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**Simplex** · 7 July 2000, 09:41

Try to update your DirectX 7.0a (windows update) and try to move with the latest non-beta drivers from matrox (a G200 is giving sometimes blue screen of the death when you try direct 3D tests. This is the driver you must update in that case in order to fix the problem, maybe in your case it can do too). I'v seen many AGP cards loosing their drivers, just because the AGP card is not full slotted. Push on the card to be sure she is fully slotted. Don't be effraid to push enough or simply completly reinsert the card. In somes case you can feel that they are two "levels" when inserting the card. Push especially the most end part of the card (the side inner the computer). After that try to move your modem and sound card from slot to slot in case you find a setting working in all times.

**horslegv** · 7 July 2000, 10:31

Simplex,
Thanks for the reply! What do you mean by "Try to update your DirectX 7.0a (windows update) and try to move with the latest non-beta drivers from matrox"? Do you mean loaded DirectX7.0a and load PD 6.00beta?

**Jorden** · 7 July 2000, 10:57

I wouldn't be using the PD6Beta drivers with the Max, as these drivers don't seem to be optimized for use with the Max. Use PD5.52 instead.

What's your screen resolution set to? 1024x768@32bit as well? Check that first, for if it's accidentally at 24bit, that might be your problem. (no hardware support for 24bit resolutions in the G400 & Max)

Jord.

**horslegv** · 7 July 2000, 11:02

Jorden,
I was told by Matrox not to use the 5.52 PD drivers with a VIA chipset. Do you know different from experience? My resolution is set to 1024X768 32-bit always.

**Indiana** · 8 July 2000, 07:44

"I wouldn't be using the PD6Beta drivers with the Max, as these drivers don't seem to be optimized for use with the Max. Use PD5.52 instead."

Huh? The G400 Max is just a G400 with higher clockings and - depending on the vanilla you have - faster rated memory chips, nothing more or nothing less. Of course you could also say a G400 vanilla is a G400 that didn't pass the MAX tests...

So how can a driver that works with the "normal" G400 not be optimized for the MAX?

**dZeus** · 8 July 2000, 08:45

hmmm.. but the RAMDAC on the Max is also faster, and a lot of the Vanilla's that can do Max clockspeed for the core with enough cooling, won't do the 360MHz RAMDAC speed (probably because they failed the max settings is the reason they are not sold as max parts :-)

**RAB** · 8 July 2000, 11:11

horslegv,
The reason Matrox does not recommend the 5.52 drivers is that they don't work with the G200 at all, but surprisingly they work OK with the G400. Still, the 5.41's are the most stable with VIA chipsets and are designed for DX6.1. The 5.41's are also faster than the more recent 5.52 and 6.0 drivers. The 6.0 beta drivers are also very stable, but are designed for DX7.

Once you have the 5.41 drivers reloaded, make sure you do NOT have DMA checked on your CD-ROM and the RW in Device Manager. DMA is OK for the hard drive, but CD-ROM DMA often causes symptoms similar to yours.

RAB

**horslegv** · 10 July 2000, 06:07

Okay,
After a long weekend of removing drivers, reistalling Windows, etc. here is what I found:
I reformatted my drive, removed all other cards except the G400, made sure USB was enabled and it was, reloaded Win98SE, loaded the latest 4in1 4.23 VIA drivers, loaded the AGP 4.03 drivers in standard mode, and loaded the 6.00beta drivers. I then loaded Descent3 and got the same problem I have been getting. The game freezes right before the "choose pilot" screen come up.Since this did not work, I tried some other things that may help you figure out what the problem is. I thought I would try the older drivers, specifically the 5.25 (on the bundled cd) and Descent3 worked! It was however, extremely slow and jerky and finally crashed, but at least it came up. I then reformatted my drive, placed all cards back in the system, loaded win98se, and then loaded PD 5.25. I did not load the latest 4in1 drivers. I loaded Descent3 and it ran like glass. The only problem now is that when I choose to save a game or load a game, the game freezes and locks up. The colors do seem washed out. I then upgraded to the latest 4in1 drivers (4.23) and loaded the AGP 4.03 driver, and then loaded the 5.41, 5.52, and 6.00beta drivers. All of them caused Descent3 to crash at the "choose pilot" screen. I could load the 5.25 driver at any time and Descent3 would work, although slow and jerky. I did try to load UT, and Half-Life and they seemed to work fine every time especially with the latest drivers. I only had one problem with Half-Life and that is when I would go to the configuration page, the screen would change resolutions, fine, but when I would go back into the game, it would split the screen into thirds, the bottom-half black and the two screens divided at the top. I would have to quit and exit and start HL again to get it to work. Anyways, that was with the latest and greatest drivers for everything and so Descent3 would still crash at the "choose pilot" screen and Freespace2 will not even load. With the older 5.25 drivers with no 4in1 drivers loaded, Descent3 will run but Freespace2 still will not load, and Half-Life and UT have problems. I tried taking the G400*.* drivers from the 5.25 PD and putting them into the 6.00beta Pd and things worked just like they would if I had loaded 5.25. I did not keep this setting, I was merely trying to isolate the problem. Clearly the problem is with drivers of some sort, but I guess it could be hardware incompatibility, but that should not be either. I also tried using your tweak program to force AGP 1X, 2X, and 4X as my mobo supports 4X. I tried this with all of the different drivers and still got no different results. Also, after I load DierctX7.0a, run dxdiag, and look at the display settings, the AGP button is greyed out and says "not enabled". Also when I run the tests, directdraw runs fine, but Direct3D hangs every time regardless of what drivers I am using Matrox or VIA. Any further ideas?

**horslegv** · 12 July 2000, 11:45

Hello? anyone? anyone? bueller?....bueller?.....

**RedOx** · 12 July 2000, 16:32

I think we are having the same problem.

Use the mtstutil.exe utility, which you can down load from this site to force AGPx1. I suspect that this will solve all your problems, regardless of what drivers you are installing or the order in which you install other cards in your system.

Now the only question is, why our cards won’t work in AGPx2 like they are supposed to.

Announcement

All D3D games lock up.

All D3D games lock up.

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