The G400 and SMP (Win2k) Thread

[Travis L. Knodel]

hey ya'll,

head over to the Matrox Forum and read the bug reports page. Seems that Matrox has added the SMP problem to the bug list.

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Travis L. Knodel
ICQ 5570732

Abit BP6
Dual Celeron 366@523 Mhz
Matrox G400 16MB SH
IBM ATA66 15.2 GB HD w/ 2MB cache
WD UDMA33 4.3 GB POS HD
Acer 40X CD Rom
Memorex 1622 2x2x6 CD-RW
Internal NEC Zip100
Netgear 10/100 Ethernet
Diamond Monster Sound MX300
Altec Lansing ACS 295
Proview 17" Monitor
224 MBs generic PC100 RAM

[APV]

Good to know, tho how long will take them to fix it is another story but at least they know the problem is there. let's wait till say .....

[Minstrel]

Just to add some info to the discussion, here is my configuration and reuslts:

Asus P2B-DS Mobo
P3-450 x 2
Windows 2000
Non-ACPI SMP Hal
Latest Win2k drivers
Matrox G400 Max

Quake 3 runs fine on my machine without any problems and with bus-mastering. It even runs for a while with r_smp 1. The menu screens are garbled but usable but in game it works fine, and with "normal" settings r_smp 1 increases fps by around 10. After a while it hard locks.

Under normal (non gaming use) the machine is rock solid.

[Chucky Cheese]

Travis

i just removed win98 from scsi id 0(..boot drive) 2 days ago. did a complete format(ntfs) and just installed win2k...i did leave the other 3 drives fat32.

so far everything looks pretty much the same. the 40% #2 cpu idle problem is still there. i am observing a wierd and minor anomaly, in a "my computer" view, if i request the properties menu of any drive in my system, it takes a full 5 seconds to bring it up. during which my scsi bus goes crazy(..i have individual lights for each hdd)...strange to say the least...everything else though is "super snappy". as soon as i get "stabilized" i'm going to try ureal and q3...hopefully sunday!

the mps hal is the one that i'm running, i tried the acpi multi-processor hal. got nothing but a BSOD, even in safe mode. i don't think that my board is fully acpi enabled.

chucky

[Travis L. Knodel]

oh boy, looks like another Matrox card... that's all we need... another card with more crappy drivers... guess that means we're screwed guys... so much for the SMP support.

[Braindead]

i think i've ripped all my hair out on this one =( ...ive had this g200 for nearly 2 years, asked everyone i know, and nuthin. no solid smp support. *heart breaks* saddest thing is, i work at an oem. goodbye cruel world *bang* j/k

[Travis L. Knodel]

Can I make you feel better if I told you I'm going to get rid of this card and get a Leadtek Rev 2 Geforce DDR?

[PaulS]

There are still a few SMP problems with the nVidia cards as well, check it out before you buy one. However, the general consensus seems to be that nVidia are quite a way ahead on W2k. With new X Box being built on W2k (or its successor) you can bet that they will have access to the very best MS engineers, and they certainly won't waste our time complaining about how all their problems are MS's fault.

Paul

[C=64]

Issues that are important to me:

• I got dual monitors way back when for my experiments with 3D graphics programming. Thus, OpenGL is VERY important for me.
• I'm trying to teach myself game programming. Thus, games (even if they aren't running at full blazing speed) are very important to me.
• I need to do quite a bit of software development work for both my own hobbies and academic work, so the stability of Win2k/NT is important to me.
• I often have at least 5 programs running at once as I shift between development environments, build tools, Web browsers, mail clients, telnet clients, various forms of documentation, etc, so SMP is very important to me.

Now, lets go through my little checklist:

• Instead of springing for "full-fledged PIII's", I went for oc'd Celerons (366->567). Opps, no TurboGL support! Strike 1 for me!
• Notice how I mentioned Celerons earlier? Eyup, I've got a pair of them. Opps, no SMP support! Strike 2.
• And I'm running Dual Head under Win2k, having completely accepted Matrox's claim months upon months ago for "full DualHead support upon its release", unlike the "limited DualHead support" for WinNT (I'm even staring at the lines right now on their website). Oh silly me, now that'll have to wait till a service pack! Strike 3. I'm out.

Before this, I was running a pair of well-behaved i740's. Sure, they weren't spectacular cards, but at least I knew where I stood with them, and they were affordable.

Then, one fateful day, I came across some ads for the G400. AGP 4x, eh? Full OpenGL ICD, eh? And an integrated DualHead solution, eh? In hopes that an integrated DualHead solution might alleviate the difficulty of not being able to run DualHead with OpenGL, I decided to spring for the G400. Heck, while I was at it, I figured I might as well go for the G400 Max, so I could hold on to the card for a while.

Much to my dismay, I found the OpenGL problem lay with Win98. Well, 2000 would be coming around soon, so I was willing to wait, even if I had a copy of it to play around with way back when... Besides, the G400 Max was a good card non-the-less, right (sic)?

All I really wanted was a decent graphic card (not *great*, just decent) with a decent implementation of OpenGl (not *great*, just decent) and decent drivers (again, not *great*, just decent).

Clearly, I made the wrong choice. I wonder what I can get for this thing on ebay? Maybe enough to get me on my way towards a GeForce and a PCI TNT2 M64...

(a very tired)
C=64

p.s. Leadtek Rev 2 GeForce DDR? I see I wasn't the only one to read Anand's glowing review, eh Travis?

[Travis L. Knodel]

MEGA DITTOS 64.

I think this is rediculous. I'm planning on the same thing. I can't even believe that such BASIC needs as a stable OGL, D3D, and DH can't be implemented on such a standard operating system. It took such a long time for someone to look into the problem, I wonder how long it'll take them to fix it?!?! IF it's the same speed that they've fixed NT4, none of this will ever happen. :0 I think I'm going to cry because of all the shit I've been through with this. I'LL NEVER BUY FROM THESE F*CKERS AGAIN!!!

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Travis L. Knodel
ICQ 5570732

Abit BP6
Dual Celeron 366@523 Mhz
Matrox G400 16MB SH
IBM ATA66 15.2 GB HD w/ 2MB cache
WD UDMA33 4.3 GB POS HD
Acer 40X CD Rom
Memorex 1622 2x2x6 CD-RW
Internal NEC Zip100
Netgear 10/100 Ethernet
Diamond Monster Sound MX300
Altec Lansing ACS 295
Proview 17" Monitor
224 MBs generic PC100 RAM


[This message has been edited by Travis L. Knodel (edited 15 March 2000).]

[Travis L. Knodel]

Woohoo!!! Someone bid on my Epox MVP3CM and K6-2 350 on eBay, Winfast GeForce 256 DDR here I come!!! Can't wait.

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=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Travis L. Knodel
ICQ 5570732

Abit BP6
Dual Celeron 366@523 Mhz
Matrox G400 16MB SH
IBM ATA66 15.2 GB HD w/ 2MB cache
WD UDMA33 4.3 GB POS HD
Acer 40X CD Rom
Memorex 1622 2x2x6 CD-RW
Internal NEC Zip100
Netgear 10/100 Ethernet
Diamond Monster Sound MX300
Altec Lansing ACS 295
Proview 17" Monitor
224 MBs generic PC100 RAM

[PaulS]

Celerons are SMP capable, Intel just don't advertise the fact.

Paul

[C=64]

Yeah, but you have to play with'em a bit.

I think pin 21 had to be drawn up to ~5 volts, or something like that. That, or get the dual abit board that takes care of that for you... Or do what I did; Get a regular PII board and some slocket adapters.

C=64

p.s. Congrat's Travis. Hope those added funds help. Personally, I'm reconcidering the GeForce option. I'm thinking about going with a standard TNT2 and a PCI TNT2 M64 instead, to tide me over till the NV11 comes out. From what I've been reading, it'll be able to do DualHead, too, just like the G400's.

[This message has been edited by C=64 (edited 16 March 2000).]

[Chucky Cheese]

hey everyone!

life since the removal of win98 has been very nice. i'm now running nothing but win2k now. i have locked it up once trying to run that shine demo from matroxs' site...i was in a dual processor boot when i tried it...total freeze. i rebooted into a single processor boot and it ran perfect!

quake 3 and unreal tournament both will not run in a dual processor boot...i find myself waiting again...now, for sp1 for win2k!

i will say this...once you get used to the win2k scheme of handling a video card like the g400, it isn't really all that bad. my desktop is now 2560 x 1024, 16 bit. i love not having to reboot when i turn on/off the dual head feature. plus, in win98 i couldn't run any streaming media on "monitor #2"...under the win2k scheme it is no problem.

chucky

[Travis L. Knodel]

yeah, only problem with me waiting is that I don't have a working AGP card until Matrox gets the new tweaked and SMP capable drivers (which isn't going to happen anytime soon).

Sigh... guess I'll be buying that Rev B Leadtek this weekend... anyone in the market for a Matrox G400 SH 16 Megger?

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=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Travis L. Knodel
ICQ 5570732

Abit BP6
Dual Celeron 366@523 Mhz
Matrox G400 16MB SH
IBM ATA66 15.2 GB HD w/ 2MB cache
WD UDMA33 4.3 GB POS HD
Acer 40X CD Rom
Memorex 1622 2x2x6 CD-RW
Internal NEC Zip100
Netgear 10/100 Ethernet
Diamond Monster Sound MX300
Altec Lansing ACS 295
Proview 17" Monitor
224 MBs generic PC100 RAM