time in a long time that the newer drivers worked worse than the older ones.
Right way I noticed that my computer would stutter when I would drag stuff atround on the Desktop.
SO, I started up Unreal Tournament just to make sure and YUP it was unplayably slow.
I wouldn't want to use Photoshop 5.5 with that kinda performance.

I installed them like I usually do. I used the un-installer utility and it seemed to install fine.

After a few minutes I just un-installed 5.52 and put 5.30.007 back. Now everything's back to normal.

Anyone else have this problem?

[Zwisch]

I find the new one better than the old one... No such problems on my side. Did you completely remove your 5.30 before installing the new ones?

[Dentaku]

Well, I switched to 16 colour VGA and restarted. Then I ran the un-installer.
I restarted again and pointed it to the folder that I unzipped the new drivers to.

[Rik]

If stuff is stuttering when you drag icons around, try pressing CTRL-ALT-DEL and killing the PDESK task. A similar thing used to happen to me on PD 5.41 when Powerdesk was running.

[Dentaku]

Hmm. Next time I install new drivers I'll try that.
Doesn't the "Save Desktop Icon Position" thing stop working if you kill PDESK ?

[anid]

Yes, it does sound like the Pdesk problem that SS7 users have had with the 5.41 drivers - Pdesk eating around 20% of the CPU activity. What mobo are you using? There are a few fixes for it, but the easiest is to change the PDEnable value in the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Matrox\PowerDesk\Versi on5\CurrentSettings to "00 00 00 00". Also, be sure you keep Pdesk from running at start-up - you can do this in Display properties on the Matrox Options tab or using the Windows System Information -> System Configuration tool. Without changing the PDEnable value in the Registry, everytime DirectX is initialized PDesk will also initialize and use up your CPU. Give it a shot if you want to go to the trouble. Also, disabling PDesk will in no way affect what you can do with your card.

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I say "Here's a monkey wrench... If you bop me over the head with it long enough I might wake up for a second."

[Dentaku]

I have a PII 350 on an Abit BX6 (rev. 1)

I don't really have any reason to install newer drivers anyway. I'm just gonna stick with the 5.30 drivers until I have a really good reason to change.

I never keep that stupid icon in the tray on.
PLUS: An easier way to disable Powerdesk is to go to:Accesories\System Tools\System Information\ under the Tools tab open the System Configuration Utility and uncheck PDesk from the Startup list.

I've never had to do it, but I'm quite sure it works.

BUT, like I said, if I disable PDesk I'll probably loose the feature that remembers Desktop icon placement (I'm assuming).

[anid]

Yes, I mentioned that, but keeping Pdesk from loading at startup is not the same thing as disabling it. The only way to actually keep the pdkernel from loading is to actually disable Pdesk by the way I mentioned above. This is also the only way to keep it from eating the CPU (if you have this problem). You can also hybridize the drivers - use the 5.3 Pdesk with the 5.52 drivers, which also works. Unzip both driver packs to seperate folders and copy the PDesk.exe and PDkernel.dll files from the 5.3 driver folder to the 5.52 driver folder. Then just run the 5.52 setup, and there you go.

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I say "Here's a monkey wrench... If you bop me over the head with it long enough I might wake up for a second."

[jerpeter]

I had similar problems w/ 5.52 drivers. Did the uninstall of old drivers, and installed the new. Everything looks fine, but every 7 seconds, my cpu takes a massive hit. The mouse/desktop is jerkey. Games are jerky. For example, I run q3a w/ all steeings on/max in 640/480 and get and avg of 75 fps (usually higher, with 5.50 drivers). Every seven seconds, my fps will drop to 15-20 for a second whild the game goes slo-mo action. Totally unplayable. I *immediately* uninstalled the 5.52 drivers and went back to 5.50 which works fine for everything. Should, in the future, I wanna run the 5.52 drives, what will fix this problem?

[LrngToFly]

This problem isn't just with SS7 motherboards.

I have a Intel BX based motherboard and I have the stuttering as well.

I've sent multiple emails to M, but they've ignored me.

This is THREE driver releases in a row with this problem.

[jerpeter]

i believe ur right. It's not a hardware issue. I have an ASUS mb (p2b-ls) w/ P3 600.

[anid]

Try the fix I mentioned above and see if it works. As far as I have been able to tell none of the Matrox driver features are affected by disabling Pdesk, both from start up and in the registry. However, if you want to be on the safe side, try hybridizing the drivers. Make 2 seperate folders, one for the 5.52 drivers and one for the last set that worked without stuttering for you (5.5, since it has been mentioned). Extract each driver set to their respective folders then copy the files "PDesk.ex_" and "PDKernel.dl_" from the 5.5 folder to the 5.52 folder. Run the 5.52 setup and you will have the 5.52 drivers with the 5.5 PowerDesk and kernel. When this problem cropped up with SS7 users and the 5.41 drivers, Ryan suggested this fix and it works very well (using the 5.25 PDesk).

BTW, are any of you using Logitech mice, with or without the MouseWare? It was suggested originally that Logitech mice might be a cause or contributing factor to it, but nothing else ever came of the discussion. Please give the above a shot and let everyone (including Matrox) know if it works. Also let us know if there is anything to the mouse angle...

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I say "Here's a monkey wrench... If you bop me over the head with it long enough I might wake up for a second."

[isochar]

I have a somewhat similar "stuttering" problem. It only seems to occur in Unreal Tournament. Every 3 minutes or so the frames freeze for 1-2 seconds.

This has happened with 5.41 and up.

P3-450
G400MAX
Asus P3B-F
256mb RAM

Seriously doubt that it's my system that is underpowered... although I am running UT at 1024x768.

[Grego]

I have just installed the new drivers, and everything seems to work just fine (dvd, games and win98). I have also installed the Logitech Mouseware, and have no trouble whatsoever.
You say that 20% of the processor's power is being used by pd and/or mouseware when doing nothing? According to the systemmonitor supplied with win98, my computer only uses 1% when idle!

Specs:
Asus p5a rev 1.04 bios 1007.a
K6-3 450
128 mb pc100
Matrox g400, dh, 32mb
SBLive retail with latest liveware
Logitech Mouseman Wheel USB
win98 (standard)
dx 7.0
Pioneer 103-s dvd-rom
IBM 13.5 GB 7200 rpm hdd

[Angel2167882]

With the 5.41 drivers, I got the same eating CPU problem and I got a logitech mouse (MouseMan2 3 buttons) with MouseWare 8.62 installed.

I've install a 5.41 / 5.30 mix, and my problem where gone. BTW, I have a SS7 Via m/b.