VIA drivers + Parhelia = a lot of problems!

[MaartenLierop]

Hi,

Because my parheliacard isn’t really running fast in 3d games, (4200 benchmarks) i tried to install VIA 4in1 drivers. And it gave my much better performance in 3d mode, but also some bugs. I’ve invastigate the problems, and this is wath i found out:

3d distortion
After installing Via 4in1 drivers, strange 3d distortion appear in 3dmax 5 when running in opengl mode. When I open the same scene in 3dmax 5 in direct3d mode, everything is ok.

Scene in direct3d mode

http://members.rott.chello.nl/m.lierop5/parheliaproblem3dmacdirect3d%20copy.jpg

the same scene in opengl mode

http://members.rott.chello.nl/m.lierop5/parheliaproblem3dmacopengl%20copy.jpg

The same 3d distortion appears in the high polygon test in 3dmark and the Need for speed demo. At the same time, installing the via drivers make the card a a lot faster, (4200 3dmarks without via drivers, and 5600 3dmarks with Via drivers). This is why i really would like to use these drivers.

Well, right now i’m running without the VIA drivers again, and averything works perect. A bit slow, but no errors at all. The VIA4in1 drivers worked perfect with my old Gforce2 card, so that’s why i believe it is a problem between VIA and Matrox drivers. I hope somebody can help me with this !
Does anyone noticed these problems too ? Or does anyone know how to get rid of them ?

Thanks !
My system
-ASUS CUV 266 motherboard, Bios 1002BW
-pentium III 1 GHz,
-VIA VT8633 chipset
Tested Via drivers : 4in1429,4in1437, 4in1438, 4in1441, 4in1443
Drivers 429 are included with the motherboard software, so should work well with the motherboard. (and they did with a Gforce 2 card)
Drivers 437 are recommended by ASUS as the “latest” drivers for CUV 266 boards. (the same story as 429)
768Mb DDR SDRAM PC2100,
-Matrox parhelia bulk (128 MB)
-Genius live series (soundcard)
-Monitor 1 : Dell P1110 21 inch, Monitor 2 17 inch Siemens Nixdorf. MCM 1702
-Windows 2000 prof Sp3 (the same problems for Sp1 and no sp installed)
-Direct X8.1
-Latest Parhelia drivers 1.2.0.42, but tried also older version wich didn’t help)
-several Desktop resolutions and color depth’s


Well, right now i’m running without the VIA drivers again, and averything works perect. A bit slow, but no errors at all. The VIA4in1 drivers worked perfect with my old Gforce2 card, so that’s why i believe it is a problem between VIA and Matrox drivers. I hope you can help me with this !

Thanks !
Maarten

[WyWyWyWy]

I know someone would say "Now why am I not surprised?"

As to your problem... try older 4in1. New 4in1 usually break something while VIA is trying to fix something else.

[funky-d-munky]

There very well may be a problem between the two. But it is common knowledge that the 4-in-1 drivers should be the first thing installed after a clean installation. I don't think slapping them on at the end and saying they don't work is justified. Let us know how she goes after a clean go.

[MaartenLierop]

I always installed these drivers directly after installing windows 2000. (Yes it was a very nice weekend ) , i also tried several driver versions, the oldest were drivers 429, they were packaged with my motherboard, and never gave problems.
I could try older versions, but how old must they be ?
What I saw in the MAtrox tweak util is that these VIA drivers turn the "motherboard sideband addressing" on. Without them, it is turned off. Does this have anything to do with the difference in speed ?

[DGhost]

Whats scary is that it was my experience with the Parhelia that the 4-in-1's are an improvement over the XP drivers...

[Jupp]

I've got almost the same mainboard as you (CUV-266D, Dual PIII 1000) .
I'm running the 443 4in1 without any problems on Win2K/XP Pro.

Overall 3dmark score is ~6000.


R.