G400 won't let me play with my Canopus V2

[bunnymud]

I love my G400 Max, but I want to play Tribes in Glide mode because the OGL driver looks like crud. BUT! when I go to play Tribes(or any other game that needs the voodoo to run) the screen either goes black or totally white. My question is to anyone out there running a voodoo card and a G400 together and able to access the secondary voodoo card.

[troop]

Sure. You are given the option of using a non-default driver ( V2 ) in a game's video setup--if there is no option, U SOL.

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In Harm's Way

[absalom]

since voodoo2 cards are basically piggy back cards, make sure your monitor cable goes into your v2. You use the loopback cable to loop the g400 through the v2. You can't run the v2 just plugged up to your monitor stand alone either (at least it doesn't work for me this way. It seems v2 cards need a signal from a 2d card to function properly after initialization). Now if you don't like this because of the image degredation and are lucky enough to have either 2 monitors or a single monitor with both bnc inputs and d-sub (vga) input, then you can do this spiffy setup using the g400's dual head... which is exactly what I use to combo my SLI and g400 with ease:

First plug your bnc connection into your g400's normal (high ramdac) output. Then plug your monitors "generic" vga cable into your 3dfx card. Now take the loopback cable and loop the dualhead output of your g400 into your 3dfx card. Go into your g400's control panel and make sure you have clone display selected also. I also force a higher refresh of the normal output over the dualhead's lower refresh... otherwise they will both run equal refresh up the dual head's max refresh (which is like 60hz at 1024x768.. yuck). Now if your lucky like me and have a nifty button on the front of your monitor you can toggle between the 3dfx card and the g400 without having to touch a thing. Not only that but you don't have to sacrifice the g400's nice high ramdac quality through a clean bnc cable due to a silly loopback cable. Your washed out lookin' 3dfx card has now been given the low quality crappy signal... shafted!

Now the same applies for a second monitor but you don't have to press a button to toggle between them. Just make sure dual head clone is enabled before your 3dfx card initializes (I sometimes disable it when i'm not using my 3dfx card alot). For some reason v2 cards require a signal from another card to actually put any output to a monitor after initializing video. v2's just won't output anything standalone... you'll get a black screen. Also, on the single monitor switching thing, you have to switch to the dual head output before the 3dfx card initializes. I get a black screen when I try to switch after it initializes. Now, if I try to switch back to the normal g400 ouput after initializing and playing my glide game, I can check out what's going on my desktop on the fly. There's usually not much use of this since your mouse usually gets possesed by the game, but it's a great way to recover from a 3dfx game lockup

I know it sounds confusing or corny if you don't have a v2 card much less a monitor with 2 inputs, but it does work and is about the best way to combo a g400 and a 3dfx card.


**** Unreal Tournament roolz ****

[absalom]

when I mention v2 cards, that also includes the voodoo1, voodoo2, voodoo2 SLI, and the v3 2000 pci. (I can't prove the v3 2000 just yet but it should work if you've got the irq's) They all will work with your g400 without conflict usually.

Alienware sells a v3 2000 + tnt2 ultra combo equipped pc with a switch box... but I think that's lame. Who needs a friggin switch box to go between a 3dfx card and tnt2.... moreover, why pay out the ass for it when you can just get a g400 and utilize it's dualhead for the same purpose

[This message has been edited by absalom (edited 09-18-1999).]

[bunnymud]

Thanks for your advice on working with my V2, but let me ask, so if I plug my monitor into my pure 3d2 lx and s-video out to my G400 it should work? There is only 1 monitor input and 1 s-video output on the back of the card. As for dual inputs on my optiquest V773, I think it has none. Again thanx for the help.

[absalom]

hmm, I forgot the canopus had the nifty s-video... I don't know if it works, but it might. There is a specific port on the v2 cards that receive input and the other port outputs. You can't interchange them. Generally the port on the right is the output to your monitor while the port on left is the input from your 2d card. You might want to look up the doc's on it. S-video is thought to have a cleaner signal and would be more useful to output to your monitor rather than input from the g400. The loopback cable is just generally a bad idea, people with really nice monitors and a keen eye notice the banding effect due to it. It's really just a personal preference. When you use the dualhead deal I talked about, you totally cut out the constant use of a loopback for your g400.... and basically my whole point. But no matter what, you have to use the loopback to get a v2 card to work... unless someone has some hardware that otherwise proves me wrong.

[bunnymud]

Got it working just fine. I feel like a complete dolt. Thanx again

[absalom]

Glad to help... Don't feel bad, I fried a very nice 100baseT switch just by plugging in the wrong ac/dc power plug. People do really stupid things sometimes, and I payed dearly for that mistake.

[IceStorm]

I have a G400 MAX and a V2 SLI rig. It's cabled as follows:

G400 MAX primary output to BNC input on left monitor using a very thick, heavy, 15pin to BNC cable with a 2.5" choke.

G400 MAX secondary output to a Belkin OmniCube via a Tru Spec SVGA cable from Cables To Go (yes the cable DOES make a difference), then from there via another BNC cable to the right monitor.

V2 SLI rig cabled to the right monitor via a single SVGA cable (heavy duty one that came with the monitor.

All works fine. You do not need a video signal into the V2 to get a signal out. Use the female connector on your V2 card.


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Primary System: PIII-540 (450@4.5x120), Soyo 6BA+ III, 256MB PC100 ECC SDRAM, G400 MAX in multi-monitor mode. V2 SLI rig. Two Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 900u monitors, 3Com 3C905, SoundBlaster Live!, Altec Lansing AC5 spkrs, 2nd Parallel Port, WD AC41800 18GB HD, WD AC310100 10GB HD, Toshiba SD-M1212 6x DVD-ROM, HP 8100i CD-RW, Epson Stylus Pro, Sharp JX-9400 LJ-II compatible, OptiUPS PowerES 650, MS SideWinder Precision Pro USB joystick, Logitech 3-button mouse, Mitsumi keyboard, Win98 SE, Belkin OmniCube 4-port KVM

Secondary System: PII-266, Asus P2B BIOS 1008, 128MB PC100 ECC SDRAM, Millennium II, 3Com 3C590, ADSL Modem 640kbit down/90kbit up, 3Com 3C509, Mylex BT-930 SCSI card, Seagate 2GB Hawk, NEC 6x CD-ROM, Linux distro S.u.S.E. 6.1 (IP Masquerade works!)

Tertiary System: DFI G568IPC Intel 430HX chipset, P200MMX, 96MB of non-parity RAM, Millennium II, Intel Pro/100+ client NIC, SoundBlaster 16 MCD, Fujitsu 3.5GB HD, WD 1.2GB HD, Creative Dxr3 DVD decoder card, Hitachi GD-2500 6x DVD-ROM, Win98 SE

All specs subject to change.

[absalom]

No matter what I do, my SLI/solo v2 will not display to a monitor without having some sort of signal into the v2 male connector. The v2 female connector being the output to the monitor alone just gives me a blank screen. Is there some FX or SST environment variable you can use to bypass this? It might be possible through different drivers maybe....


(I'm mismatching a diamond and STB v2 cards... either way in solo or SLI the results are the same. Also, I'm using 3dfx's latest reference drivers.)

[This message has been edited by absalom (edited 09-21-1999).]