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  • #1

    Hardware Suggestions

    I am building a new system and I have been thinking I want to have dual monitors as well as VHS to Mpeg capture. I am not a big gamer so I don't need a GeForce or anything. I was thinking on getting a Matrox G400 Max with Rainbow Runner Upgrade. Does anyone have any suggestions or complaints about this setup. I will be running Win98 on an Athlon 700. IF you need the rest of my specs check out <a href="http://arstechnica.infopop.net/OpenTopic/page?a=tpc&s=50009562&f=24609792&m=785094711">Spec s Here</a>. Are there any other cards that I could run as a secondary card taht would provide me with video capture and a second monitor? I know that ATI All-in-Wonder's won't run as a secondary card or else I would get that. Thanks,

    Birds
    Tags: None
  • #2
    My multimon setups:
    Home: Primary - G400max (soon to be GeForce2)
    Secondary - Diamond FireGL1000pro
    Work: Primary - Voodoo3
    Secondary - MillenniumII

    Multimon kicks so much ars! I really wanted to get an Ati All-in-Wonder 128 for secondary at home so I'd have it for TV as well. But big shocker, Ati won't play nicely as secondary. So I decided to go with the TV-Wonder but here's another big Ati shocker, no W2K drivers until end of year. *sigh* Speaking of, why doesn't matrox come out with a stand alone TV Card?
    Asus K7V
    Athlon 700
    128mb PC133 HSDRAM
    Matrox Millennium g400max
    Adaptec 2940U2W
    IBM 9gb U2W
    Plextor 8/20 cdr
    Diamond MX300
    3com 905b-tx

    Comment

    • #3
      Well, you'll probably want to avoid the 5.5X drivers. The PD 5.41 set supports the Rainbow Runner, and they're less fussy about VIA drivers.

      There's a lot to be said about the Rainbow Runner. Matrox has done a good job of supporting it, it works well, and it doesn't need an IRQ. So, coupled with a G400, you get dual monitor support, video capture, and a TV tuner with only one IRQ taken. You could do a lot worse.

      Maybe you should ask about K7V/Rainbow Runner compatibility on MURC's Desktop Video forum.

      I took a look at your specs, and they look fine to me. There's a big split amongst forum members about floppy drives. Some think any floppy drive will do; others swear by Sony.

      Paul
      paulcs@flashcom.net

      Comment

      • #4
        Sounds good. Who makes the Diamond Fire GL1000pro? That isn't Matrox is it? Does it do video capture?

        Birds

        Comment

        • #5
          It's a professional graphics card that does OpenGL really well. Hence the GL part. I was able to salvage this one out of a poor machine going to the PC junkyard so that's why I'm using it for my second card on W2K.
          Asus K7V
          Athlon 700
          128mb PC133 HSDRAM
          Matrox Millennium g400max
          Adaptec 2940U2W
          IBM 9gb U2W
          Plextor 8/20 cdr
          Diamond MX300
          3com 905b-tx

          Comment

          • #6
            If you plan using BeOS the Live! Platinum will give you a lot of trouble. Still looking to solve mine...
            BTW, the Live! drive doesn't work on anything but M$.

            ------------------
            Cloudy
            Asus P2B-DS, 2 x Celeron 400@75Mhz, 128Mb Ram, SB Live! Platinum,
            2 x IBM 4.3Gb scsi,IBM 22GB IDE, Pioneer DVD ROM scsi, G400 32MB DH (Oc to 150/200).
            Cloudy
            Asus P2B-DS, 2 x Celeron 450 (400@75Mhz), 192Mb Ram, SB Live! Platinum,
            2 x IBM 4.3Gb scsi,IBM 22GB IDE, Pioneer DVD ROM scsi, G400 32MB DH.

            Comment

            • #7
              No one makes the Fire GL1000 Pro anymore. If I remember correctly, it died around the time Diamond came out with the TNT2 card. I used to have one (it came in a Dell XPS-R350)and upgraded to a Viper. The Viper was much faster in general. Diamond (S3) now sells an Open GL card called the Fire GL1 for around $1000. Probably king of the Open GL cards. If you care, you can still buy a Fire GL1000 Pro for around $25-30.

              [This message has been edited by Brian R. (edited 09 June 2000).]

              Comment

              • #8
                I've got a MAX/RR-G combo with a K6-3 and the RR works great. The K6 isn't quite up to par for games with the MAX but I had it in a K7-700 and it was plenty fast for the gaming I do(driving games). You get easy dual monitor support, awesome 2D performance, excellent 3D performance, 2nd to none visual quality, the best consumer level video capture, and a cool TV tuner for watching the Simpsons while you surf the web. It's not as fast as a GeForce or V5, but it isn't slow for games either.

                Comment

                • #9
                  The Fire GL 1000 used the Permedia chip from 3dlabs. The FireGL 1000 Pro used the Permedia 2. Although this was intended to be a consumer-level "professional" chip, it was marketed as a gaming chip by many companies (ex, Creative Labs Graphics Blaster Exxtreme), and even Diamond tried to push this puppy for games. Best known for: lack of blending modes and colored lighting.

                  Personal thought:
                  I cant understand why so many companies even tried to market Permedia-2 based cards as GAMING cards when competiting chipsets like Rendition v1000, Voodoo Graphics and PowerVR PCX2 were all more powerful and some were cheaper, and all were avaliable for development by 3rd-party board makers.

                  ------------------
                  This Signature Space FOR SALE / RENT

                  Comment

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