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FIX for Return to Castle Wolfenstein on the G400 Marvel in Windows XP
Well as Matrox have stopped supporting the G400 Marvel and leave it up to the users to sort out their problems out rather than do the work themselves. I'm going to post a fix for OpenGL so that you can play OpenGL games on Windows XP with the Marvel. Well to be more precise it's a way of playing Return to Castle Wolfenstein.
I used this method to get Return to Castle Wolfenstein working on this machine after trying changing the g400icd.dll several times it was clear that method wasn't going to work at all. This may improve matters for other g400 users - but as I'm a G400 Marvel user with zero OpenGL support at the moment and probably 0 ever more it's the only way I found...
So what you need to do is this:-
Go to Scitech site at http://www.scitechsoft.com/ and grab GLDirect v2.0 - you can grab it directly from http://www.scitechsoft.com/ftp/gld/b...-2.0.0-b35.exe . Don't worry that the site says it's for Windows 95/98 only, it works in Windows XP fine and doesn't even need to reboot. The only fly in the ointment is that you will need to register it if you use it for more than 21 Days....but at least you will have time to test it in the meantime to see if it's good enough.
Install GLDirect v2.0
Run the game (Return to Castle Wolfenstein in my instance). If it doesn't work first time navigate to the c:\windows\system32 folder and locate the file named g400icd.dll and move it to somewhere safe (you may need it for future use). Personally I just deleted it as I had a large selection of different g400icd.dll in another directory already
Run the game again - hopefully it should now work. So you there's no need to chuck the g400 Marvel just yet.... Perhaps people can do more tests and post your results in this thread. I've spent an hour playin RTCW only so I wouldn't say I've spent a great amount of time testing..... Don't forget to change the rendering options of GLDirect to Maximum Performance (GLdirect Game Driver)
I ain't saying this solution is perfect because it blatantly isn't but at least it's something - before RTCW was crahing out virtually straight away. G400 Marvel users have been severely let down by Matrox and personally I'm unlikely to ever buy a Matrox product again. £220 this baby cost me when other G400 were £70 or less - the lower spec g400s are still supported yet the Marvel isn't.......surely it can't be that hard to make a Marvel compatable g400icd.dll is it. If Scitech can make a product that will get the Marvel working in Windows XP, yes I know GLDirect is a fiddle as it just links to DirectX (but it works!) - but couldn't matrox have done something similar??
If the Matrox Tech Support is reading this may I suggest two things:-
1. You come to a deal with SciTech so that you can disbribute freely a registed version of GLDirect which will only work with the g400 card series. Ideally a new OpenGL driver but would be better but beggars can't be choosers.
2. You release the full commented source to the g400icd.dll and the necessary tech specs, so that somebody maybe able to get it working in Windows XP. I know that OpenGL drivers are more compicated than DirectX drivers but if your 'engineers' are unwilling to make it work in WIndowsXP there maybe somebody out there who is at least willing to try...
Was going to post this on the Matrox board too, it's unbelievable this - Sorry, the Matrox Graphics Technical Support Forums are closed from Friday, 5:00 PM EDT until Monday, 9:00 AM. Please return Monday and thank you for your patience.
I used this method to get Return to Castle Wolfenstein working on this machine after trying changing the g400icd.dll several times it was clear that method wasn't going to work at all. This may improve matters for other g400 users - but as I'm a G400 Marvel user with zero OpenGL support at the moment and probably 0 ever more it's the only way I found...
So what you need to do is this:-
Go to Scitech site at http://www.scitechsoft.com/ and grab GLDirect v2.0 - you can grab it directly from http://www.scitechsoft.com/ftp/gld/b...-2.0.0-b35.exe . Don't worry that the site says it's for Windows 95/98 only, it works in Windows XP fine and doesn't even need to reboot. The only fly in the ointment is that you will need to register it if you use it for more than 21 Days....but at least you will have time to test it in the meantime to see if it's good enough.
Install GLDirect v2.0
Run the game (Return to Castle Wolfenstein in my instance). If it doesn't work first time navigate to the c:\windows\system32 folder and locate the file named g400icd.dll and move it to somewhere safe (you may need it for future use). Personally I just deleted it as I had a large selection of different g400icd.dll in another directory already
Run the game again - hopefully it should now work. So you there's no need to chuck the g400 Marvel just yet.... Perhaps people can do more tests and post your results in this thread. I've spent an hour playin RTCW only so I wouldn't say I've spent a great amount of time testing..... Don't forget to change the rendering options of GLDirect to Maximum Performance (GLdirect Game Driver)
I ain't saying this solution is perfect because it blatantly isn't but at least it's something - before RTCW was crahing out virtually straight away. G400 Marvel users have been severely let down by Matrox and personally I'm unlikely to ever buy a Matrox product again. £220 this baby cost me when other G400 were £70 or less - the lower spec g400s are still supported yet the Marvel isn't.......surely it can't be that hard to make a Marvel compatable g400icd.dll is it. If Scitech can make a product that will get the Marvel working in Windows XP, yes I know GLDirect is a fiddle as it just links to DirectX (but it works!) - but couldn't matrox have done something similar??
If the Matrox Tech Support is reading this may I suggest two things:-
1. You come to a deal with SciTech so that you can disbribute freely a registed version of GLDirect which will only work with the g400 card series. Ideally a new OpenGL driver but would be better but beggars can't be choosers.
2. You release the full commented source to the g400icd.dll and the necessary tech specs, so that somebody maybe able to get it working in Windows XP. I know that OpenGL drivers are more compicated than DirectX drivers but if your 'engineers' are unwilling to make it work in WIndowsXP there maybe somebody out there who is at least willing to try...
Was going to post this on the Matrox board too, it's unbelievable this - Sorry, the Matrox Graphics Technical Support Forums are closed from Friday, 5:00 PM EDT until Monday, 9:00 AM. Please return Monday and thank you for your patience.