Permanent Memory Setting

[Ares' Lament]

Hello,
I use MGATweak 1.20 to oc-ing mg G400 SH16.
How to make SGRAM Optimization setting become permanent via BIOS?

FIY: SGRAM Opt. in MGATweak reduces my g400's rolling lines by 50%.

[dZeus]

what rolling lines are you referring to?

[Ares' Lament]

Hello dZeus,

Rolling lines is some kind of monitor display anomaly that shows randomly moving horizontal black thin lines. It happens when VGA acceleration was used either by windows or 3D games.

Symptom: The rendered images are completely fine but the monitor showing off many horizontal black thin lines in random monitor area.
I attached a 3dMark99Max screenshot, I hope it can be seen.
Look at the bright sun. The blackish line was moving randomly up and down, horizontally.

These thin lines was produced as an effect of strong electromagnetic radiation came from G400 card.
This electomagnetic radiation also has an effect on television's VHF channel.
I guess my G400 card didn't pass FCC test, because it causes radio frequency interference with other electronic device.

I uses MGATweak to OC-ed my card.
Fortunately, using its SGRAM Optimization option decreases the rolling lines.
Can this SGRAM setting being made permanently in G400's BIOS??

Sorry for my bad English, I hope dZeus can understand it

[dZeus]

your english is perfectly understandable... the reason I posted that question is that I had never seen this symptom on my own G400.

You probably can find information on all settings that can be flashed into the BIOS in a more permanent way on gbm's site (MatoX files, link is on the main page of www.murc.ws).

[Rags]

I have a hard time believing that scrolling lines that can be captured in a screenshot are a result of any kind of electromagnetic interference.

Screen shots aren't taken after the RAMDAC, they are taken within the frame buffer. So, EMI would mean zilch.

Maybe you are seing an after effect of having vsync disabled.

Rags

[Kruzin]

I agree.
Electro-magnetic interference would NOT be picked up in a screen shot, as such interferance would be happening in the monitor, not in the frame buffer (where screen captures are taken from).
I do see the lines you are reffering to, but like Rags, doubt those are from EMI....

[Ares' Lament]

Hello Kruzin and Rags..

It is true that screenshot capture software could not caught the rolling lines in the act.

The original screenshot has NO rolling lines captured.
I added those blackish lines myself to show you what I saw on my monitor.

The rolling lines occured when running some real-time accelerated scenes, e.g 3Dmark99Max running demo.
When HyperSnap is working the demo scene
was freezed, leaving no rolling lines at all.
Rendered scene (or image) in the frame buffer was completely clean. Rolling lines occured between frame buffer and monitor.

All I know is a Radio Frequency device (RFI filter) was occupied to reduce or prevent EMI produced by display card. But RFI filter tends to 'blurring' images displayed. Like blurred fonts (2D display) in some GF cards.

Somehow, SGRAM Optimization setting in MGATweak can reduce the rolling lines. I wonder if the SGRAM setting can be made permanently in BIOS, so I don't have to load MGATweak at startup.

Vsync, Zbuffer, or any other setting seems to not affected the rolling lines.

For dZeus..
Thanks a lot..I am on my way to MatroX files

[Zlajo]

Could you please post your SGRAM settings! I have the same problem! And also this one http://free-zg.hinet.hr/zlajo/untitled1.png This happens when drag'n'droppin in Win2k. Does anybody know why this happens? Card isn't overclocked.

[Ares' Lament]

Hello Zlajo..

For the Win2k problem..
It seems that it's not a blurred font at all.
I uses Win98SE, but my G400 can behave just like yours if I use faster SGRAM setting.

My suggestion is try using MGATweak with default clocks and following SGRAM setting:

MGATweak 1.20 --> SGRAM Optimization
3 1 3 9 3 1 Fast 1 1 1 1.4 1.4 1433

If I change 9 to 8 (faster) my G400 will display just the same things with yours.

BTW, 3 bold 1's are the most important setting to reduce rolling lines. I wonder if I could set those SGRAM setting in BIOS

I hope it works.

[Zlajo]

It helped! Unfortunately, font issue remains...